Ragnar’s Realms

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Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore, NPCs, Wrath of the Lich King

Once upon a time, cavemen roamed the earth, great volcanic eruptions disrupted the cavemen’s gaming time, and I wrote an article called “Know Your Lore: Good Dragons.” Now it’s time to cover the “bad dragons” - the Blue, Black, Chromatic and Infinite Dragonflights. And yes, I know you’re all going to complain about the blue dragonflight being “bad”, but unless you really want to run every dungeon at level 80 without a mage, you’re gonna have to fight them.

Blue Dragonflight

• Leader: Malygos.
• Characteristics: The blue dragons may be the most intelligent of all the dragonflights. They’re the masters of magic, the weavers of the arcane, and the guardians of icy areas. Of course they’re going to be villains at some point! “Arcane magic corrupts” is one of the primary lessons of WoW, along with “elves are jerks” and “never get involved in a land war in Kalimdor.”

Blue Dragonflight, cont’d

• Job: The word on the street is that Malygos may have been the creator of arcane magic on Azeroth, but that’s just a rumor. What we do know is that Malygos and the blue dragons consider it their duty to guard the use of magic in Azeroth and make sure it’s only being used for good. They’re probably not super-pleased with the blood elves, warlocks, undead, etc. flinging their precious magic around like so much monkey poo.
• History: The blues have an … intriguing history. When Neltharion created the Demon Soul and attacked his fellow aspects, Malygos and the blue dragons were hit the hardest. Almost all the dragonflight was wiped out by the attack, and Malygos lost his mind. Most of the blue dragons retreated to Northrend, where Malygos makes his home in the Nexus. The blues regained some measure of power after Deathwing was defeated at Grim Batol, but Malygos was still a rare prescence in this world.
• And now … After the races of Azeroth visited Outland, a disguised blue dragon took some members of the Nether Dragonflight back to Northrend. Their energies helped restore Malygos to his full sanity and power. What happened next was sort of like what would occur if Ted Williams’ head was unfrozen and he saw Barry Bonds. Malygos discovered that instead of being a closely guarded art among the most intelligent of spellcasters, arcane magic was being used by pretty much anyone — zombies, magic crackheads, midgets, overly muscular humans in dresses, etc. So Malygos has decided it’s time to kill all mortal spellcasters, especially the Kirin Tor in Dalaran. We get to fight him at level 80.
• Famous members: Azuregos, Sapphiron, Arcanagos (Nightbane in Kara.)
• Locations: Northrend, Winterspring, Azshara.

Black Dragonflight

• Leader: Neltharion/Deathwing.
• Characteristics: Originally the warders of the earth, the Black Dragonflight has fallen under their master’s evil and now want to conquer/destroy all life on Azeroth. Also they have a “thing” for the red dragons.
• Job: Hey, baby, wanna kill all humans?
• History: Long story short, Neltharion was originally the protector of the Earth, but the Old Gods corrupted him into wanting power and dominance. He convinced the other dragon aspects to put their power in an artifact and then turned that artifact against them. He then tried to hide in Draenor, and when that failed, disguised himself as a human to try to get to some of Alexstrasza’s eggs. While trying to get to the eggs, he was attacked by the four other dragon aspects and driven away. He left behind two children, Onyxia and Nefarian, both of whom also enjoyed cross-dressing as human nobility.
• And now … Almost all black dragons are under the control of Neltharion’s kids, although there are a few independent — or possibly working for Big Daddy - black dragons scattered in Outland. No one knows where Neltharion himself has gotten off to, although he’s definitely alive and possibly in Outland. Nefarian has set himself up as Lord of Blackrock Mountain and is experimenting to create a new race of dragon, although you probably stopped him. Good for you! His sister, Onyxia, is more the drama queen sort, and splits time between her lair in Dustwallow Marsh and “assisting” the King of Stormwind.
• Famous members: Nefarian, Onyxia, General Drakkisath, Razorgore, Ebonroc, Firemaw, Flamegor
• Locations: Dustwallow Marsh, Blackrock Mountain, Burning Steppes, Searing Gorge, Blade’s Edge Mountains.

