Video Games

Ever since Half Life 2 went episodic on its fan-base, people have been interested in plot developments, screenshots, and all sorts of media and information. What this means, in the words of marketing director Doug Lombardi, is that there will be a regular flow of content that will be delivered by Steam, or purchasable in stores, for the new expansion of the Half Life series. Here are the official trailers for both Episodes 1 & 2:

I think it’s unacceptable for any MMORPG to ever have “down-time,” and especially World of Warcraft, the most advanced of its kind. Consumers are paying $15 or so a month, and they have the reasonable expectation to be able to play their game whenever they wish, and for how long they want. Of course, Blizzard can do whatever it so desires, but it would be nice if WoW’s maintenance were seamless, such that it never interrupted or disturbed actual gameplay. You can check the status of your realm here.

Above is a screenshot of WoW as of this morning, with its notification of a 6-hour downtime for today. That means the masses of eager gamers cannot play for 25% of today, yet they are paying the full subscription fee. Fans, however, are for the large part used to this. It’s a phenomenon that occurs with great regularity; think once-to-thrice weekly. Ultimately, the ethical question is this: how much disservice are we willing to take with our monthly bill for our favorite MMORPG? Blizzard needs to make a non-intrusive method by which we can play WoW night or day, 24/7 if we want, and still have all the subtle benefits of a well-maintained game.

Update: Much to my chagrin, but not to my surprise, Blizzard has delayed the maintenance an additional two hours today.  That makes the amount of game time lost to performance-tweaking maintainance (or whatever they do in the down-time) 8 hours, or 33% of today.

Footman Frenzy, for the unenlightened, is a chaotic WC3: Frozen Throne custom game where 4 teams of up to 3 people clash their steadily-reproductive forces in the center (usually) of the map. The center is neutral, but the four corners hold the four different teams, and it is only a matter of time before one team gains the upper hand and destroys another team. Gold is “mined” by killing enemy (or neutral, as the case is in the beginning of the game) units, and it is spent on upgrades for both the type of unit possible, and the armor/attack stats of whatever unit you currently are producing. To win, you must simply destroy the other teams’ barracks, which produce their units. The only initial advantages you can get early on in the game are by picking a good hero, or by killing the neutral creeps in the other corners of the map for some fast gold.

Nohunters advises thus:

The possibilities of Frenzy are endless. Should you put all your money into hero items and hope for the best? Upgrade your tier immediately and gain money for a late hero? Go pure Creeps? Pure towers? In your first game, you might want to stick with the basics — get a known hero and play conservatively. Upgrade your army through the tiers and spend money equally on Weapons, Armor, and a race-specific upgrade like Improved Range. If you’re an experienced player with a new ally, let him experiment and feed him any spare change you might have. It’s always more effective for the experienced one to support the new player, than vice versa.

The team that coordinates has a much greater chance of success than the team where everyone tries to be the winner. Because you can trade resources like a real game, it’s often useful to pool your money with other teammates so one teammate can get to Tier Four. Some players divide into offense and defense, with one in charge of towers and base defense, and the other two providing money for upgrades. Another common team strategy is having fewer heroes on a team, while the other teammates upgrade their army (the heroes level slightly faster). A very balanced way of playing is to have one player upgrade tiers immediately, one player get an Area of Effect hero like the Archmage, and one player get a hero killer like CattleBruiser.

Unlike DotA, the updates for FF are seperated by at least a month of time, and often longer. The latest patch (as of Feb. 6, 2006) is patch v.4.2, and the balance changes are as follows:

Balance Changes in 4.2

• All copies of Unholy Aura now have the same stats.
• Jaood and the Panda’s Drunken Haze has been weakened.
• Death Coil’s mana cost increases with each level.
• Paladin’s Devotion Aura improved.
• Edge’s Banish is now very similar to that of the Bloodmage.
• Level 6 Serpent Wards no longer do Normal damage. The number of wards summoned has been reduced at high levels.

• The spawn rates of several army units have been adjusted for balance. Grunts, Ghouls, Knights, and Taurens spawn slightly slower. Militia and abominations, slightly faster.
• The Orc Racial Upgrade has a smaller base amount and a smaller increment per level.
• Fiends attack faster.
• Grunts’ attack speed and damage slightly weakened.
• The collision size of the Abomination has been slightly reduced.
• Spellbreakers have an increased range.
• Wand of Negation’s area of effect decreased.

