Profile: ZsasZ
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Username	ZsasZ
Real Name	chris pressley
Rank	Novice Member
Joined	November 3, 2007
Gender	Male
Age	37
Location	Boise, ID, United States
Last Visit	July 22, 2008
Post Count	114
Biography
Quote	meh.

Most Recent Thread by ZsasZ [more...]

A Brief Field Guide of MMORPG.com Trolls on 6/2/08 @ 11:09AM
Viewed 237 times, replied 8 times, last post was 6/2/08

Latest Blog Entry - Reality- a review
From my blog teh Z blog [ZsasZ]

I've been playing this MMO called Reality for a few decades, so I thought it was high time I write a review. It's based on my experiences so far, and on the observations I've made of other players. Enjoy.

First off, some basics. It's a Hardcore game, and permadeath is the only setting. No rez, no respawns. When you die, all your gear goes to any surviving alts. There's no set level cap, but most players only make it to level 80 or so. It's rare to see a player hit triple digits.

Cost: this game is expensive. You have to buy just about everything from item merchants, as there are no drops. Luckily, you get recurring rewards from questgivers (called 'paychecks') once you get off the noob island (more on that later). Crafting is specialized almost to the exclusion of all other professions, and most crafted items are for sale rather than personal use.

Combat: there isn't a lot. I own a couple swords, but I've never had to use them so far; they're primarily for decoration in my player housing. There are a few combat classes, but once you join one you're forced to stick to that class for a number of years, and I hear it' can be hard to switch back to a 'civilian' class if you manage to survive. The magic system sucks; I just hit level 37 yesterday (Happy Birthday to me) and I haven't learned a single spell yet! The focus seems to be more economic/ resource management than fighting. The grind is horrible; you can spend years doing the same quest over and over again.

Community: Like EVE, everyone plays on one server ('Earth'). There's no shortage of players, and more keep joining all the time, mostly through alt spawning. Players generally don't start to LFG until their about level 15-20, and parties in Reality don't really have the same meaning as they do in other MMOs. If you decide you and your teammate want to start a long-term partnership (called a 'marriage'), you can form a clan with that person. Clans usually only have a maximum starting size of two. Most alt spawns come from clans, but more and more alts are coming from LFG groups. Forming a clan is a serious decision; if you decide to break up a clan, you may be forced to help pay for the other player's upkeep, especially if alts were spawned.

Training: Players are spawned with very few abilities, and it takes a few years just to learn the basics like movement and in-game chat. Most players spend about the first 18 levels or so on the noob island, called 'School'. School teaches players about upkeep, lore, maybe some advanced movement skills, and a few professions. Also big in school is mock combat called 'sports'. Some characters decide to stay on that path, and take on the 'Athlete' character class. Athletes have high STR and DEX, but usually at the cost of INT and WIS. CHA is performance-based. Anyway, once out of school, players look for a questgiver and start running missions. Typically, players will choose a single questgiver and run the same quest over and over again, five days a week. Like I said, the grind is incredible.

Endgame: I can't say much about this, considering I'm (hopefully) about halfway through. I do know that abilities run on more of a bell curve than a steady slope; after about mid-game the diminishing XP returns start to kick in, and your abilities start to decline. High level characters are more prone to various debuffs, and often have to stay in the player housing (or community housing if the spawns can afford the upkeep).

Anyway, that's a quick overview. I'm sure I've missed a lot, but there's a lot to do in this game, and it's easy to overlook some things. Enjoy!

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Recent Forum Posts [more...]

- A Brief Field Guide of MMORPG.com Trolls
- (Note: this is a parody. Any perceived slights are unintentional.)
  
  For the gamer just coming to a 'consolidated' game site like MMORPG.com from a single-game site, the experience can be somewhat daunting. The wild variety of preferences and opinions is volatile, and differences of opinion lead to frequent clashes. Invariably, the t-word is thrown out. Now, I know where you come from, a troll is simply someone who says something inflammatory simply to get a reaction. MMORPG.com has those too, but most trolls here have chosen to specialize. Here's a handy list of some of the more prominent trolls, how to identify them, and how to deal with them. Good Luck!
  