Chromatic Dragonflight

• Leader: Lord Victor Nefarius/Nefarian.
• Characteristics: The Chromatic Dragonflight, as you might guess, is multicolored and shiny. They’ve been bred by Nefarian to be the new Black Dragonflight, but like all mad scientists except me, Nef bit off more than he could chew. Many of the dragons came out with strong elemental weaknesses.
• Job: In theory, they’re supposed to guard Nef’s lair, as well as prop up the shadow government of Rend Blackhand and the Dark Horde. In reality, they got their butt kicked up and down Blackrock Mountain for about two years until all the adventurers suddenly disappeared.
• History: The Chromatic Dragonflight was actually an original creation of Deathwing, who seems to be impotent at producing his own eggs for some reason. Deathwing wanted to create a dragonflight with all of the magical powers of the five flights but no weaknesses.That experiment failed for reasons unknown, and Nefarian tried his hand at it ten thousand years later. His drakes and dragons turned out okay, but a lot of his drakonids (the big Broodlord-like dudes) had vicious weaknesses to a certain school of magic.
• And now … Disappointed in his son, Nefarian has sent a message to the orcs that are breeding nether dragons in Outland: the Chromatic Dragonflight lives on. As the black dragon Lady Sinestra puts it, “While he has fallen, the experiment continues. My master… He continues the work that his progeny began.”
• Famous members: Chromaggus, Gyth.
• Locations: Blackrock Spire, Blackwing Lair.

Infinite Dragonflight

• Leader: Unknown, but they serve one master. Speculation on WoWWiki includes Kil’jaeden, Deathwing (who must be busy with all this plotting), the Old Gods, and some sort of creepy alternaverse Medivh.
• Characteristics: This mysterious dragonflight has been working to disrupt history in the Caverns of Time.
• Job: It’s hard to say why they’re trying to mess things up, since we don’t know who sent them, but their activities appear to be trying to prevent the current Horde of Azeroth from ever coming to be.
• History: They just kinda showed up in the timestream one day.
• And now … They seek to stop Thrall from escaping Durnholde and Medivh from bringing the orcs over from Draenor. They claim a lot of suffering and death wouldn’t have happened had Medivh died before opening the portal, which is a point to consider.
• Famous members: Epoch Hunter, Chrono Lord Deja, Aeonus.
• Locations: Caverns of Time.

Thanks to WoWWiki, Worldofwarcraft.com, and the forums, as always.

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Today,  

Have you always wanted to ride a motorcycle, but think they’re too dangerous? Then you definitely need to check out these sweet virtual bikes.

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Today,  

Filed under: News, Downloads

Triumph Studios’ quirky title Overlord was fairly decently recieved when we got our hands on it. The humor worked, the formula was fun, plus you got minions. The Pikimin-like gameplay worked so well that the devs figured it would be a worth endevor if they put resources into DLC development. However this DLC has taken much longer than expected to get here, so it may not sell as well as it might have back in November. The two packs that were slated for last year are here, along with a third, which is new. The “Raising Hell” Pack will be 800 MSpoints and is a single player expansion, adding new locations and goals. The “Challenge” pack will be 400 MSpoints and adds 7 multiplayer maps, and a harder single-player difficulty. Finally, the “Split-Screen” Pack will enable local split-screen play, and includes a single new map.

The official, in-depth, DLC description after the break:

Continue reading Better late than never: Overlord DLC on XBLM

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: Shaman, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Talents, Buffs

In the interests of full coverage, we’ll mention this one, but don’t keep your hopes up: the latest build on the PTR has reverted the Nature’s Swiftness and Elemental Mastery sharing a cooldown change, so Elemental Shamans will once again be able to crank out an instant Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt crit. Unfortunately, they shouldn’t count on it, as lots of changes have gone back and forth on the PTR. It could be that the next time the PTR comes up with a new patch, this change will be right back in.

But it does serve as a reminder that no matter how bad some PTR nerfs may seem, nothing is finalized until it hits the live realms. The Test Realm is for testing, so we shouldn’t be surprised when Blizzard does exactly that with it.

Thanks, Giusepe!

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: Culture, PC, Strategy, Business

Air Assault Task Force, ever heard of it? Neither have we, but apparently the little known combat sim has not escaped the attention of Boeing, which has enlisted developer ProSIM to create a custom version of the title to be used as a “hyper-realistic ground combat simulator” for use in war games. With the ability to obliterate countless virtual lives, Air Assault Task Force puts the notion of games as killing simulators into perspective, but since the game is played from the cold comfort of an overhead tactical display, it makes everything a-okay.

