Sorry. Had to yell.

Made a break, went to new server, hoping it would be less frequented and no issues now.

BAM, and an entire city lost again. After 5 days of really hard work.

City has to be reset.

Can not load city.

Bah. I am so pissed at EA and Maxis. Who ever worked in the QA must be fired!

Some time ago, when I still played the 4e, I was *quite* unsatisfied by the primitive official 4e World Map. As you may or may not know, many fundamental changes happened.

Here is the official World Map of the 4e:

http://diningroomdelves.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/forgotten-realms-mapa-4c2aa-edicao.jpg

Now based on this, and after reading tons of 4e text material in the various 4e books, taking the old 3.5 Map, I reworked the 3.5 map into a 4e map. Of course all IP belongs to WotC, but I guess as DM it is legit to draw your own maps and spread them around. Feel free to spread this one, if you like, or rework it, if you find more accurate info:

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/1600/faerunrlarge4enew.jpg

Phew that was quite some work. ^^

NOTE: The map is BIG, so loading takes a moment.

MOST NOTABLE CHANGES:

- The Empire of Netheril is, no desert but a lush country again.

- Sea of Fallen Stars coastline South and East changed, South a lot is now under water.

- Essentailly most of the South and East civilization are destroyed or crippled.

- Haalrua was obliterated.

- Underchasm destroyed a large part of southeast-Faerun. It's essentially a whole in the ground of giant protortions.

- The Chult Jungle, once connected to the land, is no an island, the connecting jungles sunk.

- a large part of Calimshan sunk beneath the waves. (The land is now in the hands of Djinns btw.)

- Where once Liuren was, the homeland of Halflings, is now the Gulf of Luiren.

As reference, this is the old 3.5 Faerun Map:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/wd_maps/FRposterMedium_150.jpg

Heh, I can understand some of the changes left you shocked. But overall I welcome the changes. Faerun needed a sort of a shakeup. So we can discover the lands new, and not like "oh I know every rock and stone for 30 years now". Some changes are sad, like losing my most fav deities, or some of the most important people either died or were altered beyond use.

But I like the change overall. Which reminds me. I guess I am still the only person who actually tried to make a 4e World Map... I still gotta have it somewhere... hmmm....

Originally posted by Sasami

Originally posted by sofbert

Originally posted by Elikal

Also it's unfair. Clerics can self heal, Rogues can avoid most damage with the Dummy and other stuff, but Guardian... phew trying to block away dmg was such a hassle, I simply failed at it, so I lost dmg like crazy and spent essentially ALL money on potions. So not funny. Similar with Wizard. And GWF too, if I slash this sword, I get dmg. No way to avoid it. And the rooted thing makes it ten times as hard to avoid damage.

 

Yeah i've been playing Guardian as well and while the look of the character is decent, I've run a few dungeons and the threat system is pretty horrible so far. I changed over to all the taunt abilities I had and i'm lucky if I have a boss chasing me for 20% of the time which leaves me feeling useless as a tank. 

Also, with guarding/blocking having that stamina bar which runs out fairly fast and no means of mitigation when it's out(not evne dodging) really makes me feel useless as I just take hits. 

I so agree. I felt so useless in dungeons since aggro simply doesn't work. Also in PvP i felt like ping pong ball since most classes seem to have some knockback skill that bounces you 20 feet away. Also got stun locked several times.

So minus list so far for me was:

-Messy group combat, no control due lack of aggro or structure

-PVP, stun locks, knockbacks, caster vs melee balance

-Lacking quests for enjoyable leveling, too few quests, linear questline for all classes

-Foundry quality not good so far

I feel like they are putting all eggs on Foundry basket, however so far quality isn't there.

I haven't analyzed it in detail, but my intuition tells me it's not some small stuff to iron out, but they really need to remake the entire frigging combat system. It just doesn't work for me at all, beyond "oh this and that details need ironing out". I mean, happy gaming to all who disagree, it's just how I felt about the combat.

Wrong. Just fundamentally wrong.

I think it's a great idea.

