The New World of Warcraft Patch Before Cataclysm 4.0.1

The Patch Before Cat

New Player Race in Cataclysm Worgen

Unless you've been under a rock, yet playing world of warcraft, you should know that the big news is that the new expansion Cataclysm is coming up.  This is going to change the entire game for everyone.  The world ... of warcraft, as we know it, is going to be completely redone and changed.  An apocalypse is going to happen the likes of which is going to edit the entire map of Azeroth.  Volcanic eruptions and oceanic erosion is going to both destroy and age the entire world .... of warcraft, to such a degree that whole cities are going to be destroyed and famous dungeons are going to be wiped and / or completely changed.

But before this occurs, welcome to patch 4.0, the patch before the expansion.  In this patch the completely new system is being introduced for how the classes are going to operate.  Understand that this is an operational feat, and not, a free patch for all of the new content to come.  This means, all the classes are going to change, but not the actual world.  I assume for those who *gasp* might not buy cataclysm, or not buy it right away, *gasp* would be on the same system as those who stand in line at midnight to buy it. [insert eye roll here]

For those wondering why it skipped from patch 3.3.3 to 4.0.1, I don't know, I guess 4.0 doesn't sound as cool, or maybe they have to have a 3 digit patch number at all times.

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 4.0.1

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

General

    * Cataclysm Launcher Update
          o The new Cataclysm Launcher allows you to stream game data while you play. This will reduce the time you spend downloading, installing, and patching World of Warcraft. We'd like to get your feedback on the toolset and gameplay experience. Please head to the forums here for additional information.
    * Reforging
          o Players can now visit special Reforging NPCs in capital cities located near Enchanting trainers. 40% of any one secondary stat on an item can be can be allocated to add a new secondary stat to the item. The stat being added cannot already exist on the item. An item cannot have more than one reforged stat at a time, though the Reforging of an item can be undone and changed.
    * Copied Test Realm characters are not copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

Dungeons & Raids

    * Flexible Raid Lock System
          o All Wrath of the Lich King raids now use the new Flexible Raid Lock system. This system provides the opportunity for a character to defeat each raid zone's encounters once a week. A character may now complete the encounters during the week with different raids of either 10 or 25 players.
    * Icecrown Citadel
          o The Chill of the Throne effect has been removed.
    * Trial of the Crusader now uses the Dynamic Difficulty system found in Icecrown Citadel and The Ruby Sanctum.

Currency

    * PvE Currency Changes
          o All Emblems of Frost and Emblems of Triumph have been converted to new Justice Points.
          o Any dungeon or raid which awarded these emblems will reward Justice Points instead. Anything below Emblems of Triumph, including badges from The Burning Crusade dungeon and raid content, have been converted into gold and sent to players via the in-game mail system.
          o Any bosses players defeat that are level-appropriate to them award Justice Points.
          o All items that previously cost emblems or badges of any type now cost Justice Points.
          o Higher-tier Valor Points will be awarded to players who kill dungeon and raid bosses in the latest tier of PvE content after the launch of Cataclysm.
    * PvP Currency Changes
          o All Arena Points, Honor Points, Battleground Marks of Honor, Stone Keeper's Shards, Venture Coins, and Spirit Shards have been converted into new Honor Points.
          o Honor Points will be awarded instead of these currencies, with the exception of Arena Points.
          o Higher-tier Conquest Points will be awarded to players competing in each of the latest Arena or Rated Battleground seasons after the launch of Cataclysm.
    * For more information on the changes to the currencies and conversion rates for each type, please visit our Cataclysm forum.