According to Boeing, the title will be used in conjunction with tutoring software that the firm is currently developing, adding that the final product will “watch” a player as he plays, making suggestions along the way and after the fact, most likely on how to be a more efficient killing machine. That is until Matthew Broderick hacks the network and sends us all to the brink of global thermonuclear war. If you need us, we’ll be in the Joystiq bunker. We have a bunker, right?

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: Contests and Giveaways

Today, the fifth day of our Super Halo 3 / PGR4 Qee Giveaway, we offer yet another Qee and another congrats message to yesterday’s big winner. So, Jazz, congratulations on winning a spiffy PGR4 Qee that’ll one day ride shotgun with you in your new 2009 Nissan GT-R.

For the second day in a row, we’re giving out yet another PGR4 Qee thanks to the sincerely sincere folks over at Toy2r. And by now, you should know the drill. We’ll be awarding a PGR4 Qee to one randomly chosen fanboy who follows the directions below. You should also know that this giveaway ends TODAY at 5:00PM eastern, so get your entry in soon’ish … and here’s how:

• Today we’re feeling a bit lazy, so we’re allowing you to be lazy as well. To enter into today’s PGR4 Qee giveaway all we want you to give us is ONE random word. Yup, that’s it. So, to enter today’s giveaway, we want you to comment on this post with one word, any word.
• One comment per person. Multiple comments by the same user will be disqualified. We’ll accept entries until later today, Tuesday, March 4th at 5:00PM eastern. You must be at least 18 years old to enter. This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only.
• On Wednesday, March 5th we’ll randomly choose and announce one winner.
• One lucky winner will receive one PGR4 Qee valued at $20.

Another big thank you goes out to Toy2r for allowing us to give out the Qee goods and if you need the official rules, make a jump here.

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Today,  

Filed under: Mage, Patches, Arcane Brilliance

It’s time once again to celebrate our mageness with Arcane Brilliance, and this time we’re going where I certainly have not gone before: the PTR. I finally got my character transfers to go through, and my immediate thought was to slip on into the PTR and check out how the changes to mage spells and talents affected my character with the addition of Patch 2.3. A lover of experiments, I figured one was in order, and so happily spent the morning blasting things in the name of gaming science.

The parameters of said experiment were the following: I used the same spec on both the PTR and the live server, and decided that for simplicity’s sake I would record data on three separate types of spell damage: using only Fireball, using only Scorch, and using my normal spell rotation. Now, you’ll notice that my spec is a basic fire spec, newly reclaimed after some time spent as a blended POM/Pyro mage. I have decent gear, not the best, not the worst. I would say that I wear middle-of-the-road items, some Tier 4, Spellstrike and Spellfire, and the enchants and gems I have are also of the meh category. They aren’t terrible, but I haven’t had the opportunity to deck out this mage with all the snazzy +12 spell damage gems I would like. So the following are the experiences of a mage with some lower-end raiding gear, a fire spec, and a curious nature.

With those boundaries set, I first tumbled on out to the Dark Portal to see what I could do against the demons flooding the steps there. I found that it was a bit challenging blasting away at them, simply because I was competing for their hit points with the NPCs around me, and I would invariably either pull aggro or they would die too fast to get a clear idea of how my spells were damaging them. This challenge in mind, I got the following numbers while I was there:

PTR Server

Fireball only: Non-critting spells ranged from 1937 and 2407 spell damage, and Critting spells from 2908 to 3826.

Scorch only: Non-critting spells ranged from 804 to 1037 and those that crit landed between 1216 and 1537 spell damage to the target.

Spell rotation (Fire blast, 5 Scorch, 4 Fireball): DPS ranged between 553.5 and 892.8.

Live Server

Fireball only: Non-critting spells ranged from 1400 to 2168 spell damage, and Critting spells from 2000 to 3305.

Scorch only: Non-critting spells ranged from 818 to 987 and those that crit landed between 1259 and 1504 spell damage to the target.

Spell rotation (Fire blast, 5 Scorch, 4 Fireball): DPS ranged between 591.6 and 1093.5.

