I have a pension for efficiency: I have my inscription business down to a science. It’s all fully automated, and my revenue and time investments are carefully calculated to contract out my milling and herb buying labor at a price that maximizes my gold per hour.

Archaeology taunts me with its complexity. I have no idea if I should be using keystones or not, nor do I know the best region in which to dig. There are many theories on the mechanics of discovery for rare and epic artifacts, but there isn’t a consensus in the community, nor a good source of data. Even with data, there are so many nuances that may or may not affect the outcomes. Apparently, Bountiful Bags is believed to be affecting fragment gathering. Patch 4.1 introduced a new mechanic: dig sites for races that you have completed all the rare finds for will be less likely to appear. Do races have different drop rates for keystones? Does the location of a dig site affect the number of fragments discovered? What determines which artifact you will have next, and what are the chances of getting which artifact?

These are only a few of the questions on the tip of my mind. What follows is my anecdotal account of leveling to 525 and a few weeks spent digging while skill capped, and my thoughts on the best way to level and dig.
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The RPG aspect of most modern MMORPGs really overpowers the rest of the game.  In far too many cases, the power of your character is tied directly with its current level, and the current gear they have.  Often times, these aspects are serve as limiters for each other (you can’t equip this until your this level).  By and large, this gives players with additional time on their hands an advantage.  Their dedication allows them to progress their character further, far outranking those below them in every facet: hit points, damage, etc.  But there’s one thing that playing more doesn’t guarantee — skill.

I don’t mean skill as in the innate ability to “pwn newbs.”  Skill, as defined by me, is the ability to know the game and its intangibles.  In WoW, it’s knowing your class’ hit cap, the best spec, and encyclopedic knowledge of encounters.  It’s a clear understanding of your chosen avatar’s calling, and how to best utilize all its inherent abilities at the appropriate moments.  Skill is the comprehensive knowledge of tactics and strategy you can offer, not time spent farming shinies or grinding friends.

Hit the jump to see why the design philosophy of Global Agenda is so intriguing to many PvP-minded MMOG players. Continue Reading

Starting tomorrow until May 12th players who have left LOTRO will have the ability to come back for free for during these 4 days. LOTRO has changed quite a bit since it first was released and Turbine is looking to boost it’s subscriber numbers by giving players the opportunity to take another look at the game. This come only 8 days before Age of Conan is set to be released, so maybe Turbine is trying to snag any borderline players before the game is released.

I myself rejoined back in Feb after a 6 month hiatus and signed up for 3 months, however I again lost interest in the game after a month of playing and haven’t been back since early March. Since its a free weekend, I’ll probably hop on for a bit, but I doubt I’ll signup again. I’m going to hold out for AoC.

About a week ago I did a short piece on Mythos, being developed by Flagship Studios. It was sort of a pre-preview that entailed very little information because, well to be honest Flagship has decided not to make the website accessible to anybody who is not in the beta. Good thing for you, and me, then that I was accepted into the beta and am now able to give you guys a proper preview! Also a good thing that the NDA was lifted a couple months ago. :)

In typical fashion, I started my character in the world of Uld by choosing his race: Satyr, Gremlin, or Human. Naturally, I chose to be a Gremlin (they are PURPLE!). From there I went on to choose my class. Currently, there are only 3 classes available: Bloodletter (a melee class), Gadgeteer (hunter/ranged class), and Pyromancer (spellcaster). Deciding to go with a theme I decided on Gadgeteer simply because whenever I feel a bit purple I also feel a bit firey. After all the customization (hair, face, etc.) I was finally ready and set to make my appearance in the world, which after a quick tutorial quest, sent me to Stonehill. For players looking for some extra adventure there is also the option of choosing Elite mode (which makes everything harder) and Hardcore mode (which means if you die your character is gone), for some real spice you can turn em both on. (Pardon the grainy images, JPEG is too big a file size)

Stonehill is the main gathering point in the game, from what I can tell. It is the Ogrimmar/Iron Forge of Mythos, if that helps at all. You’ll start your game here and, for at least the first 10 levels, you’ll be doing a number of quests from here. It’s a pretty nice town that is very beautiful and very active. After gathering some quests I was off to do battle in the lands of Uld.

The first thing you’ll notice about Mythos is how similar the game plays and feels to Diablo 2. Seriously, when I say this game is a Diablo 2 clone I very seriously mean it. The game allows you to map skills to your left and right mouse buttons, the left being primarily for weapon skills and the right being for everything else. The movement in the game is very much the same as Diablo 2 as well, where you click is where you’ll go. If you hold down the left mouse button your character will continue to go in that direction. A brilliant system that works just as well in Mythos as it has in every other game that has employed it successfully.

Upon doing a few quests and leveling up a few times you’ll notice some more stark similarities between Diablo 2 and it’s soon to be released twin brother Mythos. Upon each “ding” you’ll get 5 stat points and 2 skill points. The 5 stat points can be put into any of the 4 stats: Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and Wisdom. Each one of these stats does something different, and much like Diablo, depending on your class and play-style you’ll want to put your points into different stats. In addition to the stats, you’ll also notice that each class has 3 skill trees from which to choose various skills. As a gadgeteer my skill trees were: Marksman, Grenadier, and Tinker. After reviewing each tree for a few minutes I decided to mainly pursue the Tinker skill tree which allows me access to sentries, notably a flame sentry. :)

Continuing on in pure and utter Diablo delight I ambled my way through many dungeons and went through many quests. Some of them were fun and some were mediocre, but at no time did I think: “this is a poor Diablo clone” because if anything the new vibrant graphics and identical gameplay made it an even better game. For those still not convinced that this game is the spiritual successor to Diablo 2 you’ll be happy to also jot down that the game has randomized dungeons, hordes of monsters, and more loot than you could ever have hoped for. Top all this off with an inventory system that allows for identify charms, town portals, and gemstones to slot into items and you have got yourself one awesome Diablo-esque game.

Bottom line is that Mythos is an awesome game. Anybody who loved the Diablo games of yesteryears will enjoy Mythos equally as much, if not more so, because of near identical gameplay. Toss the gameplay in with new quests, more storylines, and an overall feel that Mythos is a world as opposed to a single player game with an optional online mode and you have yourself a game that is sure to be a smash hit amongst fans. The best part about it? It will be 100% free to download and play. I’ll be the first to admit that because I have only played the first 10 levels of the game there is still a lot I have yet to see, maybe the game gets horribly repetitive after level 11. Maybe the game gets unbearable after you complete a certain quest. I don’t yet know these things. What I do know is that you will, at the very least, get some enjoyment out of the beginning parts of the game. So what are you waiting for? Beta sign-ups are just a click away. Screenies below:

P.S. Once again, sorry for the grainy images. For some reason I couldn’t upload JPEGs and had to downgrade em to GIFs, the game really is beautiful. :)