Tag Archives: wow

Episode 25: You had me at morbid necromancy…

You can see the old watermark with an ID number unique to my account, and the old engineer LAS UI.
You can see the old watermark with an ID number unique to my account, and the old engineer LAS UI.

 

This week we talk about burnout (*GASP*), the holidays (definitely not related), and SWTOR expac goodness. Don’t worry, spoiler free. Welcome to CCR, where we talk about MMOs and we have been frozen in Carbonite for FIVE LONG YEARS. Or weeks. Totally weeks.

MMO News

 

SWTOR – So. Much. SWTOR.

Wildstar – Mixed bag of events.

  • Not a lot of news. There was Winterfest, there was a world-boss killing event, there’s a sim-chase event. Items were removed from the Cash shop.
  • No word on the next drop’s release.

GW2 – Big change to The Shatterer, World Boss, part of incoming QoL Change

WoW – Legion Alpha back up!

Blade and Soul

Temporary derailment on Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Crowfall

 

MMO Community

 

MMO – Meaningless Term?

http://news.mmosite.com/content/2016-01-17/the_mmo_label_now_describes_most_gaming.shtml

http://www.crowbase.com/2016/01/crowfall-doesnt-have-a-current-stretch-goal-and-i-couldnt-be-happier/

Screenshot with Watermark from Wildstar

This one has my name as the watermark, which was a later feature, and the old spellslinger UI is on display. Bet you can't tell what these skills are by their icons!
This one has my name as the watermark, which was a later feature, and the old spellslinger UI is on display. Bet you can’t tell what these skills are by their icons!

Housing chess set

Jaroshi_Soulbreeze.160118.231807 Jaroshi_Soulbreeze.160118.232545

 

If I Were A Dev

Five things we would steal from Wildstar

DREW:

  1. PvP threshold system
  2. Gear sets for level ranges in PvP
  3. Limited Action Set
  4. Stat threshold bonuses
  5. Paths

JOE:

  1. Housing
  2. Amps
  3. LAS
  4. Stat threshold system
  5. Paths

 

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This week’s end music is Systematic Domination by Jeff Kurtenacker from Wildstar.

Episode 24: Joe buys all the dances

Neverwinter Underdark

This week we talk about burnout (*GASP*), the holidays (definitely not related), and SWTOR expac goodness. Don’t worry, spoiler free. Welcome to CCR, where we talk about MMOs and where we will not kneel before Emperor Valkorian.

MMO News

 

SWTOR – So. Much. SWTOR. Expansion is live. Well-received.
http://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/swtors-knights-of-the-fallen-empire-expansion-has-officially-launched/

Some replayability Concerns – to each their own. Alliance system is MUCH bigger than anticipated.
http://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog/20151020-0

Story seems awesome. Feels more like a Bioware game – http://kotaku.com/star-wars-the-old-republic-now-feels-more-like-a-class-1738781689

Wildstar – Google Interest Drops. Subjectively, still a LOT more players on than ever before.
https://twitter.com/jasonetheridge/status/662201323748659200

Wildstar PvP – new Arena, changes coming in next drop/patch
http://news.mmosite.com/content/2015-11-05/pvp_updates_in_the_next_patch_of_wildstar.shtml

World of Fishing… do we REALLY need this?
http://nichegamer.com/2015/11/world-of-fishing-mmo-enters-open-beta/

Blizzcon!