  The 'NGE Hater' is (mostly) a former player of Star Wars Galaxies. Somewhere along the way, the game makers radically changed the game, and a lot of people didn't like it. Apparently, Smedley also went to a lot of gamers' houses, drop-kicked their mothers in the throat, shot their dogs, and took a dump in their dishwashers. Because of this, they're a little perturbed, and their vehemence of SWG is boundless. They can mostly be avoided simply by staying out of the Veteran's Refuge, but some occasionaly form raiding parties into other forums, so it's best to just not say anything positive about SWG.
  
  The 'WoW fanboi' and it's polar opposite, the 'WoW Hater', are either proponents or opponents of World of Warcraft. These two can easily be identified by distinguishing marks; a post containing the words '10 million' come from fanbois (referringing to the game's rather large player base), and most hater posts will contain the word 'noob' at least once (referring to the game's rather large players). There's no point in trying to make either party see a differing point of view; for the WoW proponents, Warcraft is better than God, sex, and sliced bread combined, and it's opponents would rather be poked in the eye with a flaming poo stick than see anything good about this game. Proceed with caution.
  
  The 'F2P Monkeys' have their own smaller subset of trolls, mostly either for or against 'Free to Play' games. Most F2P games have two things that Asian players seem to love, and Western players seem to hate; item shops and repetitive gameplay (known as 'grind', because most Western players would rather rub off their nose with a cheese grater than kill the same monster 11,000 times). F2P Monkeys are generally more docile than NGE Haters or WoW freaks, so feel free to try to initiate discourse, provided you're willing to try to decipher some pretty horrible grammar.
  
  The 'Vapour Fans' are players who are frothing at the mouth over a game that hasn't even come out yet, and most likely never will. These are players who endlessly debate the merits and possiblities of a game based on a single screenshot of concept art that was released in 1992. They particularly don't like 'Flat Earth' analogies. Vapour Fans can sometimes be the most deluded and irrational of all, since they don't even have a game to support, only the idea of a game on a badly-designed and infrequently-updated website. The easiest way to avoid them is to stay out of the Darkfall forums.
  
  There you have it; a brief overview of some of the more prominent trolls here at MMORPG.com. There are many more, but I'll leave the thrill of discovery to you. Enjoy, good luck, and let me be the first to say 'STFU, NOOB!'
- Posted: 6/02/08 11:09 AM
  General Discussion
- Tabula Rasa: AFS Recruitment Drive
- Fine Print:
  
  Your friend's account must be inactive for at least 90 days in order to be eligible. An indication that their account has been inactive for 90+ days will be displayed on their game account management screen.
- Posted: 5/09/08 5:41 PM
  General Discussion
- officially pissed off!
- Originally posted by fizen
  
  after 18hrs and constant errors, it still logs to korean. Either fileplanet has the wrong version or there is a serious issue.
  
  Thier so called tech support are extremely slow, even with filing a ticket i've had 1 replay in 14hrs. All i can say is this is the 9th closed beta i've been in and its the worst one i've seem. I've deleted the game and will not bother to look at it again. No wonder the hype level is 5.1
  
  It says 5.4 now. Nice progress for one day...
- Posted: 3/03/08 12:48 AM
  Requiem: Bloodymare
- Vista wont open Setup.exe file
- Originally posted by britzban
  
  Sounds like an ID10T error. I would disable your antivirus and right click "run as administrator". Should take care of the problem.
  
  May wanna consult a mirror on your ID10T issue. A/V has already been addressed, and all 'Run as Administrator' does is bypass UAC.
- Posted: 3/03/08 12:38 AM
  Requiem: Bloodymare
- Requiem: Bloodymare
- Originally posted by dodsfall
  
  Originally posted by ZsasZ
  
  I'm in the CB, and never saw or agreed to any NDA.
  
  You may not have seen it, but you did agree to it. Remenber that little checkbox at the bottom of your beta application?
  
  "Yes, I have read and agreed to the Terms of Agreement."
  
  It's a good thing that the EULA didn't require your first born!
  
  Um... no. EULA != NDA. The Community Manager in the Requiem forums even said there was no NDA for the CB. I make it a point to read the fine print, if only so I can rant about the stupid stuff.
- Posted: 3/03/08 12:33 AM
  Requiem: Bloodymare