Classes: General

    * Many class talents, spells, and abilities have been overhauled, added, or removed.
    * All spell and ability tooltips will now display damage averages rather than minimum and maximum damage potential. This feature is on by default but can be changed via the Display settings under User Interface options.
    * Ammo has been removed from the game.
    * The character levels at which classes gain new spells and abilities have changed.
    * Many item and class stats have been changed or removed.
    * Mastery rating has been added as a new stat which provides unique benefits for characters based on class and talent specialization. Mastery rating does not currently exist on items in the game, however, Reforging can be used to add Mastery rating as a secondary stat to existing items.
    * Rage has been normalized.
    * Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.
    * Talent trees have been altered. All player talent specializations have been reset, allowing for free re-specialization.
          o Each specialization has been reduced to a 31-point talent tree.
          o Players will now get a total of 41 talent points to spend.
          o Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.
          o Once a talent specialization has been chosen, players may only place points in the primary tree until at least 31 points have been spent there.
          o The initial announcement regarding these talent tree changes can be found on our Cataclysm forum.

Death Knights

New Player Race in Cataclysm Goblin

    * A dedicated tanking tree (Blood) has been implemented.
    * The effects of Blood Presence and Frost Presence have been exchanged.
    * The way in which runes recharge has changed.

Druids

    * A new Eclipse mechanic has been added for druids.






Hunters

    * Five pets can now be stored with the hunter at all times. Any one of these five pets can be summoned via the Call Pet ability.
    * Focus has replaced mana as a new resource.
    * Hunters now start with a pet at level 1.
    * The Stable will now store 20 pets. If a pet is moved into the Stable, its talents are wiped.

Mages

    * There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for mage portals. Clicking on the Teleport or Portal buttons will expand the list of choices available.

Paladins

    * Paladins now have a new resource bar.

Warlocks

    * There is now a new spell fly-out UI feature for warlock pets. Clicking on this single button will open up the list of available pets to summon.
    * Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using, or altering the mechanics of certain spells.

Items

    * Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.
    * Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.

Professions

    * The glyph system has been updated to now feature three different types of glyphs. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.


User Interface

    * Spell Alerts have been added to notify players when procs on select spells and abilities occur. A visual notification will display around the character and the activated ability will be highlighted on the action bar.
    * The Arena Teams pane has been improved.
    * The Character pane has been redesigned. Character stats can now be shown or hidden via the Show All Details/Hide All Details button on the bottom left. When shown, all character stats will be visible in a window to the right of the pane. Stat sections can be reorganized by clicking and dragging them up or down the pane.
    * The Professions panes now have more filtering and search functionality, as well as buttons to easily link recipes in the chat frame.
    * A Professions screen has been added to the Spellbook to better display the details of a character's primary and secondary professions.
    * Many of the yellow System Messages that would display in the chat frame when leveling up have been removed.
    * New text animations now alert players as they level up, also providing information on when new talents, spells and abilities are available.
    * Professions and Class Trainers windows have been altered to more clearly display available and upcoming purchases.
    * New Raid frames are now. They can also be used in place of the standard 5-player party interface via the User Interface options.
    * The Spellbook interface has been improved for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal.
    * For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Graphics

    * Improved water and lava rendering system (Video Options - Liquid Detail on the Graphics Panel)
    * Dynamic Sunshafts effect (Video Options - Sunshafts on the Graphics Panel)
    * Multi-monitor support (Video Options - Monitor on the Graphics Panel)
    * OpenGL Hardware Cursor support for Windows (Video Options - Hardware Cursor on the Advanced Panel)
    * Experimental support for DX11 (enabled by passing '-d3d11' on the command line or adding SET gxApi "d3d11" to the Config.WTF file)

Blizzard Working on a Super Secret MMO and the Fall of World of Wacraft: Cataclysm

Bad Reviews for Cataclysm

Tons of reviews by professionals and fans alike have been pouring into the web. I have yet to see one that is positive. Couple that with fan comments on the reviews and you have a staggering situation where Blizzard / Activision might lose money on the expansion. What is shocking is that Blizzard is proud of their changes and see no reason to reconsider them.

How the Casual Gamer Has Ruined World of Warcraft

Your Gearscore Sucks

We see it all the time in trade chat. Such and so raid is looking for more people to join, BUT... you have to have some outrageous gearscore. For those who are are new to achieving level 80 or haven't played the game but for only a few months, this might seem perfectly alright. However, what you don't know is that the game was never heavily gear dependent. I will be going over how the game has changed and for the worse. I will go over what was expected of a raider; how people achieved great gear; and how skill ruled the game.