Also, Warcraft Movie Trailer
http://www.inquisitr.com/2547933/warcraft-movie-first-official-trailer-drops-and-its-glorious/

Guild Wars 2 – Heart of Thorns is live and pretty dang awesome
http://www.pcgamer.com/guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-review/

Moar GW2 – Raid coming TOMORROW
http://www.realtytoday.com/articles/52119/20151115/guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-news-mmorpg-3-wing-raid-set-to-come-nov-17.htm

 

MMO Community

 

5 Pillars of MMORPGs that should be torn down
http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=36502

Messages from Roy

MMO Burnout article
http://thefanaticalswordsman.com/2013/03/19/dont-burnout-diversify/

Death to the leveling game
http://thefanaticalswordsman.com/2015/08/15/death-to-the-leveling-game/

Alyssia “Pinky” Swiftwind – Wildstar RP – Sunday mornings at the BBB are awesome! (Entity, Exile)

Critical Role
http://geekandsundry.com/shows/critical-role/

 

If I Were A Dev

Quality of Life: Emotes

Are they important? Should they ALL have Animation? How many? Include some raucous ones?

JOE: 2-PERSON

DREW: Love class-specific emotes. Two person emote, dance a tango or a waltz.

 

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This week’s end music is the opening theme from Neverwinter.

Episode 18: Do these guys take a breath?

 

Battle of Kyhlo in Guild Wars 2
Battle of Kyhlo in Guild Wars 2

Back from a long break (thanks to Drew teaching a summer class), we talk changes and expansions coming to Star Trek Online, World of Warcraft, Archeage, Wildstar, and SWTOR! Welcome to Casual Core Radio, where we always promise to have a new episode, SOON(™), reserved, copyright, service mark.

MMO News

WoW Legion
http://www.chinatopix.com/articles/62800/20150823/world-of-warcraft.htm

Final Fantasy 14 reaches 5 million players
http://www.pcgamer.com/final-fantasy-xiv-has-5-million-registered-accounts/

SWTOR Livestream – KotFE details!
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8396041#edit8396041

WildStar F2P Closed Beta
http://www.wildstar-online.com/uk/news/2015-08-11-closed-beta-testing-commencing-now/

Also, WildStar China is starting off well…
https://twitter.com/DapperDonatelli/status/628488870598975488/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

The reason the game needs FTP:
http://massivelyop.com/2015/07/31/guild-wars-2-is-up-again-wildstar-is-down-again-in-ncsofts-2015-q2-financial-report/

Funcom is for sale
http://www.funcom.com/investors/update_on_lego_minifigures_online_and_the_financial_situation_of_the_compan
http://www.vg247.com/2015/08/11/age-of-conan-secret-world-dev-funcom-up-for-sale/

Crowfall talks Crowd Control
http://news.mmosite.com/content/2015-08-20/crowfall_team_shared_their_ideas_on_crowd_control.shtml

Star Trek Online announces Season 11: New Dawn (aka “More Picard, Less Kirk”)
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/9488023

ArcheAge – Xfers coming with 2.0, free transfers through 9/4.
http://www.trionworlds.com/archeage/en/2015/08/14/server-transfers-evolutions-everything-you-need-to-know/

MMO Community

XamXam’s analysis of the KotFE trailer: http://www.xamxamsays.com/swtor-kotfe-become-the-outlander-gameplay-trailer-analysis/

Wildstar’s surprisingly awesome RP

www.wildstar-roleplay.com

STO Foundry “Effect, then Cause”
@RogueEnterprise

Unholy alliance podcast

KatiaRacer Wildstar plot

Shout out to Doom Kitty (@doomkittyentity), Mayor Dasmoose (@mayordasmoose), and Kelzam (@clchaotix)

Special Topic: Time Travel

Let’s talk about the different ways Time Travel has been done in MMOs.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/10/perfect-ten-great-mmo-time-travel-adventures/

TSW – The Haunting, The Last Train To Cairo (Issue 6 story arc), The Darkness War

STO – The Night of the Comet, Iconian story arc, (Foundry mission: Effect, Then Cause)

Rift – Defiant tutorial

LOTRO flashbacks

GW2 chronomancer

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chronomancer

WoW TimeWalking, Caverns of Time

 

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/casualcoreradio Facebook: http://facebook.com/casualcoreradio This week’s end music is Systematic Domination by Jeff Kurtenacker from Wildstar.

