A Blizzard Benefit!

Starting Oct. 17 Blizzard will be listing servers on Ebay for purchase! Over the next month Blizzard will be auctioning off more than 2,000 original server blades.This is a benefit that Blizzard is having hosted by Ebay with 100% of all proceeds will is being donated to St. Jude Chidren’s Research Hospital. The last of the server auctions ending on Nov 14th. The developer has upgraded its hardware, and instead of throwing them away they turned them into a valuable collector’s item. Sign up to the Newsletter through the site and you can be reminded when the server of your choice is listed. So lay claim to your server that has been your stomping grounds for the last couple of years and support a great cause in the process. I know I’ll be watching the auctions weekly and am glad to see Blizzard supporting research that can better the children of our future.

-Jon

mogs.com

A Small EVE Online Announcement

Direct from CCP

The Eighth Party at the Top of the World… now in a new location!

It is time to start marking your calendars for the 2012 Fanfest in Reykjavik, Iceland, it’s being held for the first time in the brand new Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre; an amazing new home for their Fanfest that welcomes you all with open arms.

Fanfest brings together players in a massive celebration of EVE Online. Travelers from all around the world gather in one of the most beautiful and unique locations the planet has to offer. Allies and rivals alike set aside their in-game differences to share drinks with one another and forge new friendships. CCP developers mingle with the community, always up for  “talking shop” and getting to know the fans.

Iceland is one of  the world’s must-see vacation destinations, and if you haven’t been to one of our previous Fanfests, we encourage you to come.The many wonders of Iceland await your arrival. The Sisters of EVE Program will give your friend or partner a chance to visit Iceland along with you: Details regarding the program coming soon.

Get ready for another crazy weekend of:

• Pub Crawling and hanging out with the developers
• Round Tables
• Presentations with new EVE Video Premieres
• PVP tournaments
• The Party at the Top of the World!
• Poker Tournament
• Battle of the Bands
• Silent Auction
• Live Agents
• Chessboxing?…..I guess not, but you can just imagine what those crazy devs are planning this time.
• And much more!

Further details, including flights and accommodation and Fanfest 2012 Access Pass availability, will be announced later, as the event draws closer.

Raid Finder Coming in Patch 4.3

This is straight from Blizz. I’m sorry its posted a bit late but I know you all are looking for a tidbit of information. There’s a lot more info out there too.

Raid Finder Coming in Patch 4.3

SWG Has Atmospheric Flight

Hello again folks!! This time around I’m going to talk a little about something that we SWG ‘ers have been asking for since the game added space ships. Atmospheric flight.

With the addition of atmospheric flight you can call any of your spaceships from almost anywhere on the ground and it will launch you into the atmosphere. If you don’t have an ITV set to where you want to go you can just fly across the planet. It takes about 2 minutes to go from one side of a planet to the other now, it’s fast!!! If you are going to take advantage of flying in the atmosphere be careful. They have collision in the game for the ships too. What this means is that if you hit the side of a mountain, you’re gonna take damage. (LOTS OF IT)

Here’s a few pics of my B-Wing above our city, New Boonta Eve.

There are a lot more ships in the game other than the B-Wing. It’s too bad though, the game is still closing and now no one can play unless you had a paid subscription on September 15th. If you did then you get to play the last months of the game for free. I wish this game, that has so many unique things and play styles in it, didn’t have to go far far away……

Mark

Mogs.com

Blizzcon 2011

The time has come again for Blizzcon 2011! Within the next 3 weeks we will have all kinds of great announcements from Blizzard.

What we do know is those who are going are in for a fantastic time. Hands on Blizzard demos of Diablo 3, arena tournaments, card game tournaments, cosplay competitions, all in the celebration to the company we love (and sometimes hate, ooo those patches!) Blizzard. Those purchasing a ticket receive the awesome in game molten murlock pet, Murkablo.

It wouldn’t be a Blizzard convention without a musical line-up. The Foo Fighters are headlining the closing ceremony of the convention and are going to be rocking out hard. Along with the Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftains rocking out to Blizzard themed tunes.

One thing circulating the internet is the appearance, or lack of appearance “Titan” may have at this Blizzcon. IGN reported on the 28th that Blizzard would show off their project at Blizzcon. However the post was updated within 24 hours with information from Blizzard themselves denying that the MMO would be showcased.

