MMOs – Page 24 – Windy Weather

Tera – Arrival of the Gunner

The Gunner or Arcane Engineer has arrived. Apparently the class name could not be two words, so it has been shortened to Gunner. It’s a lot of work to make a new weapon work with all the classes, so like the reaper, they chose the most popular races / gender combinations for the gunner: High Elf and Castanic, Female only. But unlike the Reaper introduction last year, the Gunner starts at level 1. And the rumor about the North American release requiring a toon with a level of at least 13 on the same server are not true.

The Gunner Was a Mess to Start

But the first day has been quite a mess really. Rather than the appointed time of 10am Pacific, the start was more like 11am, and the servers went down almost immediately. It was more like 12 noon before they were stable.

The PVE servers were too busy and I created a Gunner on a PVP server just to see what was up, but as soon as I did, all the servers went down for a patch and were gone for about half an hour. Later I tried a RP server [ Roll Play ] which has special rules about chat language and toon names. But that server was as busy as the normal PVE servers so I gave up on that server immediately. I need to have access to my guild banks, and my guilds are only on the PVE servers.

Basically everybody who didn’t have to work, and it looks like many took vacation, started up their Gunner as soon as they could. So the servers were loaded with everyone starting on the Island of Dawn. Unlike GW2, there is only one starting area in Tera, so all 11 channels were pretty well mashed. Continue reading “Tera – Arrival of the Gunner”

Wow Macros – Save Some Time

WCat_2016_05_04_11_21_12_402xx — Wow Macro Panel

Wow has a macro facility that allows you to conveniently repeat actions by pressing a button. Essentially a macro types whatever you like into chat as if you had typed it. There are a slew of macro commands, and you can find a tutorial here. But we are going to talk about a special use that we use to move a list of item codes into a macro to save a lot of typing and maybe some typos.

We have kept track of item codes for high level gear so that we can quickly outfit our toons. But we are typing these commands in each time we need new gear. Macros can save a lot of typing.

First, open the the Google sheet with the item codes that you need. Here we are going to use Paladin level 80 gear.

A90_2016_05_04_11_15_59_903 — Paladin 80 Gear

Now select just the numbers in a vertical column. You can select armor and weapons and possibly the accessories too, but there is a limit of 255 characters in a Wow Macro, and armor and accessories comes pretty close to the maximum.

Now create a txt file using notepad, on the desktop and paste the text into the text file. If you use a smarter editor, you may not get what you want. You just want text and line breaks.

A90_2016_05_04_11_16_56_794 — Just the item codes in Notepad

Now type .additem<space> in front of the first item and then select, copy and paste it in front of all the lines.

A90_2016_05_04_11_17_40_350 — The macro lines

So now we have our macro. These are the commands we type to create the gear.

Now let’s create the macro.

WCat_2016_05_04_11_19_41_744xxx — ESC and then choose Macros

WCat_2016_05_04_11_20_58_411xx — Type slash macro in the chat window

Or you can type /macro into the chat window to bring up the Macro window.

Notice that General Macros is selected. You can have macros for the whole account or just the one character.

Click New.

WCat_2016_05_04_11_22_16_699xx

And then fill out the box with a name and Icon for your macro.

WCat_2016_05_04_11_22_45_854xx — Enter a name and icon

I chose an icon that suggests a Paladin class and included the level of the gear that it would create.

Now use ALT Tab to get back to notepad, select all the text and Ctrl/ C to copy it. Then return to the macro window and use Ctrl/ V to paste the text into the macro commands box.

WCat_2016_05_04_11_23_15_240x — Completed macro

Now click Save.

WCat_2016_05_04_11_23_38_924x

Now you can drag the icon to an out of the way slot on your spell bar.

WCat_2016_05_04_11_24_16_102x — Row 3 of the spell bar

Make sure you have enough space in your bags and then to create all the gear just click on the icon on the spell bar. ONCE ; )

WCat_2016_05_04_11_24_34_931x — New Gear Created

Another useful macro is one to create some Frostweave Bags, for your bags or bank slots. It is quite a chore to scroll through the icons to find the right one. But it’s there.