Episode 13: Right on the Money

NC3
Who the heck is playing – and paying – Lineage?!?

 

This week we discuss getting older, public executions, how NCSOFT properties are doing, and yet more conjecture on Wildstar’s subscription-to-f2p transition. Welcome to Casual Core Radio, where we talk about MMOs and we’re not sure how we’ll find time to do more than seven daily zones each week.

MMO News

Money Money Money
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/12/square-enix-profits-double-thanks-to-mmo-and-mobile-titles (and WTF is up with that hair… it’s full-on JRPG-level height.)

It’s not newsy, but it’s interesting – Diablo III is often described as kind of almost-an-MMO.  Turns out, it WAS almost an MMO.
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Diablo-3-Was-Almost-An-MMO-71858.html

Near and Dear to my heart… MMOs and Working Adults.
http://news.mmosite.com/content/2015-05-13/das_tal_fixing_sandbox_mmos_for_busy_adults.shtml
Catering to the casual? Yeah. The casual who used to be hardcore, aka the casual who now has WAY MORE MONEY to spend.

Ok ok, we know about WoW and it’s 3 million sub drop. Enough already. Let’s talk about 6.2 and the new Bonus Activities feature.
http://www.youthhealthmag.com/articles/15605/20150511/world-of-warcraft-gameplay-patch-6-2-blizzard-mmorpg-lost-3-million-subscribers.htm
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/18985406/patch-62-preview-bonus-events-and-adventure-guide-5-7-2015

ESO on the Console. The company that loves console RPGs is finally putting it’s MMORPG on consoles, and it’s releasing June 9th.
http://www.vg247.com/2015/01/21/elder-scrolls-online-no-subs-ps4-pc-xbox-one/
http://www.vinereport.com/article/elder.scrolls.online.console.release.date.console.versions.offer.improved.version.of.glitchy.pc.version.of.tamriel.unlimited/203.htm

Guild Wars 2 Cheater’s toon is publicly shamed and executed. Then all of his toons are deleted.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/guild-wars-2-hacker-publically-executed-mmo-cheating-1500648
https://youtu.be/h_hS_XNpg30

SWTOR – Irony in the extreme. The second part of the Sixth Line story starts with ledge crawling. Funny, that’s how the now defunct exploit worked.
http://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog/20150428

To end on the money note: NCSoft Earning Report – Lineage 1 still kicking ass. WildStar, not so much. All the rest – doing ok.
http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/9683/What-We-Can-Learn-from-the-Latest-NCsoft-Earnings-.html

WildStar, Guild Wars 1 and 2, AION, and all NCSOFT properties subject to a now-complete extended maintenance.
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/126026-extended-ncsoft-maintenance-13-may-2015/#entry1316861

WS Coming to Steam
http://massivelyop.com/2015/05/13/rumor-wildstar-is-coming-to-steam-and-might-be-going-f2p/
https://therepopulation.com/index.php/news/188-15-2-1-build-update

 

MMO Community

Money – Pink Floyd

For the Love of Money – Bulletboys

Price Tag (because why not?)

 

If I Were A Dev

How would you handle advancement mechanics?

JOE:

For basic experience – Levels with, as we’ve mentioned, have no real cap. Just max-ed skills. Maybe levels that don’t end, maybe no levels listed. A bit TSW-like or WildStar-like. Tough to say. Also, the ability to start a character at above the starting zone area like Age of Camelot and WildStar once you’ve already maxed a character.

Crafting – traditional leveling with recipes and rewards, but with the possibility of gaining crits by using more materials or special materials. End-game crafting gear would be JUST AS GOOD as end-game instance gear, and all gear can be modded by crafters, as we’ve already mentioned..

Factions – a classic reputation system. To make crafting valuable but not cookie-cutter, there would be materials and even recipes  gated by both level and reputation.

 

DREW:

No levels, just minor quality of gear differences, and slots for skills. Skills unlock through achievements.