It looks like Blizzard is trying to prevent their player base from being distracted by the concept of a “new mmo” when there’s an exciting game like Diablo 3 coming out in the upcoming months. I’m personally excited for both D3 and any new Titan information. I just recently began playing Starcraft 2 again and even that has constant new content in custom games and the competition is endless in normal play. Not to mention the best MMO to date WoW, Blizzard has a ton to showcase and will always deliver a solid game.

-Jon

mogs.com

Star Wars: The Old Republic release date announced!

Bioware and Lucasarts finally announced the release date for the much anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic.  The game will launch on December 20, 2011 in North America and on December 22, 2011 in the European Launch Territories. This was announced at the 2011 Eurogame expo in London by BioWare co-founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk.  The game comes with one month free, then will be $14.99 a month.

Electronic Art’s Frank Gibeau recently announced each of the games six classes will each have over 200 hours of solo game play.  This does not include any raiding or any sort of multiplayer, which is obviously the main focus of the game .  The developers really wanted each class to have its own distinctive feel and a completely individualized playthrough.  The 200 hours unique to each class is the realization of this goal, providing over 1,200 hours of game play to those who want to experience the solo side of each class.  Having all this class based game play should be a refreshing change from the standard MMO formula, of running through the same quest lines with every character class.

Huttball is type of PVP in Star Wars: The Old Republic, and it was shown off this year at PAX 2011.  It is 8v8 PVP based off of the capture the flag formula with a ball that can be thrown to your other teammates.  A team scores when they cross the other team’s endline with the ball, but the ball can be turned over with incomplete passes or attacks on the ball carrier by the other team.  The ball can even be detonated in case of campers who just hold onto the ball and do not score.

The DPS classes such as the dual wielding Jedi Sentinel are charged with protecting the ball carrier.  The carrier will usually be a tank class, who has an ability that increases their effectiveness to run the ball.  The playing field has deathtraps such as acid pools and fire grates that turn off and on.  There are also cover obstacles, anti-gravity panels, and air vents that will blast you up to another floor.  The first to 4 points wins, or the team with the higher point total after 15 minutes of play.

We will see all of you Star Wars: The Old Republic players when the game launches on December 20th, 2011!

Jake

Mogs.com

Age of Conan: The Savage Coast of Turan

The Savage Coast of Turan pack adds over 50 quests and a lot of new instances to explore.  In addition to this, it includes references to the newly released Conan movie!  The pack takes place in the city of Ardashir, where you face priests, generals, and old evils that need to be extinguished.  The new instances include a level 80 solo instance, an instance that adjusts to your level, a team instance, and a raid instance with three new boss battles.

Dead Man’s Hand is a solo instance that scales to your level, provided you are between levels 50 and 80. You must contend with pirates and indigenous savages on the island of Dead Man’s Hand. Since this location is meant to returned to, there are side quests you can tackle in addition to the main quest.

Moreover, there are some tie-ins with the newly released Conan movie.  You help Artus fight to maintain his brotherhood,  and assist Ela-Shan in creating a thieves guild in Ardashir. There are more tie-ins, but the developers wanted to leave them as a surprise for players to find.  Also, there are armor sets to collect based on the Turanian culture, some of which you will see in the movie.

Concerning PVP, the content added in this pack is outdoor and objective based.  However, unlike the Shrines, the world bosses only spawn and are available at certain times.  Therefore, you must amass a group of players in order to take down the bosses in the limited window of time they are active.

The level 80 team instance is Fort Ardashir.  Going through the instance, the first boss encounter takes place in a courtyard.  Here, you must defeat Commander Kamangir on his war Rhino.  After defeating him, you traverse the halls of the fort battling other enemies, while making your way towards a secret cave.  This cave hosts the Ardashir fleet, in addition to General Arman who is a protagonist for this pack.  General Arman is working with a witch, who has tapped into an ancient evil and is channeling it to serve his malicious intent.

While this pack is not a full fledged expansion, it adds a little content to each aspect of the game.  Thus, there is something for every Age of Conan player in The Savage Coast of Turan pack.

-Jake

Mogs.com

IO Graph

As an art major I’m attracted to new forms of creating art using any medium. The conventional means of online art has most artists using tablets and drawing programs. A piece of art can take hours of concentration to complete. Well what if I want to draw while I game? IOGraphica has the answer to this question. The IO Graph, easily downloaded from Iographica.com, tracks all of your mouse movements while you go about your pc activities and records them onto a document creating a unique piece of art for every session. Whether you’re playing an FPS:

or World of Warcraft:

IOgraph can track any of your mouse movements and create a unique piece from it. These best look if photoshopped with color;

And they make great desktop backgrounds.