Too often I was split from friends with various preferrences, PVP Servers, German servers, English Servers, RP Servers and whatnot. I liked it in Champions Online that there is just one server and you could swap the copy of the zone. I am glad TESO does away with servers. Best idea of the project so far!

:(

They made some classic games. Will be missed.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by nariusseldon
Because it costs money to implement such a feature, and the demand is very low?

Hehe. In the immortal words of badSpock: Logic be damned!

Still I wonder, why we always must take humanity's side? Wouldn't it be more interesting if both sides have players?

 

Because humans have higher empathy towards beings that look like them? Elves & volcans are essentialy cool tall humans with pointed ears.

That is also way in sci-fi, most aliens are bipeds, and somewhat human looking with two-eyes, a mouth and a nose, particularly the good guys.

The bad guys .. can look like anything.

Yes. And that is *exactly* what I hate humanity for.

They trust a nice face and burn the alien.

That is EXACTLY why I would conquer and burn humans. In games of course. Only in games... *cough*

Originally posted by alkarionlog

Originally posted by Elikal

The MMO Rift is launched. Topic: Dragons conquer and destroy Elves, Humans and Dwarfs. I wonder: Why the heck can't I join the Dragons?

The MMO Secret World is launched. Topic: Cthulhu tries to conquer the world. I wonder: Why the frack can't I join the Great Old Ones?

The MMO Guild Wars II is launched. Topic: Dragons conquer and destroy the lands of Humans, Sylvari, Asura, Norn and Charr. I wonder: Why the drat can I not join the Dragons?

 

Now Defiant is launched. Topic: Aliens invade the Earth and wipe out humanity. Me: Cool, where can I sign to join the aliens please??  <.<    >.>    <.<

 

Any questions? ;)

 

ok from the point of views here can be related with story of the game :)

RIft only ascended are from choosen and the other side, players are ascended so :), and the ones who join the "dragons" are the ones from tey dimesion or crazy peeps without power

 

in the secret world cthulhu don't need to you to join, he can control anyone who get in touch with him, you wouldn't have any free will,

 

same for guild war, the ones who join the dragon side are the norms, but even so after it they are controlled, so they don't have free will the sons of jormag somewhere looks they can retain some will, but I don't belive they can simple one day start to think, hmm maybe I choose wrong and it not that good for me stay here.

 

in defiance well you can be the alien, but you are a ark hunter, a merc, and all otehrs faction don't have any liberty to travel around

 

to keep it short, story bound one to one side or another and the you are free to do what you will, and most enemy faction npc controlled you can't have free will, if not things feel apart

Oh come on, that's just the light side propaganda! ;)

I mean, seriously. Take SWTOR. You can be Sith and Imperial and pretty evil. And you still have a free will. Cthulhu and Dragons are what we say they are. Ok, I admit I am weird in this. When I saw Lord of the Rings - the movie - I always thought "hey, the Orcs are totally mis-represented! They aren't like that!" And NO I didn't mean that as WOW-Orc-referrence. Even evil is something I imagine as differencianted. Mostly evil is just depicted as mindless horde of slaves. I find that depiction of evil silly and boring. The most evil people in human history often had a very high IQ, and not all their followers were mindless cronies, but did evil for their personal reasons in their personal ways. Just as with good. It's just we that think evil must be a dumb mass of mindless zerg slaves.

AND on top MOST IMPORTANT:

ARE the Dragons evil just because they destroy humanity? Are the Great Old Ones evil? If you make a holiday, and you return to your house, finding it infested with insects, do you NOT weed them out? So, if Earth belongs to the Great Old Ones, and suddenly a virus called humans spread all over, is that evil when they take it back?

"What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly."

- Morticia Addams

Originally posted by DalekThay

I agree completely. I'm sick and tired of MMOs (and games in general) not giving people the option to join the bad guys. This  grates on my nerves quite a bit, especially when it comes to games based on the D&D license, and in games where I feel the 'good guys' are generally complete and utter twats.

Some players don't want to play silly Elfs, moronic Dorfs and stoopid humons. They can't be reasoned, bribed or argued with.