Before Gearscore Was Even a Word

There was a time when they had not cracked the gearscore code. People had to rely on other things to determine if someone was worthy of going on a raid. What did they rely on you ask?

• the reputation of the person that was hopeful to go on a raid
• looking at their gear and knowing the class of the person and how the gear perfectly matched the person's class
• only guilds went on raids, there were no such things as PUGs

Let's go over each of these points in depth. I will show you how removing this system in a game that relies on its own social aspect to make for a better experience of everyone. I will also compare some much harder games to the current system.

Your Reputation Could Make or Break you

Back when WoW was much much smaller, people had reputations and you were made or broken by your actions in World of Warcraft. That meant if you ninjad something, you really did get black balled from any possible raiding or getting into a guild. You would be kicked out of a guild if you did anything that ruined your reputation and hence the reputation of the guild. You were also put on a list by the more experienced guilds as a persona non grata.

You could go to a message board and see posts about people that did things that were disreputable. That meant that not only were you outed to your guild, but everyone on the server, and the whole game, actually the world since it's on the internet. This was especially true of serious offenses, like ninjaing in a raid. Even if you were stupid, it was considered bad, like a hunter rolling on something that is perfectly suited for a tank or healer.

With the current changes, people no longer care about reputation. Why? Because gear is ridiculously easy to come by and you can simply kick someone and get a new idiot to take their place.

When a Guild Master Was Capable of Looking at Your Gear to Determine Your Skill

WoW has always had obscure gear rules to challenge the player to think outside the box when gearing themselves. What am I talking about? I'm talking about a paladin wearing cloth. I'm talking about a hunter wearing leather. I'm talking about a tank wielding rogue weapons.

If you didn't know your class sufficiently to understand these slight nuances in the game, you would seriously under gear your character and do less damage, or generate less threat or heal for less.

It was the excellent guild master that knew every class in the game to such and extent that he could look at your gear and tell that you knew nothing about both your class and specialization. I was once applying for a guild and they asked that I have "good gear". I got the beast gear I could at the time which were not only blues, but blues that were better than epic gear. When the guild master called to inspect me, he knew I had the beast gear and knew they were pieces that were not easy to get. So in blues and a couple of greens I was invited into the guild to be a raider.

Why do I include that story? Because raid leaders and guild masters of today would not know that a blue out of some obscure dungeon was better than a beginning epic. Today they would dismiss you out of hand and probably put you on their ignore list.

But could a guild master know you had skill by looking at your gear? Yes! If you knew your class so well that you were wearing obscure blues and greens that were focused on some aspect of your specialization, the guild master knew two things:

• you knew your class to an elite status
• you knew your spec to an elite status

It is highly improbable that someone with such an integral knowledge of their class could be unskilled at the game. You can't get to intimate knowledge of your class without knowing the skill to use it.

When You Had to Join a Guild to Raid

There was always this separation of the game into two groups: the casual gamer; the hardcore raider. To be a hardcore raider you needed to be in a guild. A hardcore raider schedules his life around raid time and the raid is scheduled around everyone's life. To be invited to a guild meant that you agreed to raid at their raid time. There was no way to get into a raid without first being in a guild. No one wanted to raid with someone:

• they did not know
• that did not know their class
• that did not know the raid
• that had a bad reputation

Remember one fine point. And, this is a fine point that escapes new players of World of Warcraft. Gear that was more powerful than the instance you were raiding was unheard of. It was only after raiding for months that a guild could finally breath easy and do an instance without any trouble. It was only then that they would start PUGs.

The casual gamer simply played the game for fun; didn't have time to play for long periods; didn't have every day to play; didn't want to invest time into a single task that might take him months to accomplish.

However, it has been the casual gamer that has been the loudest about his lack of raiding and / or gear.

