Morning Discussion

And a happy Monday to you all.

I sure wish I knew where the weekend went. It seems like it was one giant wedding-related blur. Then I realize it was, and once again offer my congratulations to two of my closest friends, Will and Mary Richardson.

Oh, and in less than 24 hours, we'll all be playing Left 4 Dead. Don't think we're going to let the zombie apocalypse arrive without some fanfare--check back around midnight EST for our cooperative review of the co-op zombie shooter.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
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    November 17, 2008 5:39 AM

    Since the Warhammer guild is dead... How many people here regularly play WoW? My laptop can handle it so it's something my wife and I can both play together, but before I sign up, I want to make sure there's a solid guild that won't stop playing after two weeks.

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      November 17, 2008 5:40 AM

      Giant Communist Robots on Mal'Ganis has been around since wow's launch. Not going anywhere. gcrobots.com

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      November 17, 2008 5:43 AM

      Make sure to link your account(s) to a friend or fellow shacker on the same realm so you can enjoy RAF leveling.

      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=18457898#itemanchor_18457898

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      November 17, 2008 5:50 AM

      Hah, I glad I didnt join the shack war guild for this reason.

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        November 17, 2008 5:54 AM

        Yeah, I've hopped on to Warhammer for the past two or three days and there's only either been me on, or myself and one other person. Plus the world is empty and scenario queues are getting long. I hear 750,000 people are playing but I'm not seeing anyone.

        Yesterday I set up a WoW trial for my wife and hopped on to a 'recommended' server and it was ridiculously busy. Such a huge difference.

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          November 17, 2008 8:33 AM

          Maybe it's just the server your on. Dark Crag scens pop frequently in T3 cause thats where most people are for their chars right now.

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      November 17, 2008 5:54 AM

      i havent switched to WoW i just have too many other games to play for now :(

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        November 17, 2008 5:55 AM

        Mythic really needs to consolidate some servers to fill up those worlds. There are way too many servers right now and none of them ever seem to be high pop. :(

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      November 17, 2008 6:08 AM

      Gary, check your shack messages.

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      November 17, 2008 6:21 AM

      I'm wondering if I should bother moving the warshack stuff over to my new server :(

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        November 17, 2008 6:22 AM

        [deleted]

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        November 17, 2008 6:52 AM

        So sad. I would play more if others did. It becomes a grind without a guild. :(

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          November 17, 2008 8:00 AM

          exactly. I'd totally still play if we had a working guild.

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            November 17, 2008 8:09 AM

            Yeah, if i knew there'd be people on to play with i'd be on more. Though FO3, Gears 2, and L4D would still take a big chunk of my gaming time.

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        November 17, 2008 1:04 PM

        Hey Clay, if you dont play anymore, can you transfer guild leader to someone like Knob?

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      November 17, 2008 7:07 AM

      O BTW JBURY AND BAMII SWITCHED BACK TO WOW TOO

      told you, fgts

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        November 17, 2008 7:28 AM

        [deleted]

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          November 17, 2008 7:35 AM

          I was tell them. As in: jbury and bamii (irl friend).

          So untie your panties.

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            November 17, 2008 7:36 AM

            telling*

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              November 17, 2008 7:44 AM

              [deleted]

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                November 17, 2008 7:48 AM

                Haha, you actually had a point saying that so i took the burn bit like a man.

                did that sound gay or what?

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            November 17, 2008 10:28 AM

            To be fair he was right, it is fucking awesome

            I really thought I'd quit this time. fuck.

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              November 17, 2008 10:58 AM

              So... are you on Al'Akir now? (please say you are, please!) And yes, it's awesome. I'm totally in love with my Death Knight.

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                November 17, 2008 1:42 PM

                We're not, we're still with friends on magtheridon - I'm only playing my deathknight when my gf plays though so I can start an alt to play on your server when she isn't playing :)

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      November 17, 2008 7:37 AM

      I really liked Warhammer, but it's just not the game for me. I think if I played more or had more patience for trying to organize big RvR stuff I'd like it a lot more, but all I did was scenarios and PvE and those both got old quick.

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        November 17, 2008 8:06 AM

        I really liked it also, but some of design decisions just killed the game in T4. :/

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          November 17, 2008 11:10 AM

          like what?