WCat_2016_05_04_11_29_00_704x — Create a few frostweave bags

:ww

GW2 – Falling Through The World

I was working Diessa Plateau in the North West corner in a quarry being attacked by the Dredge. The Dredge and their vehicles are popping up around the area and I’m working on an event to kill them. At one point, I think I was killing a vehicle when I suddenly fell through the world. I immediately hit Print Screen to capture the screen as I was falling.

I wandered around for several minutes taking pictures and trying to find a way back into the world. I was unable to get back into the world from below. After several minutes I took a nearby waypoint to return to the normal area of play.

Continue reading “GW2 – Falling Through The World”

GW2 Killing Zhaitan the Elder Dragon and Other Things

It has been a busy week. We have been working on our personal stories to get ready for the upcoming update. A future update will be changing the storylines One of the changes will be to the last segment of the original GW2 story – the Killing of the Elder Dragon Zhaitan. Briefly, the story segment will go from a 5 man dungeon, to a 1-5 man instance that can be solo’ed. I wanted to experience the original before the change. There are no plans to change the Explore mode of the dungeon.

There is a photo album here of our fight, certainly not complete, but there are YouTube videos of the entire hour long encounter, so no need to be detailed. There are no real details or spoilers, except pictures of Zhaitan, which is pretty amazing. Continue reading “GW2 Killing Zhaitan the Elder Dragon and Other Things”

Tera – New Dreadspire Dungeon and Other NonSense

In a few days, Tera will release an update with the Dreadspire Dungeon. The content of this dungeon shows that they are beginning to lose any semblance of creativity at Bluehole. This dungeon is merely an excuse to allow level 65 players to hammer things that they have to work at and to get some re-hashed gear and skins that Bluehole hopes you will find interesting.

To see what I mean, have a look at the stream that shows you the dungeon. Dreadspire Intro Stream. The dungeon is described here. Basically it is a 20 level stack up of the same circular arena over and over with a different Boss at each level. Crack the crystal in the center to start the battle. End of story.

The bosses are all those that you’ve seen before. Of course after you go through all the ones from the original game – like Basilisks and Jesters – you see the ones from the Fate of Arun expansion. Big deal. And they have all the same hack, yes hack, that makes them more challenging. The skill bar resets over and over as you fight them. These bosses need to have so much HP that a single health bar would be boring, so the bar has all the colors of the rainbow which count down as you wear down the boss to zero. Sigh…

Continue reading “Tera – New Dreadspire Dungeon and Other NonSense”

Tera – Sky Castles for the .00001%

Tera_2015_03_12_13_53_15_732 — Outside Velika

Sky Castles are for the .000000001% of Tera’ns. Wonder why they didn’t make them for all, or many more, of us?

Read more to see the Enmass Twitch video that describes the castles.

Basically there are 20 castles. Two factions – PvP and PvE, but to have access to one, you must be in one of the top 10 guilds in your faction. Castles are awarded each quarter based on a complex formula, and if you lose ranking, then you lose your castle. Apparently you don’t lose all those customizations that you bought for your castle, and there are a boat load of them, but you have nowhere to display those since you no longer have a castle to show them off.

What a loser.

This is sort of like the Elitist Vanarch thing that was in force when I first joined Tera. Back then, maybe two years ago, there were a few – 3 or 4 – Vanarchs that were elected to “govern” areas of Tera. Basically the only power they had that meant anything to the vast majority of voters was setting the taxes that the NPCs charged on transactions, and Duh, everyone voted for the guild leader that promised zero taxes.

So, eventually, Tera scrapped the whole Vanarch thing.

But they seem to have this thing for Elitist features that benefit the largest guilds and their leaders rather than building in features that benefit the large populations in the game.

Continue reading “Tera – Sky Castles for the .00001%”

Tera – Fashion? Where are we going?

All the MMOs I’m playing are providing ways that separate how you look from the Stats of your gear. People want to dress up, Either for the current holiday, or in keeping with their character self image.

Wow added “Transmogrification” which changes gear to look like other gear. And of course then began providing “Templates” which were stat-less gear either for $$ or for achievements.