The Beginning of the End

Blizzard is in the business of making money, not making a better game. Normally the two are opposite. In its infinite wisdom, Blizzard started listening to the casual gamer.

• casual gamers wanted to raid
• casual gamers wanted the epic gear
• casual gamers wanted the tier gear
• casual gamers wanted to not think about what gear to get to fit their class

With all of these demands Blizzard slowly changed the game to be easier and easier. At first these changes only affected the lower level. The end game was still held in reserve to those who were serious about the game. Blizzard reasoned that they must make the beginning game much easier for everyone to understand and therefore enjoy and purchase a subscription.

Due to their changes of making getting to the end game easier, more and more casual gamers achieved the highest level in the game. Then you had a much larger population of people that did not know their class and who did not raid. Blizzard finally changed the end game to be easier and easier.

People went from raiding Naxxramus in blues, to requiring people to be in epics coming into Naxx. They quickly forgot that Naxx was the first instance that dropped epics at all.

With this mindset the entire game went down hill. People started requiring higher and higher gearscores to do content that did not require it.

Gearscore the Straw That Broke the Camels Back

Finally the addon gearscore came out. You could now look at someone and determine what their gear's level was. You could also check online and get their gearscore. Gone was the necessity of the raid leader or guild master to know the game so much that they could look at your gear and determine your skill.

It has been a failure on the parts of the raid leaders and guild masters to depend on gearscore. I have found that gearscore is useless. I was in a basic heroic instance with a mage that had a gearscore of 5400. He pulled 1.5k dps. End of story. I have been in regular instances where the healer dripping in epics let the tank die, along with the rest of the party. Gearscore is useless.

Be that as it may, the changes Blizzard has made is akin to gold sellers. Once people start buying gold, they can then buy all the best gear that Bind on Equip. Once people have access to this, then people see that more of the population is walking around in much higher gear. They then come to expect everyone to have higher gear. This is effectively what Blizzard has done. They have made it easier for people to equip higher gear and so people expect higher gear from everyone.

The end result is that terrible players are walking around in pristine gear. Now no one knows who is a joy to play with and who is and absolute nightmare. I expect it will only get worse. Unless the new expansion makes the player concentrate on the skill aspect of the game, I see no possible way to fix this. You will end up with very frustrated end game players that want the casual gamers to go away and Blizzard wanting everyone to enjoy the full content of the game.

All that being said, the very end game instances still require skill. You cannot get around it. Being dressed up, still does not account for skill. I think it is going to be a big disappointment when the casual gamer gets dressed in the highest gear possible only to find that their skills do not match the gear they are in.

I say go back to reserving Player vs Environment equipment for those that acquire it in raids only and leave the non-skilled players to do player vs player games.

We just had a player join our guild raid dressed in full pvp gear and he had the same gearscore as my healer paladin. After a couple of fights it was found he healed 1/3rd of what I healed. He was removed promptly and someone else was invited. The only reason he was invited was because of his gearscore.

You might be saying "he's in pvp gear though." Other than adding the "resilience" stat to his gear, all of his gear was gemed better than mine and he had far superior spell power than my paladin. He was just a terrible player. He had no idea of what to do in a raid, nor how to heal.

Gearscore is useless. You could buy gold in the game and end up with 200,000 gold and simply go the the AH and buy full crafted gear that could put your into nose bleed gearscore overnight. Who would know? They would simply look at the gearscore and take you into their raids. Then find out your skill is zero.

Please visit my legal website: Nevada DUI Attorney
See me on YouTube: Shakaama Live

World of Warcraft: Best Hunter Advice Evaaaaar!!!

