Game Update 1.1 not only brought a new Flashpoint into Star Was: The Old Republic, it also allowed Bioware to respond to player concerns regarding PvP by placing level 50 characters into their own bracket for warzones.

For the most part the bolster system did a good job of levelling the playing field in warzones however it did not account for the expertise stat found on level 50 PvP gear. Higher level players already had access to a complete skill tree and set of abilities, it may have been a mistake to give them a gear advantage (even if only a slight advantage).

As a mid-level character, getting face rolled by full teams of 50′s in all PvP gear was  getting frustrating enough never mind being a fresh level 10 character hoping to try PvP out only to get obliterated. The barrier to entry was increasing with each new level 50 queuing for warzones and it was starting to get slightly out of hand.

On the other hand the inclusion of level 50 brackets has caused problems for some level 50 players on low population servers, leaving them with potentially lengthy queue times just to get into a match against anyone. As far as I can tell from chatting with a few people, the gear gap issue is also still an issue for fresh level 50s going up against better equipped characters. The RNG system behind loot bags probably is not helping this situation either with some players failing to receive a token for PvP gear despite purchasing a LOT of bags.

What’s your opinion?

Are you enjoying the lack of level 50 characters in your warzones? Or do you miss the challenge of taking on a vastly superior opposing force?

Let us know in the comments.

This time in The Dungeon Master column we are going to rage our way into the depths of the barbarian class from the game Dungeons and Dragons Online.

So let us get into it, shall we?

For everyone that wants to begin a Barbarian, they have to keep some things in mind. One is your weapon; it doesn’t matter if the player is an half-Orc, a Human or a Warforged, the player will be using two-handed weapons. Any generic “just-found-it” two-handed weapon will do.

Now the half-Orc does loan itself the best for making a barbarian, but making it a Warforged or Human is not that bad of an idea either. Warforged do get some enhancements that boosts the usage with two-handed weapons and the extra feat the player gets when they are a Human can open up some nice possibilities with feats.
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I downloaded, installed and patched Champions Online: Free for All when it re-launched the other day, like thousands of others. Fearing the inevitable crush of the servers, I decided to sit back and enjoy War and Peace the patch notes. The reading was to hype myself up for how much the game has grown since I last logged in to Violet Preston, the gunkata assassin inspired by Equilibrium (amazing action movie) and Ultraviolet (not so much), well over a year ago. Wednesday I attempted to begin her career anew.

Attempted, because I was meet with this little diddy.

That’s exactly the kind of restriction gamers should be afraid of when a title changes its business model. I paid for six months of Champions Online, an early adopter no less, and now my character, albeit far from level cap, is behind bars. Since Violet was created before the re-launch, she’s a completely custom design. For better or worse, she’s an amalgamation of a few different archetypes – marksman, endurance, blade – but it’s the character I wanted to play.

I have two options, either pay to let her out of jail, which means subscribing as long as I want to use her. Or downgrade her from a Gold character – former or current subscriber – to a Silver character to match my Silver account status. The only hurdle to downgrading is being content with placing her in a specific archetype, which means ruining my movie-inspired design. I’m not about to do either, so she’s going to continue to gather dust. As is the installation of Champions Online.

Ideally, I’d like to be able to pay a one-time fee to unlock her for FFA play as she was designed. There’s just no option to do this. Or at least, not one I can find. And I’m completely willing to pay for it. I don’t think it’s asking too much of Cryptic Studios. I would see it as an olive branch from the company to former players. A way of saying thanks and tempting us to return, while still having us play by the new rules (and leeching a quick $5-$10 from us).

I bet there’s numerous former subscribers in this same boat.

You can check out the full offerings from the Champions Online Store, aka C-Store, here.

ME!  Did you guess right?  I bet you did.  Yes, a few days ago one of my guild mates from Lord of the Rings Online told me that his friend got into the AoC beta but wasn’t interested.  I guess he just signed up for the hell of it, but whatever, now I have the invite.  It actually took me over a day to get setup since after I had downloaded the install client, I needed to download a 15 gb update, which was extremely slow.

Since then I have been gaming in the world of Hyboria,  but this post isn’t going to be a preview of the game as I’m only lev 7 and haven’t even been able to chop anyones head off.  Instead it’s just me bragging that I got an invite ;)

But I will tell you that there are some serious bugs still in the game, so I’m glad they pushed the release back as it is still very unpolished.  I’m going to continue playing over the next week and I hope to reach level 20 within a week, then I’ll post a preview of the game.