I recommend you check the program out and see what masterpiece you can game up today.

-Jon

mogs.com

TOR Itemization and Crafting info

I found this little tidbit of information out there on the web and I thought I’d share it with you. I know a lot of you will be playing SWTOR and would like a little insight onto what you will be doing once the game goes live.

Everything you ever need to know about Itemization and Crafting in TOR

To anyone reading, feel free to cut and paste this (or link to it) if other people ask about mods or crafting, I’ve typed something similar a few times now.

Basic stuff:

All characters in TOR use one primary stat of Aim, Cunning, Strength or Willpower.

• All primary stats give 1% crit for every 140 (at level 50)
• Aim gives 0.2 ranged damage
• Strength gives 0.2 melee damage
• Cunning gives 0.2 tech damage
• Will power gives 0.2 force damage

Endurance gives 10 HP per point.

Your primary stat will always give either [Ranged + Tech] or [Melee + Force], so a Trooper will get a tech bonus from Cunning, and a Smuggler will get a ranged damage bonus from Aim in addition to the bonuses they already get from their primary stat. This causes Smugglers to do more damage with Weapon attacks, and Troopers will do more damage with Tech attacks (see: explosives) assuming both had the same base value and scaling. Strength and Willpower give both of them nothing but crit.

Secondary stats are:

• Presence – boots companion health, damage and healing
• Power – adds melee, force and tech damage
• Force/Tech Power – Found on weapons, works like Power but does not provide melee/ranged damage
• Accuracy – Gives +hit and gives armor/spell pen over 100%
• Crit – gives melee, force and tech crit
• Surge – increased critical damage
• Armor – reduces physical and kinetic damage (all Tech and Force powers unless listed otherwise are Kinetic)
• Defense – increases Parry/Deflect (deflect is just ranged parry)
• Shield – increases chance to be shielded on attack
• Absorption – increases the % of damage shaved off shielded attacks
• Alacrity – Cast/channel Haste
• Expertise – PvP stat. Increases damage and healing done, reduces damage taken.

Basic Equipment Information:

All character have 9 armor slots, 3 relic slots, 1 mainhand and 1 offhand slot.

9 slots are: Head, Chest, Hands, Waist, Legs, Feet, Wrists, Ear and Implant

Mainhands Weapons: Lightsabers (single and double), vibroswords and knives, blaster pistols and rifles, sniper rifles, assault cannons, scatterguns (shotguns), and electrostaves. Gauntlets and Training swords are also listed as being in the game, but are insignificant past level 6, or not in the game as far as I can tell.

Offhands: Focus, shields, generators, lightsabers and blaster pistols.

Relics: Relics are poorly implemented currently, but they are just stat-sticks you make by combining matrix shards (which come from Datacrons.) Matrix Shards come in 4 colors, Red, Green, Yellow and Blue. Tri-color combinations (RGB, RGY, BYR and BYG) require level 15 and give a primary state and endurance (stat depends on the combo.) Double-color relics (YYR, BBG, etc.) give more stats, require level 24, and have a secondary stat. Single-color relics (RRR, BBB, etc.) always give your classes primary stat, have 2 secondary stats, and require level 50.

It should be noted, it is currently impossible to make some of the single-color relics as the matrix shards are not implemented correctly. The only 2 you can legitimately make to my knowledge are YYY, and possibly RRR.

Most gear is itemized currently so item types have correct core stats (i.e., no +WILL Heavy Armor.) There are a few exceptions that will be fixed (+CUN Assault Cannons, for example.)

Companions:

They share the core-stat system and all wear armor of a certain type. They do not have relic slots, but have every other slot.

Droid companions have different gear, but share the same gist to itemization. They have a Sensor Unit (Helm), 2 Cores (Chest/Pants), 2 Motors (Gloves/Feet), and 2 Parts (belt/bracers) and they all use +AIM as a stat. They still use Ear and Implant slots, sport regular Blaster-type weapons (pistols or rifles), and use normal off-hands (sheilds or generators.)

How Mods Work:

It should be first stated that not all items have mod slots and cannot be upgraded in any way.

The mod system is like socketting gems in WoW, but they give more stats and generally drop into items that, on their own, have absolutely no stats; not even armor. Armor values are determined by the type of armor (light/med/heavy), and the armor rating stat listed on mods. Damage is the same thing, but with damage modifiers and weapon types (assault cannons do more than blasters, for example.) Your level 10 armor can be your level 50 armor if you can mod it enough to keep it relevant.

