Evil will Always triumph

because good is dumb. - Spaceballs

I didn't want to have to ever use this quote, but alas, that time has come. As you know, The Witching Night (Nights?) is/are here. So I decided (over playing Fallout 3) to venture into Black Fire Pass for some RvR action. There was action, sorta.

What I found was Destruction pinned inside their warcamp, and a plethora of Order fighting them. It seemed pretty clear Order had the superior numbers. However, they also lacked any sort of sense and patience. Instead of letting Destruction actually come out of the base, they attacked them on the fringes.

Guess what is on the fringes, artillery and Hero mobs. So even with the greater numbers, the Witching Night Public Quest was being won by Destruction. Many people hung back and tried to tell the rest to get back. They did not listen, as the thirst for renown and xp was just too much.

Destruction ended up winning the Public Quest, not that they could do stage two... as there was too much Order. Still I am saddened by this defeat. I should have played Fallout 3 last night.

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The Zerging Night

Warhammer Online recently announced its first in-game event, The Witching Night. One part of this event, is a special Public Quest that takes place in RvR area of each Tier. It requires you to kill ~100 enemies before the other side does. When you do, a Lord spawns and you can get some Witching loot and influence. Let me just say, success!

Black Fire Pass (T3) was crazy last night. Never have I seen so many players out in an RvR zone. There was at least 50 folks on each side, likely more. The fighting was constant and all over the map. It was a great way to spend the hour I had to spare that night in the game.

Sadly, I don't think the PQ worked right, as I never saw it come up and never gained any influence. That did not really matter though, as I was too distracted with the fighting. Also, the XP gained over the hour was sub-par, since I was in a warband. I am still rank 25 and maybe gained 2 bars? That was with turning in the 20 players killed quests at least 5 times.

On a positive note, my system handled the huge fight just fine. No slide show or anything. Overall, it was a great time and I hope to find that kind of action tonight.

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Fallout 3: It has begun

I got to play about an hour or so of Fallout 3 last night. Everything went smooth, except exiting which locked up the PC. I really wish I had ordered the 360 version, but life goes on. So here are some thoughts:

• Great style and a nice change from fantasy.
• Graphics are pretty good, but I was only in the bunker. The real graphics are outside.
• Story is good so far.
• The 'growing up' way was an interesting character development method. Seeing everyone else age along with me was good.
• I hate Butch.
• VATS (the targeting) is pretty neat, only used it a few times though.
• Butch got his in the end, yay for open gameplay.
• It really seems as if you will return to the bunker at some point, as there were things to do that required some high skills.
• Post-Apocalyptic Greasers.

So I ended the game as I walked out into the outside world. Should be interesting.

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Fallout 3: I suck

So Fallout 3 arrived this evening. With great anticipation I opened it up... to find I ordered the WRONG version. I had ordered the Fallout 3 Collectors Edition from Amazon.com. However, Amazon chose not to mention the name of the system anywhere in the title of the game, and I chose the PC version.

So instead of playing it on my 360 on the 60" HD TV, I will have to at the computer. Installing now with loads of DRM crap.

All I can say is.... sdvdafvdfvdfv

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Get over here!

"Fatality" - Mortal Kombat

The pull mechanic in WAR is an interesting gameplay mechanic. Two classes have a single target pull, White Lion and Marauder. As these are just a single target pull, they do not get noticed as much. There are two other classes with AoE pulls which is causing a bit of a stir. The Engineer has the ElectroMagnet and the Magus has Chaotic Rift. It should be noticed that to get these abilities, they have to go 13 points into a mastery tree.

I play an Engineer, but I like my grenades... so no pulls for me. However I do see some issues with this ability. When combined with Bright Wizard/Sorceress AoE spells, it can become extremely deadly. I have seen this first hand. The situation is not as hopeless as the forums may say though.

I am still in T3, and have only seen 1 Engineer using it in a scenario. Destruction pretty much quit the game and it ended early. I thought you guys were hardcore and Order was weak? I have been in several matches with a Magus that had the ability. It is quite annoying, but in those cases it was not game breaking. I took it upon myself to stop that Magus. It is a location ability, so to use it the character has to come to where he wants people pulled. I would save my Konockbacks and interrupts just for him. Didn't work all the time, but it did sometime.