GW2 added a similar way to change the look of gear. Every piece of gear that you own locks that look into your whole account so you can modify any like piece of gear to have that look. And you can mix and match pieces of gear.

Tera had a scheme similar to Wow’s Transmog, but removed it and now has Costumes which are special templates that are overlays for your entire armor set or weapon. No mixing and matching with armor pieces for this scheme. Costumes, both weapons and armor, are purchased with points from Achievements, like the Battlegrounds [aka Arenas], with “Fashion Coupons” that are farmed from large monsters, or purchased in the store.

Tera and GW2 both provide these Costumes. GW2, it seems, cannot make up their minds about whether to have transmute or costumes. They have both. Costumes are primarily obtained from the store and cover up all your armor. Weapon and armor skins are obtained as achievements or in the store.

Here’s a particularly silly example of a costume for Wintera. An Elin dressed up in a snow suit. Don’t get me started on all the swimsuit costumes for both male and female characters. You get the idea. There’s even an achievement, in both Wow and Tera for killing a Boss in a swimsuit. Of course any costume will do to get the achievement. Continue reading “Tera – Fashion? Where are we going?”

Tera – Battlegrounds for Fashions

Another way to get great fashions, if you like black, is Battlegrounds. I’ve been doing the Corsair Stronghold over and over to get costumes. To get a costume, you need 7000 points, which you can get in about 3 long days of work in the Corsair Stronghold. Starting at level 30 you can queue for the battlegrounds. I’ve tried the Kumasylam, and you may like that one. The Corsair Stronghold is sort of Storm the Castle kind of event where each team of 20 toons alternatively tries to storm and defend the castle. Each run takes 10-25 minutes and gives you from 150-500 points depending on Lose or Win. And once a day you can do the Pirate Daily quest, which gives good loot and 200 points.

So as it turns out it doesn’t take that long to get your 7000 points, and along the way you’ll get a couple levels, and maybe a couple of hundred Gold in loot mailed to you for your wins.

But don’t take it very seriously, because you are going to die enough to get the Black Death achievement for dying 100 times and the “Death Eater” title.

Continue reading “Tera – Battlegrounds for Fashions”

Tera – Fashion Coupons for Gear Costumes

We have discussed the templates previously available with Fed Bills, and the removal of the template system from Tera in previous posts. I’ve not been playing Tera for a while and there have been some updates. Back in April there was an event for about a month where you could obtain Luxury Fashion Coupons. We were each given 20, but it took 200-500 to purchase anything useful. I still have some of those coupons, but the event is over.

Update 16 Dec 2014: As of the Fate of Arun update, it is no longer viable to get Fashion Coupons with low level toons. The drop rate has apparently been reduced to 10-20% of it’s previous number, so rather than working 3 days for 400 coupons with Basilisks or Nagas in Celestial Hills, it now takes much longer. I’ve given up farming Fashion Coupons. You get 5 coupons for doing completing a dungeon with Instance Match, but that will take far too long to get 200-500 coupons for a nice fashion.

Sometime over the summer [2013 date not certain] a new type of Fashion Coupon was created. This time, the event continues. We are going to discuss my experience trying to farm these coupons and show some of the many costumes you can obtain. There are literally 100s of armor designs and one weapon for each class. Many of the armor designs are not very interesting since they are actually just low level armor that each of us have played in the game. But if you want to “Dress Down” and look like a lower level player, then these are interesting.

Some of the designs are quite interesting and some appear to be unique. But first let’s talk about how to get and use these new Fashion Coupons.

Updated 18 Nov. See Below.
Continue reading “Tera – Fashion Coupons for Gear Costumes”

GW2 – Don’t Forget Runes

As as Engineer or a Guardian you will find that you are one of the two races with no speed boost skill built in. So you need to find a way to move faster. Runes are the answer.

There are two types of runes that boost your speed if you use all 6 of them. That is, if you use an identical rune in all your armor pieces.

Superior Rune of the Traveler and Superior Rune of Speed both provide a 25% boost in movement speed, but the Traveler Rune costs almost 3 times as much.

Continue reading “GW2 – Don’t Forget Runes”