Weekly Newsletter 12_10_07: Doing It With Style

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Updated Fri, Jan 02, 2009 by Dalmarus

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Doing It With Style

December 10th, 2007 - By Dalmarus

"You can't be the king of the world if you're a slave to the grind - Skidrow"

In 1991, I bought Skidrow's, "Slave to the Grind" cassette tape and fell in love with it. The above lyric/quote has struck a chord with me ever since I heard it all those years ago. Now while I can't guarantee that's how I've lived my life, it is how I like to play my MMO's.

My best friend and I always seem to have a fairly common disagreement when it comes to hunting styles nearly every time we get together to play. We're both old Everquest players and remember the days of the grind quite well.

While I was able to do it back then (what else did we know?) and even enjoy it, I simply can't hunt like that anymore. After anything longer than 20 minutes or so, I normally get restless and have to go somewhere else to hunt.

My buddy though, can stay in the same area running a circuit and stay there for hours on end. He is truly the master of the grind.

For the reasons listed above, I keep telling him he hunts like old men golf. I, on the the other hand, am called a "Spaz" because I'm always running around as we hunt. I'll pick a general direction and kill everything in our path. He did get a little upset when I shot an NPC he was talking to for a quest back in SWG, but I'd like to think that instances such as that are rare. Well, mostly rare anyway.

All in all though, let's just say that it's safe to assume things are going to be interesting whenever we hunt together. Two different styles, but we both get the job done.

Who needs Rudolph when you have a necromancer?

Now what does all of this have to do with anything? Umm... Nothing? I jest! Actually it's a reminder to us all (especially me) after last week's newsletter that we all have different styles and methods of playing the games. What's right for one person may not be right for another. Consider that done, so let's move on!

Thom Terrazas (Phathom) recently announced that they hope to have the last part of Game Update #3 go live this week. This means more performance upgrades, multiple class changes/fixes, and of course, the Ancient Port Warehouse. Another important, but perhaps less known change, concerns the gathering of recipes for crafting.

As it stands now, there is a set percentage chance of getting a random recipe within a certain level range while making grade A items. Because of this, a person that only picked up crafting to be able to make Invisibility stone carvings for example had a couple of possible outcomes with their hard work. First, they may get lucky and during the course of their crafting career, eventually come upon that elusive recipe they were hoping for. A more common result of their slaving would be to earn enough money in the hopes that someone would eventually sell the recipe they were seeking. Neither one of these was a very effective method of allowing crafters to make what they really wanted. With the increase to crafting xp that went into effect some time ago, this made the problem even worse, as it was now easier to outlevel the recipe level drop range.

With the new crafting changes, players will earn tokens instead of recipes. Due to the previously mentioned xp increase, the drop rate of coins has been slightly increased to above the previous recipe drop rate. Since multiple coins may be needed for any given recipe, this may initially sound like a bad thing, but I think it will even out. Why? Because the coins you receive will be turned in for recipes. Rather than random recipes received currently, players will be able to pick and choose exactly what recipe they want. This will be a huge boon for those players that only took up crafting to make a few specific items.

Along with all the highly anticipated items of the Game Update, SOE has let the community know they're also celebrating the Festival of Glorian in the land of Telon. Be sure to keep an eye for items of wonder and magic as we all get to celebrate the Winter festival!

With all the upcoming goodies, both in patches and new content, I can't wait to see what we all get. What about you?