My real gripe with the ability is that it pretty much makes collision detection pointless. We go through the trouble of setting up a wall of tanks and this ability completely negates it. I do not think it needs to be removed though. Here are some thoughts:

• Maybe Toughness and Strength should play into the resist calculation. This way tanks would be more likely to hold their ground.
• It should not be instant cast. Also, a visual cue that the pull is about to happen may help people feel more in control. It would also give more of a chance to stop the pull.
  
• The radius is currently 65 feet. That seems a bit much, how about 32 feet?
• The pull through walls/doors is a bug and hopefully has been fixed.
• Can we have Scorpion's voice say "get over here!"?
• Mortal Kombat II (the movie) was awful.

The AoE pull should be a situational tool, not the dominating force it has become. The games building geometry/geography can make it near impossible to stop or delay sometimes. It is a neat idea and helps break apart a Zerg-ball, so I would hate to see it removed completly.

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Monday Gripe: Healer Whining

Yes, it is that time again. For some reason I am especially grouchy this morning. The Eagles and Phillies both won, so I should be happy. Yet here I am working, so I am not.

First let me say I love healers... most of them. We could not win without them. However, there is a small segment of healers that have been especially vocal on the forums since Mythic balanced out the renown that they get.

Now they are all quitting, worst decision ever made, blah, blah. You know the drill. No one wants to hear it, especially me. I play a defensive class, and guess what I end up playing defense! You know that guy guarding the objective or flag, that is me. Guess what I end up doing for a large part of the match, I'll give you a hint... not fighting.

So when the match ends, I get very little of anything. Does this bother me? Not really, because THIS IS A TEAM GAME. It isn't about how much XP or renown I got, it is whether we won or lost. I know this is a foreign concept to some.

Quit your whining and heal so our team can win. And to all the other healers out there, Thanks.

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Worst Grind Ever?

For me, that award goes to:Yes, a road. 495 is the beltway around Washington DC. I used to have to travel on it daily, now only rarely. Still, it makes me sick just thinking about having to get on it. The traffic knows no logic or time of day. The best laid plans can be ruined by this beast. Why does this heavily trafficked highway go down to 2 lanes? Just one of the many questions about this Grind....

So how about you?

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Nokia 770 Internet Tablet

I recently purchased a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. This is a handy device but can be a little confusing. It is not technically a phone. That means, you can not use it as a replacement for your current phone, as it does not talk to cellphone networks (i.e. Sprint, Verizon). It does have Bluetooth capabilities and 802.11G support for wireless networks. These capabilities allow you to leverage you cellphone and home networks to give the 770 Internet access. In the case of cellphones, this would be known as tethering. You should make sure your calling plan supports unlimited data and tethering, otherwise you may receive a nasty bill.

The 770's screen is ~4.7 inches and supports a resolution of 800x480. I was pretty impressed with the quality and brightness of the screen. It is also a touch pad, which works nicely with the included stylus.

The operating system is based off of Linux, so no windows apps here. If you need a windows environment, there is a solution. There is a RDesktop port available at this link. RDesktop will allow you to connect to your windows system and have a desktop on the 770. It works well, although there can be some window sizing issues. VNC is an alternative to RDesktop and there is a client for that too.

There is a lot to talk about with the 770, so I will continue soon.

The 770 is not the latest version from Nokia, that would be the N800. That means the 770's can be had for a good price. You can read reviews and get more info from the Amazon link below, but you can probably find a better price elsewhere.

(post from an old blog attempt)

---

Links:
Nokia 770 at Amazon

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Classics: Red Storm Rising

In the previous segment of Classic Games, I wrote about F19-Stealth Fighter. This edition features another Micro Prose game, Red Storm Rising. Red Storm Rising is a submarine simulation based off of Tom Clancy's book of the same name. You take command of an American nuclear attack submarine in the North Atlantic during World War 3.

The game was released in 1988 and I played it on the same computer that I played F19 on, a 286 system with a CGA monitor. The game is extremely detailed when it comes to the submarine gameplay. I was too young to understand many of the concepts, like temperature, sonar and noise. These are all critical elements, which explains my lack of success in many cases.

There was a map of Europe, which let you know how you were doing. If your missions were unsuccessful, you would see red start to creep over the continent. News stories and medals were also a part of the game. One memory that sticks out is when you start up a new game, you have to take a Warship Identification test. If you failed this test, you could only do training missions. I am guessing this was an anti-piracy measure. Speaking of ships, there were a good number of real-world ships, planes and subs that you would use and destroy.

