ElDee_NA

There's a lot of things I could say, but none of it comes anywhere close to saying exactly how grateful I am to Paragon Studios for creating a world that sucked up more than three years of my life. I may have moved on to other things as my free time disappeared, but my heart will forever be in the skies above Atlas Park.

Thank you.

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But Everquest II has given its players the following in free updates (names won't mean anything to you unless you play the game, but listed for completeness):

Two new races: Frogloks and Arasai

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I was under the impression that Frogloks were part of the base game, but needed to be unlocked on each server before they could be used. I'm fairly sure I remember them being in my manual at launch and thinking it was a truly retarded idea for an unlockable race, then seeing a Froglok NPC in Qeynos and knowing that it was. Arasai were added, but seeing as they're more-or-less straight copies of Fae (and that you still need to buy the Echoes of Faydwer expansion) it's a little less impressive than it sounds. I see it more as releasing what they should have finished in time for launch in the first place, much like CoH and CoV both adding 40-50 content in later patches.

Not that I care. I'm just nitpicking because it's late, I'm bored and you almost made EQ2 sound worth playing.

In all cases, I'd WANT to hit 100% of the time. Nobody actually WANTS to miss their attacks, do they?


1) I'd be happy with hitting 75% of the time. I could tolerate 50% of the time. As the defender, I'd be absolutely ecstatic to be dodging half the incoming hits, but expecting far more to get through. After all, I have no defences.

2) As the attacker, I'd want and expect to hit each and every time. As the defender, I'd expect to get hit every time but I really wouldn't be happy with it. I'd like to know there was at least a small chance of dodging a fatal blow while I run away to buy some purples.

3) What I want as the attacker isn't really an issue here. With maximum defence I wouldn't expect to hit at all, but just as the defender in the last situation, I'd like to know there's at least a small chance of getting a lucky hit in. As the defender, I'd expect to be able to stand next to the attacker, drop a boombox and go AFK for... ooh... a month. Maybe cut it down to a week, I wouldn't want to be greedy.

4) As the attacker, I'd expect to hit more often than with no buffs at all. As the defender, I'd expect to dodge more than with no buffs at all. A 50/50 split would probably keep my happy in both situations.


That's just to hit buffs though.

Let's say it takes ten unslotted, low damage attacks to down an SR Scrapper. As the Scrapper, dodging 25% of them is going to feel pretty good. You're going to get at least one dodge, probably two or three. You last noticeably longer and feel like you get something for your slots.

Now let's say that the same Blaster actually has enough slots and high damage attacks to defeat that SR Scrapper in two hits. Suddenly, only being able to dodge 25% is going to feel a lot less sexy. It's going to feel like your defences were completely ignored, making all those slots you wasted buffing your defence feel worse than useless.

For me, the right 'hit' ratio would have to somehow take into account the power of the attacks involved. Maybe at high levels of defence, you could have a chance to partially dodge attacks? Instead of the Scrapper either being hit in the face by an energy blast or sidestepping it completely, the attacker has a chance to almost hit, to score a kind of glancing blow so that the blast only grazes the Scrapper's cheek and deals reduced damage? That would help defence to feel more worthwhile when lots of damage is involved... but it would also turn it into resistance, which kind of defeats the idea of having it be defence in the first place.

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I find this rather frightening. This just shows that virtually no casual player will ever be able to figure out how to use this system.

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Nah. All it shows is that, just like now, casual players will have trouble working out the most efficient or the mathematically 'best' way of slotting without doing some research.

Just give it a few weeks for the number crunchers to experiment and post their guides. We'll be right back to where we are now, with the majority of people following the herd and doing what's recommended while a brave few try and do things themselves.

I'll be one of those people. I'm far too lazy to spend time collecting a set.

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Which means (and this is pretty funny) that Integration, slotted with an EndRdx, a Miracle, and a Numina's Convalescence is actually an endurance GAINING toggle. As long as it's on anyway.

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...bwuh?

I love Issue 9.

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Do tell? Brawl seems to only take Melee Damage sets...

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Hint: for most scrappers, brawl is the fastest activating attack they can possibly include in their builds.

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Devious! I like it!

The only question then becomes: How many slots can you afford to put into brawl that won't be better spent elsewhere?

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Two procs and a common acc IO isn't so expensive for what would be a very nice attack, that doesn't have redraw.

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Would you fill me in? I'm not getting it...

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OK... an example of slotting Brawl as a Scrapper, using Melee Set IOs taken from ParagonWiki. First time I've even looked at these, so I could be way out here

Slot 1: Touch of Death: Chance of Negative Energy Damage
Slot 2: Pounding Slugfest: Disorient Bonus
Slot 3: Pounding Slugfest: Accuracy/Damage
Set Bonus: Pounding Slugfest: Improves your Regeneration by 8%

Firstly you get a chance for some Negative Energy damage, helping to offset the 'heavily resisted' Smashing and Lethal damage that almost all Scrappers do. Secondly you get a chance for Disorient, always nice to stop things hitting you and it should stack nicely with Thunder Kick if you have MA. Finally, thanks to the set bonus, you get an 8% buff to your Regeneration for a period of time. It doesn't sound like much, but think about it. All of that is in Brawl, a power which recharges almost as fast as you can fire it. Depending on the length of time IO buffs stay active after sing a clicky, that 8% Regeneration may as well be permanant.