Almost all mods have variable quality (not rarity.) They will have minor variations in their name, and will provide different statistical bonuses even though they will have the same level requirements and rarity.

Example: Patron MZ-40y Power Cell.

Patron is a prefix that always gives +CUN +END. y can be a number between 1 and 4 and is the indicator of quality, 4 being the best (having the highest stats.) The range from 1-4 can be fairly significant. This will drive min/maxers completely insane as you cannot craft them (currently.)

Patron MZ-401 might be [+10cun +8end] and Patron MZ-404 might be [+13cun +10end]. You have 21 mod slots that can have this variable quality “feature”, which can result in the difference of hundreds of stat points on high level mods.

Modulators:

Modulators are the only common mod shared between weapons and armor pieces. Modulator slots are found on critical crafted items, and are effectively a “free” slot. Crafted items with static stats can have modulator slots. Modulators are obtained through Underworld Trading crew missions and can have any stat, making critical crafted epics potentially the best items in the game unless high-level epic items spawn with more mod slots or static stats (both of which are expected.)

Armor:

The 6 types of Armor mods: Harness, Underlay, Overlay, Support, Circuitry, and Modulators.

Items are composed of: Harness or Underlay + 1-2 of Overlay/Support/Circuitry + Modulator (crit craft only)

Harnesses (head/leg/chest) and Underlays (everything else) always have armor rating and core stats, and no items have both Harness and Underlay slots. Overlays have core stats, support/circuitry do not.

Optimal armor items are always Harness/Underlay + Overlay (+ Support/Circuitry if 3 mods.) It is actually not worth upgrading if you lose an overlay slot because of how much better core stats are than secondary stats.

Weapons:

Weapons have the potential, unlike armor, to have 5 mod slots and have more mod types.

• Ranged: Barrel + Power Cell + (Trigger or Scope) + Color Crystal + Modulator (crit craft only)
• Melee: Power Crystal + Hilt + (Focus Lens or Matrix Emitter) + Color Crystal¹ + Modulator (crit craft² only.)

1 – Vibro weapons do not have color crystals. 2 – you cannot currently craft full lightsabers.

Barrels and Power Crystals control damage rating, Power Cells and Hilts have core stats while Triggers, Scopes, Lenses and Emitters do not. Color Crystals can have core stats (but usually just have endurance), so using vibro weapons is inadvisable.

Crafting Basics:

The general crafting system in TOR is nearly identical to WoW, except to make items you simply open a menu and send a companion to do it instead of running to the required apparatus and crafting it yourself. This is actually really convenient, especially since some crafted items take upwards of 20 minutes to craft, and your idle companions aren’t doing anything anyway. You can generally send all but 1 companion to craft, or on missions, but it’s based on your level, not how many companions you actually have. This means you can only send 4 at level 49 even though you’ll have 6 companions, whereas you can send 5/6 at level 50.

All companions, except for the ship droid who’s sole purpose is a profession bot, have bonuses to 2 professions. +Efficiency reduces the time it takes to complete missions by a percentage and +Critical increases the likelihood of getting a critical craft or acquiring epic gems, metals, fabrics, and polymers from mission-based professions. All bonuses cap out around 5-10, and some are lower (+critical to missions are +2 while crafting is +5, because missions have a 20% crit chance already, and crafting is 5% base.)

Critical crafts do 3 things:

• Armor/Weapons: Adds a modulator slot
• Mods: Makes 2
• Missions: Gives epic quality crafting materials

Reverse Engineering:

RE is TOR’s version of disenchanting. You are only able to RE items similar to ones you can craft, and the item’s overall quality determines what kind of goodies you get from it (you always get crafting materials.) Generally speaking, you should never RE anything you cannot craft as it is unprofitable.

You currently cannot RE mods. I don’t know if you ever will be able to, but I feel it has to be added in order make crafting viable endgame.

The main reason RE exists is to learn how to make better craftable items. When you RE an item that you can craft (which you learn off of trainers or schematics) there is a chance you will learn to make a better version of the same item, both in rarity and power. This is done through a prefix system, that will determine a static property being added to whatever item you RE’d.

Lets say you RE’d a Space Blaster (uncommon) and learned how to make a Commander’s Space Blaster (rare).

“Commander” is a prefix (like WoW’s “of the _____” suffixes) that adds +Presence to the item. If you don’t like the prefix you got, you just RE more Space Blasters until you get something you do want, like “Overloaded” (+power) or “Critical” (+crit rating). I do not have a full list of these, but as far as I can tell, you cannot get a prefix from crafting that gives core stats.