Like F19, the manual is outstanding. It is 100 pages and full of useful and educational information. I recently purchased a copy of Red Storm Rising off of eBay, mainly for the manual. Sadly I do not have a 5.25 disk drive around. I wonder if anyone sells a USB version? The game fetches a good price still as it is still sought after by submarine simulation fans. It was another amazing game by Micro Prose, who will appear more in this series.

Side fact: There is a board game too.

(Post taken from an older blog attempt)

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Stampede!

On Friday night (10/17) the Casualties of WAR and the forces of Order took to the field of battle in Tier 2 and 3. We did it during prime time and even gave Destruction notice of the impending assault. We want to fight players, not NPC's.

The night started off in High Pass. We had about 3 groups and tried to assault the keep. It was defended by quite a few Destruction players who had recently captured it. After our defeat, we regrouped and went for the objectives. We met no resistance and captured all of them in Empire T3. Next we went back to the keep, hoping they were still there. They were not and we easily took both keeps.

We also met up with another Warband and went on a rampage taking every objective and keep in T3. In T2 land, our group there had also taken everything possible. No sign of Destruction. That is where my night ended. After, it seems Destruction did put together a sizable force, but were soundly defeated.

A very successful night for Order, although I would have preferred more Destruction resistance. Not sure what their deal was, as they are supposed to be superior (in numbers). Just goes to show, don't listen to wining based on skewed perspectives.

T4, we are coming.

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Are Bright Wizards too bright?

One of the most common forum complaints is that Bright Wizards are overpowered. With the Combustion mechanic giving high amount of crits and skills like Playing with Fire, is it true?

Q: Are Bright Wizards overpowered?

It is true that I often see Bright Wizards at the top of the damage charts, but just as often I see Sorceresses. The whole idea of the Bright Wizard is that they are high powered, but they die extremely easily. In fact their combustion mechanic hurts them more, the more damage they do. We all know Order lacks healers, so it leaves them quite vulnerable.

The Sorceress and Bright Wizard are mirrors, but not exact mirrors, so they differ. However the Sorceress also puts out high damage. In any case, classes should not be compared with their mirror, Order should be compared against Chaos.

My answer would be no, Bright Wizards are not over powered. There is always one caveat though... ON MY SERVER. Every server has different populations, which can easily affect your perception of class balance.

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WoW 3: The Search for Grind

Due to WAR having some downtime yesterday, I fired up WoW to check out version 3.0 (Thanks Mythic?). I only have 1 character at level 70, pretty sad huh. He is a Protection Warrior who lives to tank. I also play as a tank in normal Pve and PvP, so it is a painful life.

He is decked out in a mixture of Kara gear and Badge rewards, so not great, but not too shabby. Was mostly raiding when I left WoW due to time constraints. In the end though, the repetition of raids just was not fun.

So my thoughts on version 3.0:

• The UI. The UI is just plain better than WAR and in 3.0 they have made more improvements. WAR has a lot of potential with things like the layout editor, but it has not been realized yet. I really wish they had it in a better state at launch.
• Calendar. WoW finally included a calendar in their UI. It is available to everyone, not just those in guilds. It includes game wide events on it, like the Darkmoon Faire and looks very nice. Again it beats WAR's Guild calander. Even those not in guilds should get one, this should be a standard feature.
• Currency and Pets. Things like Badges, Battlegound Marks, Mounts and vanity pets no longer take up inventory space. They have a nice tab where they are listed. They can also still be used in a hotbar. Looks very nice and should be standard fare now.
• Achievements. The achievement system is very similar to the Xbox 360 system rather than WAR. It is nice they tried to apply any that you would have earned in the past automatically. The sad part is, I got more achievements from a short time PvP'ing in WoW than I have in WAR. I am really disappointed the the RvR side of the Tome of Knowledge.
• Statistics. Again WoW trumps WAR. They included a statistics tab which tracks a a large amount of things. For Example, the highest you ever reached in any stat, amount of consumables used, loot stats, a load of combat stats and much more. Why isn't this in WAR? By the way, I have completed 964 quests in WoW.
• New Skills. The warrior has several interesting new skills on the Protection side, like Shockwave. It seems like they did make an effort to make them better for soloing and in PvP. Whether or not it works remains to be seen.
• Inscription. No experience with.
  
• Exotic Hunter Pets. These may not be new with 3.0, but they are neat. I always thought the fact that a hunter could go train most creatures in the world to use as pets as a great gameplay aspect.
  