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            November 17, 2008 11:18 AM

            making scenarios more rewarding than open-world RvR (which was supposed to be their focus) so that the entire server population is stuck in 12-16 person instances rather than giant battlegrounds

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            November 17, 2008 11:31 AM

            - Ridiculous choke points in keeps making them easy to completely defend against any number of attackers with only a single group.
            - RvR campaign that forces you to grind completely pointless PvE for hours on end to lock down a zone.
            - Piss-poor gear options that force you to upgrade because of "wards"
            - "Wards" which force you to grind keeps to gear up for fortresses and capitals
            - Scenario queuing system that makes it exceedingly difficult to pop more than one type of scenario
            - RvR balance issues that are still unaddressed (but appear to be "fixed" as part of the 1.05 patch)
            - Really, really, really, really, really bad dungeons and PvE

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              November 17, 2008 1:02 PM

              I just completed the second tier of dungeons, and they weren't THAT bad... bastion stair is pretty busted, but not un-fun entirely anyway... the city dungeons are fun (for order at least) and I'm at least looking forward to getting a full clear on Lost Vale at least one...

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      November 17, 2008 8:14 AM

      I really don't know why War failed to keep my attention. I don't think the guild angst was the issue because I play most of my MMOs without a shack guild. I know why I quit City of Heroes and I've got a pretty good idea why only recently WoW has managed to hold me for any length. I suppose both Age of Conan and Warhammer promised a lot more if you grouped up meant that having a guild was important. It's also rather off putting to spend launch weekend keeping pace with most in the guild and then to return next weekend and discover that everyone you'd grouped with the weekend before was 10-15 levels higher.

      The good news is that I don't see the Shack jumping into Champions Online or Star Trek Online so until SWTOR comes along I probably won't have to worry about guilds for a while although once the WotLK queues have died down on Mal'ganis I'll re-visit GCR.

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        November 17, 2008 11:00 AM

        I don't really understand why I didn't come back to WAR as well. Apart from some personal stuff that kept me from playing any games at all for a couple of weeks I missed this urge to play WAR. I still think it's a very good game, fun classes, good quests, nice world, RvR and so on. But something, just something is missing and I don't know what it is.

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          November 17, 2008 11:04 AM

          Same here. I just didn't feel the need to come back and play. It has some good ideas, but while the pvp was fun, the game just needed more.

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            November 17, 2008 11:11 AM

            To me it really suffered from having WoW out in the lead.. while I know they are different games, there just so many things that mattered to me personally that really hindered WAR's experience..

            An example that comes to mind was the movement of the characters looked really bad when viewing other players.. animations for spells being cast were missing ( I think this is patched soon? now?)

            It wasn't one particular thing overall that made me stick with WoW, I think more that WoW does more right for me that WAR did.

            I did LOVE the book of feats and stuff that WAR kept, and wish WoW would have done something more like it with their achievement system.

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        November 17, 2008 12:08 PM

        That's what killed it for me for awhile but I recently got back into it and have been having a good time. I'll be looking into joining another guild or switching servers to play with the guys on the Warpath podcast just to have people to group with.

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        November 17, 2008 1:04 PM

        im gonna play the shit out of Champions Online. Hopefully I can get into the closed beta. I am eagerly awaiting an invite.

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      November 17, 2008 8:16 AM

      WotLK is fucking awesome, go get it.

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      November 17, 2008 11:08 AM

      If you decide to give it a shot let me know via shackmessage and I'll toss you a recruit a friend invite. I could totally use the so bonus to get my hunter up to 55 so I cab make a dk.

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      November 17, 2008 12:28 PM

      If you and your wife are going to play WoW together, make sure that once you set up your account, you refer her as a friend. The bonuses are VERY worth it. If she's already set up a trial account without the referral, delete that crap, and have her create a new one with the referral. It's worth it for both of you.

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        November 17, 2008 12:37 PM

        Or do this ^^^^ instead of having me refer you. Would work out better, most likely.

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          November 17, 2008 12:51 PM

          Well, ideally, he would take a referral from a Shacker, and then refer his wife. The most important thing though is that he refers his wife since they'll obviously be leveling up together, and the triple XP bonus is incredible.

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      November 17, 2008 1:08 PM

      Ahhh GARY!

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      November 17, 2008 1:08 PM

      That's what happens when you abandon your friends Guild Wars jerk ;)

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        November 17, 2008 1:22 PM

        Guild Wars is fun for sure. I can't help being a little bit excited for GW2 which is due on in Jan (?) i think.

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      November 17, 2008 1:22 PM

      Sorry I hanged in there as long as I could. Hitting doors for renown gets boring :(

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