Now that you can make Commander’s Space Blaster, you can now RE that to learn an epic version. This epic version will retain the prefix of the first, but since it’s an epic, will have increased stats by having better base mods.

To summarize:

• Step 1: Uncommon version. Learned from trainers.
• Step 2: Rare version. Has improved stats in addition to a prefix for more stats.
• Step 3: Epic version. Has improved stats in addition to the rare prefix. They will also add another prefix “Advanced”.

You can also crit all of these crafts which will add a Modulator slot (as mentioned earlier.) Critical crafts also have a higher probability, when RE’d, of learning better patterns. Unless you fill the Modulator slot, critical crafts do nothing on their own.

Critting an epic craft leads to an obnoxiously long item name, such as: [Exceptional Advanced Commander's Space Blaster]

Specific Crafting Information:

All players can have 1 Production, and 2 other crew skills.

Sending your companions on missions is expensive and time consuming, but the only way to actually level the mission-based professions. You can level a tradeskill from 1-400 without using any mission professions as they only exist to facilitate the crafting of rare and epic items. All Mission professions provide companion gifts, and have 1 other unique feature to them in addition to resource gathering.

Production:

• Force user crew skills: Artifice and Synthweaving – Lightsabers, offhands, STR and WILL armor of all types.
• Non-Force user skills: Armormech and Armstech – Ranged weapons, AIM and CUN medium and heavy armor.
• Good for both: Biochem and Cybertech – Consumables, implant and ear slot items, droid parts.

Gathering:

World nodes are the main way of leveling these, but they do have missions which are useful for getting rarer components such as artifact fragments or color crystals for Archaeology. Droid parts are also quite rare from gathering for Slicing.

• Archaeology – Synthweaving and Artifice
• Slicing – Cybertech, makes tons of money and gets lots of free items (always take this until 50.)
• Scavenging – Armstech and Armormech
• Bioanalysis – Biochem

Missions:

• Treasure Hunting – Gemstones are used to make Weapons and typeless gear (Armstech, Artifice*, Cybertech)
• Diplomacy – Fabrics make “Light” armor (Artifice, Synthweaving)
• Investigation – Research Compounds make “Medium” armor (Synthweaving, Artifice, Armormech)
• Underworld Trading – Metals make “Heavy” armor (Armormech, Artifice, Synthweaving) Chemicals currently unused, but are for Biochem. Only source of Modulators

* - you cannot currently make full lightsabers, but this should be changed before launch.

All the professions are in a bit of a weird unfinished state right now and needs some TLC before launch, but the overall premise to them is good. Artifice makes a lot of armor items it probably shouldn’t, and Cybertech doesn’t make items it probably should (vibroswords/knives and electrostaves.) Slicing is basically a money fountain. All of these things would be reasonably simple to improve before launch.

Here is the link to the original post http://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/k5mcd/

I hope this helps you out and ill see you in the game!!

Mark

Mogs.com

SWG Guru

Starcraft Universe

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2-kM3cctn8

Originally called “World of Starcraft”, the newly named Starcraft Universe is well into development. Starcraft Universe has been in the works for almost a year now, and I must say it’s looking mighty fine. The game will be free to play for anyone that owns a copy of Starcraft 2 and will be available as a custom game map. Their game will look and play very similar to World of Warcraft except on a smaller scale version. There are currently 8 classes; 4 Protoss and 4 Terran. Each of them currently has 11 different moves, and 4 complete item sets. They are working on having 15 moves for each class and 5-6 item sets for each class before the mod launches into Beta.

Starcraft Universe will only have one instance available at it’s launch with 5-6 bosses available. Originally they planned on having servers hold 10 people for the raid, but to make it more accessible and easier to fill games they decided to cut it down to a 5 person instance for now. They plan on adding more instances after all of the bugs have been worked out and item/move sets are balanced.

The developers are planning on implementing a PvP arena setting, where there will be 3 v 3 or 4v4 (still yet to be decided) rated matches. You will be able to save up to 3 different characters to your account and choose between them between games. The character’s gear, loot, and experience will roll over between matches.  You will also receive AP (Allocation Points) with experience. These points can be pushed into individual stats which will very subtle but overtime can become significant.

I’m extremely excited for this mod for Starcraft II. This will be a very nice break from WoW and Starcraft while combining both into one of the best mods we will see in Starcraft II.

-Jon

mogs.com