Global Agenda just took a headshot form Kyle Bennett

I had a bit of a look some weeks ago at Global Agenda, a new MMO from Hi-Rez Studios. Too be honest, the first thing I thought was that it looked a lot like Tabula Rasa ... and that was enough to keep me away. I have no idea why some developers beat a dead horse. How many times do you need to see Si-Fi FPS style MMOs fail?
But to see developers take on a failed idea and then let bad community managers or developers say stupid things to its community, amazes me. I get how hard it is developing a game but if you have no fracking idea what you’re talking about, don’t talk to your community!

Kyle Bennett, the owner of the hugely popular hardcore PC hardware review site, HardOcp.com said:
“What has me a bit riled up is that Hi-Rez Studios is locking out the users of Eyefinity,TripleHead2Go, and SoftTH from enjoying their hard earned computer hardware when it comes to playing Global Agenda.”

Read on and see why it’s dumb to piss off your community!

What to do, where to go in SWG

Sony online Entertainment sent out an email to all their Star Wars Galaxy members, inviting them to come back to the game for the month of February for free! When I received this email, I thought what the hell, let’s see what they’ve done. When I last played this game three years ago, I had a few max level characters – an elder Jedi, which I spent months levelling to be an uber elite character, and also a master Bounty Hunter, which has a full set of Madalorian armour and is extremely wealthy.
When I logged in, I found most of my houses in the game had been packed up. This was a feature Sony introduced a while ago to clean up some of the abandoned houses throughout the Galaxy. Unfortunately, for players coming back, this means that the first hours of their gameplay involves unpacking houses and sorting out where all of their stuff is. For me, this took about 2-3 hours of gameplay.
While I was unpacking my house I got whispers from old guild members and got invited back into my old guild that I had founded five years ago. The current guild leader gave me some gameplay hints and told me what I needed to do for the new content in the game.
The new heroic dungeons that were introduced in a recent patch involve simple quest lines to give access to these instances. Apparently there are five heroic instances in total and the guys in the guild told me about the improvements you can make to your character. But after showing them what I had, so far as geared was concerned, we discovered that there wasn’t much I would need to be competitive. So after three years, SOE have managed to provide little to no improvement to characters, apart from their appearance. It really seems like SWG is more like a World Sim than an Epic heroic adventure. It’s more about setting up houses, cities and communities than epic battles against epic villains.
For me, the first time around, I loved it and levelling my characters was enthralling. The first time you discover new worlds were good times ... exciting adventures. But when you get asked to go to the same place to do similar quests over and over again, it gets boring real fast. There are only so many times you can be expected to kill the same NPCs for a loot item.
Good luck Sony. I don’t think I’ll be hanging around – but thanks for the free re-trial!

WoW Lady Deathwhisper 25 man raid guide by Gamingface.com

Another WoW ICC 25 man raid guide from us here at gaming face.

Raiding etiquette

You know, I don't ask a lot from my raiders.know the strats of the bosses we are fighting ... come prepared with flasks, food, what ever else you might need during the raid and listen to the raid leader. It really annoys me when you spend two and a half hours for a couple of nights trying to progress through a new boss and it becomes extremely obvious when someone asks a really stupid question, that they haven't read a strategy. These people think it doesn't become obvious about who does and does not know the fights and who does and who does not lie when they get asked if they have read the strategy and watched the video guides. I would have asked maybe four or five times over the last week if everyone had read the guides and watched the videos. When you get no reply you just presume everyone has done the minimum expected research. What these people don't realise is that all the raid leaders notice when people ask obvious questions that are explained in every guide - that they have not read the strategy and then have not done their research and they have lied to the raid. These people then wonder why they get put on standby for future raids. My advice to any raider is to be honest. If you've read the strategy but don't quite understand it, ask questions. If you have read the strategy and it was four weeks ago and you've forgotten exactly how it goes, ask for a re-cap. If you have not read it at all, don't try and wing your way through, ask to have the fight explained or ask for time to go and read the strat. Attempting to wing it through will only get you caught eventually. Although it might not matter too much in pugs, in the guild scenariojavascript:void(0), it's definitely going to piss people off.

The MMO report!

The MMO Report are doing a great job and if you have not seen the show you need to check it out!

PC Games - E3 2010 - Star Trek Online

Wow killing Porn?

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Mangros ICC Raid Boss fight quick links!