10 Rules of Being Da Bestest Huntard

Hunters seem to need more advice the most out of any of the classes of World of Warcraft. No class is as complicated to play than a hunter. They have nearly every armor type they can wear, excluding plate mail. They can wield nearly every weapon in the entire world "of Warcraft". And, they have to concentrate on nearly every state in the world "of Warcraft." It is obvious that with such diversity that it is confusing of how to be da bestest huntard. Not only are those basics confusing, but there is even more. They do most of their damage from their ranged slot item, unlike other classes. They have melee weapons that sit there unused for most of their hunter life. So those two slots of melee weapons need to be da bestest they can possibly be. Now add in that they are responsible for keeping a beast at their beck and call, who also does damage. This beast they have, they have to train to do tricks and give talents to, on top of their own talents. Finally, they have to armor themselves and understand how to shoot so many shots all in a few seconds. Luckily, they can fall over and pretend to be dead if they ever get in trouble. Doing so much damage all at once, they get in trouble a lot.



So here is the advice and rules for being da bestest huntering:

1. the first rule of huntering is to roll a hunter. If you iz not a hunter, you iz doing it wrong.


2. the second rule of huntering is to bathe the pet. Guilds do not like smelly pets and will not invite you to raidz.


3. don't forget to be hunter. I cannot stress how important that part iz.


4. the third rule of huntering is "every weapon is huntard weaponz" The more spell powerz on a staff, the better. It probly is for you. I mean why would the healer want it, if it weren't awesome. They just want to steal it from you. Those bastards!


5. make sure you roll a hunter. All of this good advice will not work if you're not a hunter.


6. the fourth rule of huntering is "if a druid rolls on it, you should roll on it" just to be safe. If you're wrong and it's some silly healer plate mail item, you can always vendor it later for cold hard gold.


7. the fifth rule of huntering is "if the mob leaves the tank to attack you, shoot it some moar". I mean, when itz dead it can't hit you any more. AMIRITE?


8. the sixth rule of huntering is if you're only shooting 3 mobs, send your pet to get moar mobs. I mean, the more the merrier. And then you can show off your super leet Volley Shot AOE [area of effect] shot, that does ridiculous damage. The best way to do this is to put your pet on aggressive to attack anything it sees.


9. the seventh rule of huntering is if anyone in your party is doing more damage than you, they must be cheating. I mean, all you do is damage, so you're the king of damage. If anyone else, who isn't the king of damage is doing more than you, then that should send a red flag up, that they are doing something wrong. Report that immediately to a GM. As a follow up, post it on the Blizzard message boards and complain vehimently, to make sure it is taken care of in the next patch. As a final follow up, go onto the test realms and tell the GM's there. Clearly, they didn't realize the impact of it and it is not a part of the vision that anyone should be doing more damage than a hunter.


10. The tenth rule of huntering is you must constantly test your party, to make sure they are worthy of playing with you. As such, make sure you cast misdirection onto the healer. This way, if you agro any mobs, they will go to the healer. The healer is the ideal candidate for this because... they heal. If they cannot heal themselves, who can they heal. They aren't worthy of being with you, if they cannot handle that. Next, while everyone is resting and drinking and eating, go and get more mobs. If they cannot handle a suprise attack, they aren't worthy of being with you. Make sure you feign death if they come to attack you. Why should you suffer if your party isn't worthy of you. Next, test each shot individually, to make sure your party can handle minimal damage output from you. If they wipe because you are doing your minimum, then they aren't worthy of you. If they can, imagine how great you would seem if you did your maximum damage.

With such a complicated class, it is no wonder there are so many questions for huntering. I hope these rules make you da bestest huntard evaaar!!!

Please visit my legal website: Nevada DUI
See me on YouTube: Shakaama Live

The Final Battle of Arthas: Patch 3.3

World of Warcraft Unleashes the Litchking

The ultimate stage of the latest expansion of World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Litchking is upon us. The ultimate villain of the entire lore is being unleashed in this patch 3.3. We finally meet and face Prince Arthas. But, don't rush out and think you're going to meet him right away. Apparently you have to unlock him. You start a quest line that begins the chain for unlocking him.

This chain however is done through 5 player instances. So while the encounter is a 10 and 25 man raid, the quest line itself is doable with a regular group... and speaking of regular group.

You will now be able to do cross realm groups. So forget about sitting all day looking for a group. Or, forget about making sure you log in 9-5 on your realm to catch a group. With cross realm groups, you'll have a wide variety of people you can team up with. So you can do badge runs all day, to your hearts content.