Skills from crafting achievements that consume crafting materials

PvP renown, infamy, and honor. Renown is from raid-v-raid kills, Infamy is from piracy and ganking (large power disparities or raid-v-solo), and Honor is from killing high-Infamy players.

Pick a faction and move up in it, doing missions for them (or killing players from enemy factions), seals for your player-run faction that allows the leader of the faction to pick which crafting materials to make the seal, thus draining the economy of too-prevalent crafting material

 

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This week’s end music is Qeynos from Everquest 2

Episode 10: Where are dese clowns from?

A mother of a motherboard... Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard
A mother of a motherboard…
Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard

This week we discuss rumors, tokens, how hookups aren’t like dates, and more! Welcome to Casual Core Radio, where we talk about MMOs and we don’t dupe items, we control markets.

MMO News

Since I’m playing WildStar again, I thought I’d lead off with this sad news about WildStar… because that game just can’t get a break.
http://arcadesushi.com/ncsoft-layoffs-mmorpg-support-wildstar-guild-wars/

I call BS – Article says Interplay blocking Fallout MMO. This was settled in 2012… unless there’s been an appeal.
http://customstoday.com.pk/interplay-entertainment-blocks-attempt-of-bethesda-to-turn-fallout-4-into-massive-mmorpg-title/

More BS in the Press – Kind of like how a hookup isn’t a date. It’s just vaguely date-like. Sort of like calling sometime in 2016 a release date for Black Desert Online.
http://www.youthhealthmag.com/articles/13608/20150411/black-desert-release-date-us-ps4-gameplay-online.htm

For those who enjoy Asian MMOs, Age of Wulin is getting it’s fifth chapter (the fourth expansion), Heaven’s Ascent.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/240645/Age_of_Wulin_New_expansion_ldquoChapter_5_HeavenrsquosAscentrdquo_for_April.php

WoW’s version of CREDD and PLEX is live.
http://www.reviewstudio.net/2218-world-of-warcraft-s-token-system-goes-live-today

And of course, there’s a chart already…
https://wowtoken.info/

Neverwinter for XBOne is live.
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/xbox.one.neverwinter.free.to.play.mmo.launches/51276.htm

And their twitter feed shows us they’ve had a slew of issues:
https://twitter.com/NeverwinterGame

Second Life players try to find relevance for the game through development… of an MMO inside of SL.
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/04/players-built-an-mmo-inside-ofsecond-life-and-it-looks-wild/

Do we really need a Tom Clancy shooter MMO?
http://www.crossmap.com/news/tom-clancys-the-division-release-news-roundup-5-things-fans-can-expect-from-the-much-awaited-mmo-g-17462

 

MMO Community

We Hate People – a podcast by filthy casuals, for filthy casual. Or is that the tagline to Flashpoint? Same guys, two podcasts – one about MMOs, one about general pop culture.
https://www.facebook.com/WeHatePeoplePodcast
http://oceanicgamer.com/

Joe’s new build:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ypvff7 – bear in mind I already had an SSD drive, so the build includes two, while my rig has three, and I was wrong – it’s just a 500w power supply. It only draws 328w, so no biggie. I’m also STILL waiting on shipping of my GTX and second DIMM. Argh.

Jason Evangelho’s $750 build:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2015/04/09/build-a-high-quality-1080p60fps-gaming-pc-for-750-benchmarks-included/

 

If I Were a Dev

How would you handle death and penalties?

JOE: No item penalties: Repair costs are a cheap cash sink. Allow for one free rez-in-place, then offer a timer-driven system (with a currency cost to buy-down the timer) or a rez-and-run.
DREW: Full item drop and lootable body. Leave only equipped items. If you find your body before other players, you can pick it back up. Due to limited inventory space, most people won’t be able to take all of your stuff though. Backpack rigged to blow.

 

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This week’s end music is Main theme from Guild Wars 2.