That would make a good segment… Eyes on Aion.  Dibs!
Yesterday was the first day of Aion’s “open” beta.  Yeah, it’s not really open.  It’s more of a less closed beta, but we’re used to that by now so stop your complaining.  The client was patched up to version 1.5.3 from 1.0 which introduces over a [...]

In one of the dev diary posts on the Herald Nate Levy said something about the changes that patch 1.3.2 and beyond bring towards cc.
I think I’m not alone with an overall positive “thumps up”-feeling about it. CC getting away from the damage-oriented careers and being more a thing for the tanks and healers is [...]

It is hard to believe Warhammer Online is just about a year old. The time has just flown by. It is easily the longest I have played any MMO without taking long breaks. looking at time spent in a MMO is a dangerous thing to do, as some people realize…

Okay, this piece of news is not going to be to everyones taste, so you have been warned. Over on the Warhammer Herald, Nate Levy has outlined some of the CC changes incoming for 1.3.2 and beyond. A quick nod to Grimnir for bringing it to my attention on his blog. It does seem to take a [...]

Okay it’s been a while since I have mentioned any films here, but I have actually seen a couple of decent ones recently.
One is the made in South Africa, District 9, which starts off in a slightly comedic vein, then changes to a more action orientated base further on. The lead actor has a manner which [...]

I’ve started playing Abel seriously as an alternate to Ryu, I say alternate, but I’ve been playing him fairly exclusively this past week. He’s a good change of pace from Ryu, and the approach is completely different. Where shotos excel at zoning you out and spacing for anti-airs, Abel’s game involves up-close mixups, combined with command throws and a roll that bypasses most attacks. His anti-air game is pretty weak, though. He has a throw that catches jumping opponents, but the timing and angle that it comes out at causes it to miss most of the time. 

Abel is pretty challenging to use, as he has no basic “safe” strategy, unlike say Ryu who can throw fireballs, and shoryuken his opponent out of the air when he tries to jump. Ryu can win matches using almost nothing but cr.mk into fireball, and shoryuken. Abel doesn’t really work that way. Instead his game is based on reacting to the opponents actions and punishing their mistakes. And at intermediate to higher levels you really need to get into your opponents head and condition him into playing in a way that Abel can punish him at will. Many players call this using mindgames. 

Here’s an example. Say Abel knocks down his opponent. As the opponent gets up he can:

1. Stay back a bit and sweep the opponent, as his sweep has deceptively long range

2. Use a Wheel Kick, which must be blocked high, alternate with sweep to mix it up

3. Dash in and use either regular Tornado Throw, which beats counter-throws, or EX TT, which beats most attacks

4. Roll behind the enemy, and attack from the back

5. Jump over the enemy and go for a crossup

6. Do nothing, block.

The thing is, this isn’t even all his options in that scenario. He can use his step kick to dash in and start another mixup for example. The step kick itself leads to another half dozen options. Of course, not all those options are safe, and if the opponent guesses correctly he can knock Abel out of the mixup. Still, he’s a real versatile character. And I think that’s the key to his appeal for me. I really have to out-think and psyche out the opponent to win with Abel, so when I do win, it’s very satisfying. The flipside is that when I can’t get his offense rolling, it’s very frustrating. “I should have done this, I should have done that” kind of frustrating. Still when you totally Yomi your oppenent’s game, and make him feel that everything he’s doing is getting countered or punished, there’s no feeling that compares.

NOTE: “Yomi” is a japanese term that loosely translates as “knowing the mind of your opponent”. And since Abel’s gameplan is reliant on mixups and baiting, yomi is a big part of his game. For more about yomi, see here. 

In a sick Chaos experiment, this week we forced a War hawk and Stag to do the wild thing. What we’ll call their wierd siamese twin sprog I don’t know…

I’ve started playing Abel seriously as an alternate to Ryu, I say alternate, but I’ve been playing him fairly exclusively this past week. He’s a good change of pace from Ryu, and the approach is completely different. Where shotos excel at zo…

Last night I was invited to go with S9S (good friend’s guild that I’m trying to join) to Ulduar.  They know my situation.  They know my gear is just now at the point of being semi-ready for 10-man raids (the serious ones) and that I had never been.  The message I received was something like: [...]

Today, Nate Levy, WAR’s Combat and Careers Team Lead, gives us a detailed look at what he and his team have planned for those abilities we love to have, but hate to fall victim to: Crowd Control abilities. Read on to see what the C&C team has in store in the near future and beyond the 1.3.2 update!

One of the things which was touched upon during this games development, was the guiding hand of Games Workshop when it came to lore of the Warhammer Universe (and protecting their assets). In fact wasn’t this the whole reason for the presence of Paul Barnett at the Mythic office (Whom has seemly dropped off the [...]

Yay Friday! Today we have a question:So Champions players, how many Alts do you have? The game has only been out a few days, but I’m going to bet you have quite a few

Greetings!

Below are today’s round of Hot Fix notes.

Please note: There are several fixes pertaining to the Wild Hunt Live Event that we identified as a result of player feedback. Thank you for continuing to provide feedback both in game and on the Official Forums.

Wild Hunt Live Event

General

• The Stag of Kurnous will now grant tome credit upon death.
• Adjusted the difficulty in the Tiers 1 and 2 Hunter’s Vale instance to be more appropriate to their target level.
• Spirit of Kurnous will now remain spawned indefinitely during the Wild Hunt event, instead of despawning upon public quest completion.

Public Quests

• Hunter’s Vale: Shaman and Squig Herder rewards have been corrected for this Public Quest.
• The Curse of Kurnous: This Public Quest will now be available immediately after reset of a successful completion.

Quests

• Render Unto Kurnous: The tier one, tier two and tier three versions of this quest now properly direct players where to go.

Combat and Careers

Chosen

• All Auras: Auras will no longer persist while under the effects of the Coward’s Reward debuff.

Knight of the Blazing Sun

• All Commands: Commands will no longer persist while under the effects of the Coward’s Reward debuff.

Warrior Priest

• Judgment: This ability will once again build Righteous Fury.

Land of the Dead

Tomb of the Vulture Lord

Public Quests

• Temple of Ualatp: Corrected an issue preventing the ground symbols in the this Public Quest from being visible.

Realm vs. Realm

Campaign / Open RvR

• Coward’s Reward: This ability will now correctly override other shape changing abilities.
• Shining Way: Fixed an issue that was preventing the siege ram pads from spawning in the correct location.

Status: Maintenance completed

Greetings!

At 2:00PM EDT Volkmar will be brought offline for stability maintenance. We anticipate the server to be back online by 4:30PM EDT.

As always check the Herald for news and information during this and other updates, thank you!

Update 2:45PM EDT – Volkmar is now open to the public, welcome back!

Update 2:03 PM EDT - Volkmar is offline for maintenance.

A couple of posts back I talked about my first visit to the new Altdorf and the revamped city sieges. Since that post I’ve been back to Altdorf, but this time I was in an instance full of players from both sides. It was really, really good fun. What …