Some players just want to SMASH TEH WORLD!

I loved City of Villains. At least it wasn't another "misunderstood" faction.

Originally posted by Amaranthar

Originally posted by Elikal

The MMO Rift is launched. Topic: Dragons conquer and destroy Elves, Humans and Dwarfs. I wonder: Why the heck can't I join the Dragons?

The MMO Secret World is launched. Topic: Cthulhu tries to conquer the world. I wonder: Why the frack can't I join the Great Old Ones?

The MMO Guild Wars II is launched. Topic: Dragons conquer and destroy the lands of Humans, Sylvari, Asura, Norn and Charr. I wonder: Why the drat can I not join the Dragons?

 

Now Defiant is launched. Topic: Aliens invade the Earth and wipe out humanity. Me: Cool, where can I sign to join the aliens please??  <.<    >.>    <.<

 

Any questions? ;)

 

Yes. Is it true that Cathulhu loves me?

Sure. With ketchup.

Originally posted by nariusseldon
Because it costs money to implement such a feature, and the demand is very low?

Hehe. In the immortal words of badSpock: Logic be damned!

Still I wonder, why we always must take humanity's side? Wouldn't it be more interesting if both sides have players?

Think of the Monsterplay from LOTRO. How often did I fantasize that my ugly, black Spider would invade the player lands, and smash the Shire and Bree and all to pieces! Ok, maybe not, but you get the idea. I thought that would be more interesting for "good" to have players to fight here and there and not only in confined areas called battlegrounds, and where you don't just play "another good faction" or another human variant.

The MMO Rift is launched. Topic: Dragons conquer and destroy Elves, Humans and Dwarfs. I wonder: Why the heck can't I join the Dragons?

The MMO Secret World is launched. Topic: Cthulhu tries to conquer the world. I wonder: Why the frack can't I join the Great Old Ones?

The MMO Guild Wars II is launched. Topic: Dragons conquer and destroy the lands of Humans, Sylvari, Asura, Norn and Charr. I wonder: Why the drat can I not join the Dragons?

Now Defiant is launched. Topic: Aliens invade the Earth and wipe out humanity. Me: Cool, where can I sign to join the aliens please??  <.<    >.>    <.<

Any questions? ;)

As funny (and true!) as usual. I found myself always nodding and laughing.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/7053-SimCity

Originally posted by DMKano

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHx3sqq2vCQ

 

Archeage Gangam style - IMO far better hehe.

 

Lol, cool too.

Some people have too much time. ^^

Originally posted by AlBQuirky

The larger players have really tiny heads!

Oh god, the heads are so tiny! :O

Other than that, good editing. Gangnam Style still sorta makes me smile. ^^

Originally posted by Teala
I was wondering where the Pony went...now we know.   :)    It is good to take a break from MMO's for a bit. 

Given that I can't find a MMO I like anymore, I rather feel like: "In Sovjet Russia, MMOs take a break from you!"

I mean, not smile, not audio. I mean, visual. Did you ever see any Bioware character of late (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, SWTOR) ever ANIMATED to laugh?  Preferrebly a positive laugh not evil maniac. But any laugh?

I am asking because of this. Playing a new Smuggler on SWTOR, Ord Mantell, there is that NPC which wants you to kill a Pirate. If you do, he laughs for a second. And god it looks SO spooky, so totally wrong and off, and it made me shudder. That's when I wondered, hey did I ever saw ANY Bioware char laugh?  Any? I just can't remember.

It reminded me that I tried to draw laughing faces; you may or may not know that I am drawing. And it always ended up looking spooky and terrifying. So I know how difficult it is.

So here is the question. Riddle me this. ;)

UPDATE:

Ok I finally found a laugh, it was rare, and sorry I think this looks SO spooky, unnatural and wrong. :O

Creeeepy

Battle VS Chess

No guarantee that it's good however.

http://www.amazon.de/TopWare-Battle-vs-Chess/dp/B0035FYXRI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364500221&sr=8-1