There is also quite a bit of changes coming in place.

- Classes: will not start out with their signature powers - for example rogues start with stealth and dual-wield etc... No longer will you have to quest for your signature powers or wait for 10 levels before you get them, or longer in some cases where the quest was hard, and no one is ever around any more in those zones.

- Summoning stones: no longer will you not be able to summon if you're 10 levels above the instance. You can rush your lower level buddies through instances, and summon them using the summoning stones.

- LFG: as mentioned above you can now group cross realm. The entire LFG window has been revamped. It's far ore detailed and you can see people's comments on mouse over. Also, the number of instances queued for is no longer just 3 [thank god]. However, you now have a vote kick from a group. There is possible abuse in this feature. But, group loot is set to a minimum of need before greed and you can't change that aspect of it. No more mages needing on plate-mail.

- Instance requirements: some instances now have minimum requirements. So if you don't meet the minimum gear requirements, you won't be able to enter. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing.

- Need, Greed, Disenchant: a new selection is avialable in the loot window, disenchant. If there is an enchanter that is high enough skill in the group, selecting disenchant is an automatic roll like greed. If everyone selects greed/disenchant, the item is automatically disenchanted and the highest roller wins. Need, always beats either of them. And, the enchanter never touches the item.

So there are the highlights to patch 3.3.

Oh, I almost forgot. Players who take part in groups who have one or more members who have been matched with them randomly from within the Dungeon Finder will receive extra rewards, up to and including the coveted Perky Pug non-combat pet. The more random players with whom one groups, the faster the pet can be obtained.





Please visit my legal website: Las Vegas DUI Attorney
See me on YouTube: Shakaama Live

Game Review: Champions Online - Another City of Heroes?

Champions Online Game Review

If you missed it, this past weekend there was an open beta for the soon to be released game Champions Online. Yes, if you recognize the name it is based off of the old table top, pen and paper game of the same name. Cryptic Studios bought the licensing rights and made an MMO [massive multi-player online] out of it. So at its core is it a super-heor online game.

I got a chance to take a peak at it and played it for the entire weekend. I first didn't remember the game, but seeing a couple of videos about it, I do recall it at E3. Low and behold it was the same game. I recall at E3 I wasn't that impressed by it, but it was still developing at that stage.

On to the review. Since this is my first review on my blog, unlike my YouTube reviews at Shakaama Live, I'll make this as factual as possible and list the criteria for the review.

Graphics
- Overall style (4 out of 10): The overall style of the look of the game is very unpolished. In city of heroes, your heroes were very larger than life and you really got the sense that you were playing a super-hero. Although the graphics were in fact realistic and the cityscape was modern, it just did not give you a sense of anything unique and exciting. It was not impressive

- landscape (3 out of 10): The environment was well executed, but everything was just so tiny and the levels were so compact that you never got the sense you were in an actual city, an actual forest, an actual tundra. The zones made it clear that you were playing a game with snow, dirt, trees and not that you were in some actual area.

- character (4 out of 10): The graphics of the NPC's and the PC's were not impressive at all. Again they were not polished. The animation of the characters were all stiff as well. There was no sense of fluid real life motions, nor super-hero life motions as well.

- hardware capability (6 out of 10): This category is for if the game really tests your hardware. As you can see by the previous graphics categories, it isn't a graphically impressive game. As such, I found no problem installing it and getting it to play smoothly. So for smoothness of playability graphic wise it gets a complete pass, but the lack of challenging hardware with impressive graphics it fails.