So those are all well and good, but how did it play? I picked my new talents and went to the battlemaster. Thanks WAR, as I tried to queue up every battleground... which doesn't work the same ;) How did it go?

I don't know. I was pretty much lost and confused. Everyone seemed to be moving pretty fast and doing tons of damage. I could barely keep up with what was going on. My Prot Warrior was certainly ineffective, even against rogues. That could just be my lack of knowledge. It just seemed huge amounts of damage were being done all over the place. I did not have a very good time.

Conclusion? WoW is looking good, but I will not be going back anytime soon. There is nothing for me there. I can't raid anymore and PvP is pointless, so why play?

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WAR Report

It has been a while since i actually posted what I have been up to in game, so here is a recap.

Werit the Engineer is now BR 21/ RR 21 with a mount. I have just recently moved on to T3 lands, as I needed a change of pace from T2. Sadly, I have pretty much abandoned the PvE side of the game. Most times when I login, I have the intention of catching up, but the call of PvP is too strong. Now I fear it is too late for me.

It is a shame that I don't do PvE. There is so much on that side that I would like to see. The PQ's are fun, the lore is great and there are numerous Tome unlocks that I will never see on this character. I still only have the Portable Gyro trophy that I obtained soon after creating the character. I would like some others, but have not come across any.

Crafting has fallen by the side of the road as well. When I log in, I just want to get into the action. Crafting, while easy, just doesn't really come to my attention. I know it would be useful, but for some reason I cannot be bothered. Fighting Destruction is all Werit lives for.

Last night, I joined up with a zerg ball of order and we rolled a few T3 keeps. It was fun and I did get a bunch of Renown. Sadly, I was having a bad night on the Keep Lord PQ rolls, and placed in the 20's. There was not much Destruction resistance during the time I was there.

Things are going great with CoW. We are Rank 13 and closing in on being able to capture a keep and having guild cloaks. No issues at all within the guild, we play and have fun. that is really about it, as it should be.

My playtime is pretty much this: login, find world RvR or scenario, play. I can't ask for much more than that, as it supports short playtimes too. I am looking forward to T4, it should be crazy!

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The Forbidden Kingdom

Yesterday I took a break from WAR, for some kung-fu war. The Forbidden Kingdom is a film starting Jackie Chan and Jet Li. I am not a huge martial arts film guy, but I do enjoy them on occasion.

The plot was: good guys, bad guys and kung-fu. What more do you need? The action sequences were well done with lots of beat downs being handed down. The movie reminded me of an 80's movie too, as there was an American teenager who is in over his head and has a crazy adventure. Also, a bully gets what is coming to him.

The movie was a bit silly at times, yea King Monkey I am looking at you. It was made for Western markets, so no subtitle or dubbing needed. It is pretty amazing how Jet-Li can star in so many movies without really every saying anything. He just gets paid for ass kickings. Sounds like a sweet gig, I think I will look that up on careerbuilder.

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RvR Tome Unlocks

As I mentioned before, I am a bit frustrated with the Tome of Knowledge. Now that I have reached BR 20/ RR 20, mostly by RvR (world and scenarios), I have noticed a lack of unlocks.

There are plenty of unlocks on the PvE side, in fact it is tough not to get some of them. On the PvP side, there seem to be very little. I had expected a Keep capture to net me one... it didn't. Capturing Objectives don't give any unlocks either.

The only ones I have seen are killing X amount of Y class. There are some for critical hits too... but those are also PvE. It could be that I have been really unlucky and just have not received any. I somehow doubt that though, as I PvP a lot.

The Tome has so much potential, why was RvR left out in the cold? I would love to know the player who has killed me the most and who I've killed the most. I would like a title for capturing an objective a few times, or just for my general efforts on a certain front. It seems like these would be no-brainers... so what gives?

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Friday Question: Post Frequency

This one goes out to all you bloggers and readers out there.

Q: What is your philosophy on posting frequency? Is less more, or more the merrier?

I generally try to keep it to one post a day. There are a couple reasons for this: One, I don't want to run out of things to write about. Two, I like to give what I have written a fair amount of time on the front page (or top of RSS).

Of course, I usually have plenty of thoughts on what to write about, so I could probably handle more than one post a day. And to my second point, that may just be the way I think it should be and not reality.

What do you guys think?

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I'm not dead yet

With the impending announcement of Bioware's new Star Wars theme MMO (yea, it is pretty much official now), you might be surprised that Star Wars: Galaxies is still alive and kicking.