Now I looked at these numbers and wondered if the lack of variation was caused by the aggro challenges or if they were valid as they stood. In order to further satiate my curiosity, I decided to pay a visit to every caster’s best friend, Dr. Boom. While there I encountered a couple more mages out testing their skills. One in particular was kind enough to talk to me about her experiences so far, the lovely Barbs of Dath’remar. Through the nifty addition to the inspect UI I was able to see she had almost the exact same spec as I did. Her gear was better than mine, and so her DPS was significantly higher. She was finding that she too was doing about the same DPS on the PTR as on the live server. We grouped and spent the next hour happily frying Dr. Boom to a crisp. These are the numbers I logged from that session:

PTR Server

Fireball only: Non-critting spells ranged from 1985 and 2448 spell damage, and Critting spells from 2974 to 3826.

Scorch only: Non-critting spells ranged from 915 to 1023 and those that crit landed between 1362 and 1515 spell damage to the target.

Spell rotation (Fire blast, 5 Scorch, 4 Fireball): DPS ranged between 674.4 and 824.3.

When I bid my new friend adieu and hopped back onto the live server to blast Dr. Boom, these are the numbers I found:

Live Server

Fireball only: Non-critting spells ranged from 1819 to 2015 spell damage, and Critting spells from 2000 to 3305.

Scorch only: Non-critting spells ranged from 865 to 1037 and those that crit landed between 11404 and 1539 spell damage to the target.

Spell rotation (Fire blast, 5 Scorch, 4 Fireball): DPS ranged between 450.0 and 661.0.

I realize that these are only the results of my own practical experiment into spell damage, and I had only my own hand as a recording device rather than any information gathering mod. I find that my spell damage is about the same on the live server and the PTR, but I have read in a couple of places that mathematically there is an increase to DPS, particularly for Fire and Frost mages. I found very little change in the numbers I was hitting, but that is not taking into account the stopcasting addition to the gameplay. Where I was able to cast between 4-5 fireballs at the Dark Portal demons on the live server, on the PTR I was hitting them with between 6-9. Even if the spells are doing the same amount of damage, being able to cast the spell more times means you will do more damage to the mob overall. There was even a trick I read about where mages were binding their scorch spell to their mouse wheel, and getting amazing results. I am temped to try that out myself once the patch goes lives.

In the end I look at my experiment as a success, if only for the fact that I will go into the game after Patch 2.3 with both eyes open. I had expected a huge increase to my DPS, and there really was none. I realize that I did not take into account the changes to Meta gems available to mages and there might very well be a greater DPS boost for mages with the top end T5/T6 gear and their shiny spell haste, but alas that must remain for someone else to assess.

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: Video, God of War

Can this game get any more beautiful? It seemingly does every time we see it. It looks stunning in screens, but looks even more gorgeous in motion. You may think it’s a PS2 game, but then when you remember it’s on a handheld, you’ll also be screaming, just like our obnoxious headline.

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Admin wrote: 

Filed under: News, Xbox Live Arcade

Microsoft just announced plans to bridge the gap between the XNA development community with the Xbox Live community by allowing XNA games to be tested, tried and shared over Xbox Live. This new service will be rolled out “soon” and will allow Live members to access, rate, review and play new community created XNA Arcade games which will greatly increase the XBLA’s current library. And, as a sampling of what’s to come when the service debuts, Microsoft has just placed seven beta versions of XNA created games onto the XBLA so that the developers can get important feedback about their projects. Games including JellyCar, Little Gamers, TriLinea, RocketBall, ProximityHD, Culture and our personal love, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. Now THIS is what we call user created content. Bravo!

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Today,  

Filed under: Action

When a list of canceled Blizzard titles emerged at this year’s DICE, MTV’s Stephen Totilo noticed one game conspicuously absent: Starcraft Ghost, which we probably all assumed was dead. But Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce told MTV “It never was technically canceled. It’s just a focus thing for us right now.” … Umm, confirmed?

Yes, we’ve heard rumblings about a Ghost rebirth before, but so far absolutely nothing has come of it. That leaves us with one question: If a game almost assuredly isn’t coming out in your lifetime, isn’t it pretty much canceled anyway?

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