Gameplay
- chargen (2 our of 10): Character generation was a sticking point in City of Heroes. They constantly redeveloped the chargen. Champions Online completely just copied them. Chargen involves nothing more than making the rudimentary powers of your hero and overabundance of looks for your character. I say overabundance, because unless you are playing zoomed all the way into your character you will never see all the minor things you or anyone else did to their character. In the end chargen boils down to basic heights, colors and costuming. The hundreds of facial expressions you can put on your character or whether he has a cleft chin is unnecessary. Chargen therefore was not innovative at all. I've yet to see a super-hero chargen where you can plan out or plot out the path of powers he's to go on or even remove the powers altogether and do an actual back story in game of developing the powers. Both City of Heroes and Champions missed the point of this. They both just lazily put a text editor on your character and let you write some mumbo jumbo about the origins of the hero. The fact that Champions chargen is exactly the same as City of Heroes smacks of plagiarism.

- controls (2 out of 10): the controls were clunky as hell. I heard that you could attach an xbox controller to your computer and have massive fun, unfortunately I don't have one and didn't think about it. I suffered through, what has to be the worst physics known to man. It's as if my hero was 4 tons and didn't have control of his own muscles. While the developer at E3 called the gameplay heroic, it is anything but. The worst thing were the travel powers. I tested them all. unless you chose superspeed and flight, you had zero precision of how your character moved. None of this stop on a dime. I also was disappointed with the flying disks that they put in: ice, electric etc... those travel powers used a disk, and when you stopped moving you floated to the ground. I just don't get the point of that. Do you lose control of your disk in relation to gravity? I'm sure it's to prevent some exploit, but for game play it sucks. Speaking of ice, I thought it was going to be like iceman. You know he cools the air under his feet and creates a path of ice. No, it's a floating icy disk. How lazy are you that you can't program an icy path that fades in 2 seconds behind him after 10 yards. Yet in the videos and the splash screens he has an icy path. Mind you it wasn't even my power of choice, but I found it disappointing.

- ui (0 out of 10): User Interface! What can I say about their user interface. Oh one word comes to mind: HORRIBLE!!!! This was a pain in the butt. Man it was god awful. I just cannot say enough about it. There were these ... and then these ... also these... ugggg it was ridonkulous. Who thought it up? And, lastly, it wasn't even something new, it was just a bad copy of other UI's. uggggg!!

Story
- rpg ( 3 out of 10): Is there a story you can follow? Yes, and they do convey it. Yes you get a feel for what is going on in the game and it's not just something boring. Ok, for there being a story Champions gets a pass. As for the actual merits of the story? Fail. They had the most unimaginative staff come up with the worst scenarios possible. I've seen more imagination in table top games from complete social rejects, than what i saw in this game. The story for a super hero... yes a SUPER HERO, should be epic. Literally the challenges in this game, a swat team could handle and be home by dinner. It was just so bleh.

- lore (6 out of 10): Was there background to the story and the world and the game? Yes, they have cut scenes and npcs that talked to you. The voice acting was well executed and gave you a sense of the character speaking. Not bad build up to it.

Advancement
- rpg (1 out of 10): Does your advancement in the game have a story like quality to it? No.

- hack n slash (1 out of 10): Is the game advanced by hack n slash? Yes

Overall
- Immersion: Did you feel immersed in this online game. No

- Must have: Is this a must have game for video game nerds. No. This is not going to be a classic and a "if you're a nerd you must have this in your library". This doesn't advance any game style. In fact it doesn't even advance the Champions franchise. I'm sorry to say that. I played champions only once, hell i spent a month making the character. This game is not impressive in the least bit.

I predict a lackluster launch and a lackluster following. This game just does not capture the imagination.

q9ftsn2ymx

WoW Enchanting / Tailoring Guide Part I

Enchanting and Tailoring Guide

I am an avid World of Warcraft player. This guide will have you level up your enchanting while leveling up your tailoring as well. I take the position that you can be completely independent of others while leveling your enchanting and tailoring. I don't assume you are any certain level, nor rich by any stretch of the imagination. I have yet to have a rich character, that means a character with over 10,000 gold at any one point. So, if I can do this, so can you.

I'm going to present tailoring as a way to level up your enchanting. You will be disenchanting your tailored items, to get the component materials for your enchanting. In doing so, you will be making 10s if not 30s of a single item. More than likely, that item will go grey and you will receive all possible points for that item while tailoring.