I know some of you out there get angered by this fact, for whatever non-nonsensical reason. But alas it is true, and I am thankful for it. I do not currently play SWG, but I think it is a very good game. If I had more time, I would play.

the folks over at SOE are getting ready to release a new Chapter, The Battle of Echo Base. Echo Base is the location where the snow battle takes place in Empire Strikes Back. The battle is actually a Heroic Encounter (instanced dungeon/raid'ish). Depending on whether your are Imperial or Rebel, you will have a different experience. It is PvE only, so now PvP in there.

One new addition is the use of vehicles, so you can get in an AT-ST or a Snowspeeder and fight. This is something new to the SWG game, so hopefully it will work out well and we will see more in the future.

It is great to see them put more iconic content in the game, as the original trilogy is what I think Star Wars is. SOE and Lucas Arts have obviously not given up on SWG yet. What does that mean for Bioware's venture? Who knows, it could be something totally different than SWG which would allow both to live together.

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Point Blank'in

As always, I am having a lot of fun with Werit, my Engineer. He is now Battle Rank 20/ Renown Rank 19 and spending a lot of time in scenarios. I just recently purchased my mount, so no more walking around like a sucker.

Point Blank is still loads of fun. Yesterday, I was in Mourkain Temple involved in a pretty even match. Engineers are great in this scenario, as Destruction likes to bunch together. Bunching together means a lot of grenade fun :)

The match is winding down and Destruction has the artifact. They had taken it back to the area in front of their spawn point to defend. We were having a tough time getting close do to all the ranged attackers. Both teams were close to 500 with Destruction having a slight lead. Something had to be done. We needed the artifact, but our melee could not get close to the carrier.

As any good Dwarf would do, I charged in. With Point Blank at the ready, I ran right up to the artifact carrier and punted him out to my teammates. They quickly dispatched him, took the artifact and victory was ours.

Good times.

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Wormhole Opening?

I am a big fan of Stargate and Stargate SG-1. Stargate Atlantis, on the other hand, I think was awful. It has terrible characters, with the exception of McKay of course, and a bad plot. Anyhow, this post isn't about the awfulness of Atlantis.

Stargate Worlds is a MMO based in the Stargate universe. When I first heard about this I was skeptical about how viable it would be. I still am, but I keep an eye on it. In the latest newsletter they announced that closed beta would be starting up in a week or two. So it looks like Stargate Worlds is coming in the near future.

The basic idea behind the game is you can me Human, Asguard, Jaffa or Goa'uld. There are combat classes, and non-combat focused classes. That makes Stargate Worlds a but different from most MMO's out there. Combat in the game is focused on tactics (i.e. cover) rather than the normal huge health bars and mitigation.

Puzzle type minigames will also be involved, to represent how Daniel Jackson sometimes gets them out of jams. I am not sure how it will work out, but kudos to trying something new to freshen the genre.

They released a video about their new flamethrower here. it is a bit humorous, so check it out. For more info check out the wiki. I did apply to closed beta (not using my blogs info), although I never win drawings so I doubt I will get in.

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Global RvR chat channel

World RvR in WAR has been suffering when compared to scenarios. It seems pretty simple as to why, scenarios are easy. Just queue up and often (on order) you are in the action within a minute or two. With world RvR you need to get a group together and go take some objectives or find the action. This can often take a while to accomplish.

Tier based chat channels for world RvR may help the situation. It would make it much easier to find other like-minded players or just find out where the fighting is taking place. Open groups do not really help the situation, as I would have to create a group and go sit in a RvR zone... and wait.

I wouldn't think the chat channels would be difficult to implement, especially considering possible benefit of increased world RvR.

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Having trouble reaching The Greenskin?

If you are having trouble reaching The Greenskin, you may want to read this:

"

They suggested that if I could provide them with information from these troubled users, it would help them get to the bottom of it, so I ask you this: If you or anyone you know can’t see my site (won’t load in your browser), please do the following:

1. Find out your IP address (http://whatismyip.com)
2. Perform a tracert on my domain from your command prompt (”tracert thegreenskin.com”) and you’ll eventually notice it only outputs * symbols from a certain point onward
3. Write down the country you can’t access my site from

Once you have all this information, please send it in an email to snafzg@gmail.com and I will share it with my Web host. This information isn’t overly sensitive, but I assure you that I will share it with no other person(s)."