Bug Fixes in 4.2

• A variety of tooltips were fixed.
• Fixed a bug where the Strongest Man Ever would die before casting Call of the Gods.
• Fixed a bug where one level of the Priestess’ Mana Scout was weaker than a lower level.
• Addressed a few exploitable issues with the experience cap system.

You can download the current map HERE. As always, I’ll keep you posted on updates, tweaks, and patches.

The good folks over at dotaportal have released the newest version of DotA: version 6.34 (not AI). Of course, I guarantee that within 2 weeks there will be at least a DotA 6.34b. You can download the latest version (6.34) of DotA Allstars HERE. The changelog is as follows:

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* Spectre base damage reduced.
* Sanity’s Eclipse mana cost reduced from 300/500/700 to 200/250/300.
* Reduced duration of Spectral Dagger’s hero trail and initial cast trail durations.
* Buffed Macropyre from 75/100/125 to 75/125/175 damage per second.
* Broodmother now has vision directly underneath her webs.
* Fixed a probability error on multicast when using Scepter.
* Reduced the extremely large cast range on Aphotic Shield.
* Reworked Tango a bit.
* Fixed Spin Web from preventing Neutral Creep spawning.
* Added a few seconds to Aphotic Shield cooldown.
* Reworked the targeting system on Reality to a more natural one.
* Fixed a minor camera issue with Replicate.
* New icons for Witchcraft, Naix’s Poison Sting, Rhasta’s Forked Lightning, Razor’s Chain Lightning, Laser, Grow, Overpower, Shukuchi and Static Field (thx to snork, Grujah.Noob, alfredx_sotn, M3Th0dz and switch).
* Improved the detection area and reduced the freeze delay on IcePath.
* Troll Warlord now has increased movement speed while in Berserker Rage form.
* Hoof Stomp AOE improved from 275 to 315.
* Replaced Vengeance with a new ability (thx eva00r)
* Silencer’s movement speed reduced from 300 to 290.
* Waveform manacost increased from 120 to 140/155/160/165
* Primal Roar stun duration buffed a bit.
* Reworked the numbers, angles and some mechanics on the Bristleback ability.
* Chain Frost cast range reduced from 800 to 750. Scepter version increased from 800 to 850.
* Removed Stout Shield from Aegis recipe.
* Nerfed the AOE and damage on Quill Spray.
* Fixed a fatal error when using Fissure on map edges.
* Nether Ward now gives a gold when killed.
* Fixed a bug with Dispersion that caused it to reflect too much damage off Culling Blade.
* Fixed a bug with IcePath that would cause it to sometimes go shorter or longer.
* CK’s Blink Strike now works like the one PA and SA have.
* Fixed Blackhole to properly affect the Spirit Bear.
* Increased the maximum number of Watchers.

As usual, I’ll keep you guys posted on the latest DotA details: where, when, and what’s going on with your favorite WC3:FT custom map.

The latest mandatory patch for WoW auto-updated for me today. Blizzard has done a great job with its tweaks and additions this time. Take, for example, the Rogue class. Before this patch, rogues had to activate their “detect traps” skill to detect traps, and even then it only lasted a few minutes! It truly is absurd to imagine a rogue who is incapable at times to detect traps! I scoff at the very notion! Now, however, detect traps has become a passive skill, just like in most D&D games.

Some of you are no doubt having trouble downloading this patch (WoW patch 1.11). If you can’t get it with Blizzard’s client, and you don’t want to have to pay FilePlanet a blanket subscription fee to obtain it, then you’ve come to the right place. Here at ElliottBack.com, we believe in the spirit of the law (or in this case, the spirit of the terms of service). We believe that this is a patch that you need to have, and that to charge you for it would be exploitation–pure and simple. We believe that we are doing both you and Blizzard a service by hosting this patch on our dedicated server and making it publically available for free download. Get it here, get it now, get it fast!

Also, the full changelog of this patch is viewable in this post.

Please note that connections are limited to 10 at a time, at which point each file should be able to download in less than two hours. The patch is 450mb.