I am going to make one assumption, that you are farming like crazy for the cloth. Not only is farming for the cloth profitable in that you get other items as well, but you also gain experience while doing it. [assuming you are around the level of the mob]

* Always keep in mind you are tailoring for disenchanting purposes. You may need to tailor more or tailor less items depending on your results. Disenchanting is not exact. It has a random amount of materials that result after disenchanting. So instead of following an exact number for tailoring, disenchant every 10 items as you go. This way you can gauge how many more tailored items you need. Also keep in mind that, should your disenchant mats result in more mats than you need to level your enchanting, you can always put them on the Auction House [A.H.] for pure profits.



Tally:
As mentioned above the amounts will vary due to the variable nature of disenchanting.


Enchanting / Tailoring Guide

- train Enchanting
- train Tailoring

You will immediately gain one point in each profession.

1 - 50

1 Enchanting: create 1 x rune copper rod 1 Copper Rod, 1 Strange Dust, 1 Lesser Magic Essence

- Tailoring: create 100 x bolt of linen cloth [ if you reach 50 skill then immediately train journeyman tailoring ]
- Tailoring: create 50 x brown linen pants [ for disenchanting, they will go gray at 90 skill]*

*** Strange Dust - best item to disenchant Heavy Woolen Pants
2-50 Enchanting: disenchant 50 x brown linen pants [this may in fact bring you to 50 skill already]
2-50 Enchanting: enchant bracer: Minor Health - strange dust [ just enchant the same bracer] [enchant the bracer until you reach 50]

50 - 135

- train Enchanting Journeyman
- train Tailoring Journeyman

- Tailoring: create 5 x reinforced linen cape.* [which brings you to 75 skill]
- Tailoring: create bolt of woolen cloth [ it goes gray at 105 skill]
- Tailoring: create 5 x gray woolen shirt [which brings you to 110 skill]
- Tailoring: create heavy woolen pants [from here on out if you need strange dust, this is the item you will make to disenchant] [ it goes gray at 170 skill, so there's a lot we can skip][ however stop at 125 skill to take advantage of some tailoring efficiency]
- Tailoring: Learn Tailoring Expert at 125 skill
- Tailoring: 200 bolt of silk cloth [this goes gray at only 145 skill]

- Enchanting: disenchant reinforced linen cap; heavy woolen pants

50 - 90 - Enchanting: 40 x enchant bracer: Minor Health [ enchant until you reach 90 skill points] [enchant the same bracer or offer to enchant bracers in a newbie zone to create good will]

90 - 100 - Enchanting: 30 x enchant bracer: minor stamina [enchant the same bracer or offer to enchant bracers in a newbie zone to create good will]

100 - 101 - Enchanting: create 1 x runed silver rod

101 - 110 - Enchanting: create 9 greater magic wand [ requires a greater magic essence this is can be acquired from enchanting supply vendors in rare quantities i.e. just 1 or 2, plan ahead for this part and just purchase the lesser magic essence from the vendor when you see it available ] [The single best way to get greater magic essence is to go to the A.H. and search for weapons 16-20th level and under 10s and disenchant them] [This technique will also give you good profit even if you're not leveling your enchanting]

- Tailoring: create 100 x azure silk hood [although it only has a 21% chance of disenchanting to astral essence, you will need the soul dust anyway] [ this will go gray at 165 skill ]

- Go to Stonetalon Mountains if you are Horde [ yes that's pink for the horde girlies ] and find Kulwia,
- Go to Ashenvale if you're Alliance players and find Dalria.
- Buy these two recipe: [Enchant Cloak: Minor Agility] and [Enchant Bracer - Lesser Strength]

- Enchanting: disenchant 100 x azure silk hood

*** Lesser Astral Essence - The single best way to get lesser astral essence is to go to the A.H. and search for weapons 21-25th level and disenchant them]
110 - 135 - Enchanting: 25 x enchant cloak: Minor agility

- Enchanting: Learn Enchanting Expert