That is so far beyond awesome that I'm sure my theorising is wrong

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They should have contracted BioWare to make DDO, I am sure it would have been a LOT better. When was the last time BioWare made a bad game? Especially a bad D&D game?

[/ QUOTE ]Bioware do make some great single player games and they managed to pull together one of the most fun multiplayer games I've ever played with Neverwinter Nights, but I'm not convinced they would have made DDO any good because the magic of DND is all about the Dungeon Master. Without that person sitting on the other side of the battlefield, any DND game just seems to turn into Diablo II with visible maths and a lot of dialog.

That's why DDO sucked so much for me. After playing NWN with a great DM team who knew when to call on players skill checks and who were quick enough to change storylines on the fly depending on what the players did (which was usually the unanticipated shanking of a plot-critical NPC), DDO just felt... empty. What's the point of using the DND mechanics if you have no DM? Some guy reading a voiceover just wasn't good enough.

The Matrix Online, while not a particularly great game, really doesn't deserve to be down as far as 44th. That puts it way below Dungeons & Dragons Online, underneath The Sims Online and even, somehow, beneath the terrible Auto Assault!

This is why I don't trust internet games reviewers

I play with my partner all the time.

It holds the mouse

Humanity 1 - 0 Rularuu. Go team!

This guide made me very happy. I've never been able to find the backstory on Hamidon before. I'd love to see one on zone history - especially Dark Astoria. What the heck happened there?

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How is it that you awarded the kill X badges then when the different issues went live. I'm sure you didn't datamine that. If you track how many of each villain/monster are killed couldn't you just look for the end villain for the TF and award based off that?

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From what I remember, none of the kill badges were awarded retroactively. Feel free to correct me, though.

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Posi - Gimme a break.

18 months to datamine? Wrong. I2 is where you start from. Thats what...10 months?

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Even if you very generously assume that the time taken would be halved if you start from I2, that's still going to take a full year to process.

It isn't worth it. Suck it up. Either do the TF again, or don't do it. Your choice. Not a forced decision.

L50 Emp/Dark LFT for SS TFs.

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Seriously! I mean, Hero 1 was freaking British, people! But I've never seen anyone make a fish and chips joke! XD

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That's because Hero 1 had an outstandingly awesome cape!


I have it on good authority that more information about Statesman and his connection to Ramen Noodles will be found in the upcoming novel "Web of Arachnos"...

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Vengence. Never had it. But I've read the following suggestions: Get Recall Friend, a lowbee sacrafice to PL, and you have perma-vengence.

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Vengeance has a fairly hefty timer on it. I'm not convinced that slotting for recharge instead of slotting tohit or defence would be worth it. Slot and use Vengance more as an emergency buff for helping to avoid complete team wipes.


And as for Vengeance working the other way for Nemesis Lieutenants, can you imagine how über they would be if they cast it when one of their group went down? Kill just one minion in a group, and all the survivors would be healed ten blessed with increased damage, defence and accuracy. More than one Lt. in a group would be lethal.

Don't know about the numbers, but Vengeance is a really nice buff. It's cast from a teammate's corpse, and it pretty much casts Fortitude and heals everyone in the AOE. The buff lasts a fair while, too.

It's not a power anyone would rely on, by any means. But when a fight goes sour and someone dies - and it WILL happen - Vengeance is there to help everyone else carry on. Especially good for Trials.

Hmm... does that count with the (potential) account transfer? I'm not sure if its confirmed or not, but you were looking at existing US subscribers being able to switch to the Euro servers. If they were to have the US DVD edition now... would the goodies stay upon switching? How about the other Prestige Powers (like Rush or Dash)?

Dunno about the other options, as I don't have the launcher in front of me. But I can tell you that betwen JPG and TGA, it's pretty close.

JPG is a smaller file size because the image is compressed. That means you can sometimes lose detail, or you get 'squares' show up on the image. It's hard to tell the difference usually... but if you have a scene with a lot of small or detailed objects, you might not want JPG.

TGA is uncompressed, which means it is much higher quality than JPG. Of course, the tradeoff is that the filesize is larger. If you have a lot of hard drive space, this should give you a higher quality movie

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-Devouring earth drop christmas trees and channuka bushes instead of fungi

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Outstanding!

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We're working hard to allow European players with an existing US account to play on the European servers without having to buy the game again.


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"to play" = "to also play" or "to instead play"? Very important difference...

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If we can make it work the way we want to, that will be up to you.

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Best. News. Ever.

Of course, you should be able to disable avatars from the "My Home" link. And once you've seen them, they stay in your cache and don't need to be downloaded again

Hey, it worked. Groovy.

Thanks for the guide

((Bear in mind that the GMs running this event are also at work now. It kinda makes sense to kick it off while they're getting paid for it ))



Hold steady, fellow heroes! Meteorite Man is burnin' through the sky to get to you!

Anyone got one of those nifty Barcode Battler things to run it through?