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A Letter to WAR PvE

Dear WAR PvE,

It's not you, it's me. I know people use this all the time, but I mean it. You must noticed that we have not spent as much time together as we used to. The truth is, I have met someone else, and you know her. It is your sister, PvP.

It seems we have just grown apart. You are a wonderful catch and someone else will be very lucky to have you. Your quests are well written and interesting. They don't frustrate the hell out of me and provide worthwhile rewards. So really, it is just me who has changed. I just need more excitement in my life you know? You would be great to settle down with, but I am just not at that point in my life yet.

Unless I can see both you and your sister... No? It was worth a try.

You deserve better than me, someone who can devote their attention to you and keep progressing. So really this is probably best for both of us. I have enjoyed the time we spent together and will never forget it. Maybe we can stay friends and do a PQ together once in a while.

Yours in WAR,

Werit

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Short scenario queues hurting world RvR?

With the recent change that allows you to queue for all the scenarios in your tier from anywhere, people tend to get in them quicker. As great as this change is, I wonder if it will have the unintended consequence of hurting world RvR.

Prior to the change, I would queue up for a scenario then go check out the world RvR situation. If I found a world RvR fight, I would leave the queue. If when the scenario was ready I still hadn't found any action, I would jump in. Now, the scenario is ready before i can get very far into an RvR zone.

The main reason I do this is that my playtime is limited. I don't care which gets me xp/renown the fastest as some might, I just want my time spent in game to be fun. I prefer world RvR, but that can take some time to get going.

The min/maxer type may find they get more XP/Renown by doing the quick scenarios rather then participating in world RvR. I don't care much about this type, as they are not fun in world RvR anyway. They did put people in the fight though.

So will faster scenarios hurt world RvR? Time will tell. What do you think?

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100th Post!

Hard to believe it has been 100 posts. I am pretty surprised I have been able to keep up with this long enough to reach this mark. If no one was reading it I probably would have closed it down, so thanks to you folks out there!

I would like to think my writing has improved over the past 100 posts. It could be a lot better, but that is a process for me. I am usually a 'to-the-point' kinda guy, so filling up space is a challenge. As I have said before, I love bullet points, it is just how I think. That is great for Power Point presentations, but not for other kinds of writing.

So in the end, I think this blog has improved me and hopefully wasted some of your time at work :)

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Will the real Werit please stand up?

Today I did a character search on the Realm War page for me, Werit. It came up with 4 results, all Engineers.

I am on Averheim and a member of the Casualties of WAR.

All the rest are other people.

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Queue me up

Mythic's change to allow a player to queue for all scenarios they can, from anywhere, has been great. My Engineer (Rank 17) is in T2 land and has had little trouble getting into the scenarios. Before this patch, unless I was in a group which was scattered all over the world, I was only queued up for 1 scenario. Now I am in line for all 3, and the wait is not long.

The past few days I have only been able to play for some short clips at a time. Before the change I could only get a couple scenarios in. Now I can spend almost the entire time in the action. It has been a lot of fun!

Tier 1 is a different story. I have a few alts down there... sometimes a new playstyle is refreshing. Anyways, I queued up for all 3, but only the Nordlandwatch scenario ever came up. I can understand Khaines Embrace not popping, but Gates of Ekrund is fun and quick. So I am leaning towards there being some kind of bug.

There is one more thing they need to do: Right-Click on icon, 'Queue All' option in the menu.

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Frag-gle Rock

Werit the Engineer recently reached Rank 16. At that rank I got access to the Fragmentation Grenade ability. I love this grenade but my state does not allow marriage between objects and people. Besides, the Miss's might take issue.

It has a range of 65 ft and at my level does 350 damage over 15 seconds to all enemies within 20 feet of the target. Combine this with Acid Bomb, which does 203 damage over 21 seconds to all enemies within 20 feet. It also lowers Corporeal Resistance by 151. Guess what kind of damage Frag and Acid do? Yep, Corporeal.

Combine this with Friction Burn and Incendiary Rounds, you get some very nice damage. Sure it is over DoT, but that is our job. I also toss a Flashbang every now and then so their healers can get some interrupt love too.

Since turning Rank 15, I have been one of the top damage dealers in scenarios I have played. As I have been taking the grenadier mastery path, I do not use my gun much anymore. And it seems I am only getting started, as at rank 17 I will be able to get Extra Powder, which gives my Acid and Frag a 75% wider area of effect.

The Mourkain Temple scenario is especially fun, as people tend to group closer together... right up my alley :)

The engineer seems to get more fun every rank.

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