Lord Marrowgar - First boss in ICC Lower Spire

Wowwiki: http://www.wowwiki.com/Lord_Marrowgar
Wowhead: http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=36612
Tankspot: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f206/59646-icecrown-lord-marrowgar.html
Gamingface: http://www.gamingface.com/2010/01/wow-25-man-icc-raid-lord-marrowgar.html

A dodge-the-flame, omgkillthestuneffectbeforeitkillsme, whirlwind fight. Be prepared with macros for instant target switching.

Lady Deathwhisper - 2nd Boss in ICC Lower Spire

Wow armory update and 3d model Viewer

looks like Blizzard have been working hard giving the armory new fetchers Flash 3d model of your toon on your blog anyone? want to show off your new gear?

3D Model Viewer
Every character profile now has a 3D model viewer that displays the character in his or her currently equipped gear, and accurately displays the character's physical features, hairstyle, and helm/cloak display as they appear in-game. Mousing over the character model window brings up a control panel with the following controls :

* Camera controls: To rotate the camera around a character, click and hold the left mouse button while moving the mouse left and right, or click the arrow buttons in the top left of the window. To zoom in and out, use the mouse wheel while hovering over the character window, or click the zoom buttons in the top left of the window. To move the character within the frame, right-click and drag the character in the window (or on the small square in the bottom left corner of the window).
* Animations: Each character has a selection of animations that they can perform. Use the arrows next to the animation's name to cycle through them. The available animations are determined by the character's class and currently equipped weapons.
* Capture pose: If you are logged in, you can set the default pose of any character on your account. Use the camera and animation controls to create a pose, then click the save icon to set it as the default. All visitors to the character's profile will then see the character in that pose.

* Play controls: The rewind, pause, and fast forward buttons allow you to fine-tune a pose for a character.

* Fullscreen mode: You can view the character in a fullscreen display against a selection of backgrounds. All controls will continue to function in fullscreen mode.

* Embed: You can embed a standalone, interactive version of the character's model viewer in a compatible website, such as a social networking site, guild website, or forum.

* Options: Extra options include selecting a background in fullscreen mode and toggling the display of a character's helm, cloak, or tabard.

(At this time it looks to be bugged in some browsers like Google chrome but is working fine in IE and Fire Fox.)

Character and Calendar Feeds
You can export your character information and calendar events to other websites and applications using the Armory's new customization tools. These features can be accessed through a logged-in character profile or through the Armory's main navigation menu.

* Character Activity Feeds: ( Check me out )

Each character's activity feed shows the most recent in-game actions of the character that can be recorded by the Armory. These include achievements, boss kills, item acquisitions, and more. Character feeds can be customized using our customization tool, then exported as RSS feeds to your RSS reader of choice. Refer to the Character Feed FAQ for more details.

* Player Calendar Feeds: Another new Armory tool allows you to export in-game player calendar data to online calendars such as Google Calendar. The tool can aggregate up to five characters on your account in a single feed, and is automatically synched with the characters' in-game player calendars. Refer to the Calendar Feed FAQ for more details.

Blizzard authenticator the newest hacking tool!

Over the last weeks, two of my guild members have been hacked. Neither of them had an authenticator. The players were online and got booted off by the hacker. They then got an email saying their account password had been changed but when they went to login to change their password back they got a message asking them to put in their authenticator code! The hacker attached the authenticator to their account, preventing them from changing their password. NP just call Blizzard right? Wrong ...

The hacking happened, in both instances, 15 min after Blizzard tech support closed down for the day, giving the hacker 12 hours to clean out the account. Putting an ingame ticket in is a waste of time as you get no reply for over 24 hours.

Do we not pay Blizzard enough? What will it take to get support during prime time gaming hours? How can a hacker attach an authenticator to an account so easily? Why are you not required to confirm this action by email or even have a window of 12/24 hours that would give the user time to secure their account?

There are lots of things Blizzard could do to stop this but do they want to stop it? Getting hacked is a sure way to convince a player to get an authenticator! If you don’t have an authenticator by now and you play WoW, you are mad, you will be hacked, it’s just a matter of time!

WoW 25 man ICC Raid Lord Marrowgar Guide

After breaching the fortress, players will face a legion of undead guards directed to repel any invaders. Commanding the defenders is Lord Marrowgar, a monstrosity fused together from the bones of the undead. This is our 25 man raid guide video for the fight.