Month: November 2022

World of Warcraft – Overall Review of WoW and Its Expansions

Dwayne Smith World Of Warcraft
World of Warcraft – Overall Review of WoW and Its Expansions

When ever I hear the words, World of Warcraft, I have mixed feelings. I have been playing this game for 3 years now and I am still currently playing the newest expansion, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. I love the game, and I love how it draws you into the on line world. But, it does get a little hectic trying to balance the real world, and the in-game world. This is a overall review of the game and all its attributes, starting with the original game, and its recent expansions.

Three years ago my friend introduced me to the game. I got caught up in the draw of the game Blizzard intended to reach. The first original game was I think the best out of the three. It was almost indescribable experiences, with all the raiding, PvP, and the original content that was o so fun to take head on. Molten Core, BWL, and Ony. These 3 were the heart and soul of WoW when it first came out. This was when the game was just getting started, and we couldn’t wait till the game progressed. Hmm… didn’t seem to go all that well. On a scale of 1-10, Original World of Warcraft gets a 9.

The release of The Burning Crusade was a great night. As I stood out side of Gamestop waiting for it, I couldn’t wait to go home and start leveling! Outlands, it brought joy to everyone who heard of it. The game now finally took that step forward to becoming one of the created games of all time. This was when memories of the original game started to fade away. All the great memories gone. But there were many more memories to gain, as PvP took a whole new turn. Arenas. They can go both ways. Some people hate them, some people love them, and some people just played them to get free PvP gear (until Blizzard added rating requirements). Raids also took a turn, as they went from 40 man down to 25 man. This increased the chances of getting gear a lot higher. The game started out great, but then as months go by, even a year or so, the game started getting very repetitive. It was almost like Blizzard was using BC as a “place-holder” until the next expansion. We could only hope. On a scale of 1-10, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade gets a 7.

Arthas. As BC was wrapping up, this name was everywhere. The release of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King was a big one. This game released as the game hovered around 11,000,000 members. Talk about bringing in the money, whew. There are no words to describe the ambiance of this game. The leap from BC to LK is unheard of. The environment in Northrend is incredible. My personal favorite is the zone Icecrown. Since it has only been out for a month or so, I don’t have to much to talk about it, but I can tell you this, it won’t be like BC. On a scale of 1-10, as of 12/19/2008, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King gets a 10.

Overall, the entire game, I would give it a 9.5 out of 10. Due to the fact that it does get a bit repetitive, and that it somewhat takes over your life, but is such a great game. This is the first article I have written for AC, and I hope who ever reads it has some input. I plan on basing my posts on WoW, and computer related topics, and I hope you enjoyed it so far. 😀

Christmas Gifts for the World of Warcraft Fan

Dwayne Smith World Of Warcraft
Christmas Gifts for the World of Warcraft Fan

With Christmas sitting right around the corner in this holiday season, Blizzard’s managed to give us all the chance to get a special gift for that World of Warcraft fan we all know (with over ten million you’re probably living or working with one). Don’t worry, there won’t be any bedspreads or socks showing up in their stockings; a few innovations from World of Warcraft developer Blizzard and you can toss them some pretty unique gifts this season.
In-game pets Most of us have seen the ludicrous prices some vanity items can fetch on eBay from World of Warcraft, such as mounts or pets.

Apparently, Blizzard has finally caught on to this and not too long ago opened up a particular section of the Blizzard Store that sells vanity pets. While we can expect this section to grow exponentially a Lil’ KT (Kel’Thuzad) and a Pandaren Monk are the only two pets that are available. The pets cost $10 each and are not bound, which means you can access the code then give it to whoever you want, including a World of Warcraft player you know. They aren’t cheap pet models, either, they’re nicely detailed and the Pandaren Monk gives player an appearance from a race they’ve been asking for, for years. Check them out at: http://us.blizzard.com/store/

Clothing There was a time where people didn’t like to admit they played World of Warcraft, but with a competitive scene and such a large membership, that problem is long gone. Though the Blizzard stone may have just a few items of clothing, one trip to jinx is an entirely different story. Jinx.com has a vast selection of shirts, some which are novelty (a green linen shirt that has its own tooltip). The selection of World of Warcraft clothing also extends to baby clothing and sweatshirts.

Talking Murloc Plush Toy Another item courtesy of Jinx, but much different from anything else you’ll be able to pull from their site. The most irritating creature in the history of World of Warcraft can be yours, perhaps to irritate some other people. The plush toy makes the iconic garbled cry that all players have come to know. Standing almost ten inches tall the plush is a serious reminder of the first time anyone ran into a group of murlocs and got zerged from the knees up.

TCG The trading card game serves a dual purpose when used as a gift. Many people who actually play the game play the trading card game as well, so helping to boost their collection is never a bad thing. The second purpose is that the loot cards, as mentioned before, are some of the most valued items someone can get their hands on in World of Warcraft. Where vanity is king, it’s definitely fun to have a chance at something barely anyone else is going to have in-game.

Record of Agarest War Will Change RPGs

Dwayne Smith Mmorpg
Record of Agarest War Will Change RPGs

The new Record of Agarest War game is a pretty good game with some interesting new gameplay features. Oddly, Record of Agarest War is available on the PS3 and Xbox 360 but in different formats. On the PS3 you can get Record of Agarest War as a download, but it is a big download at about 10gb. The Xbox 360 version is for sale on disc. This is a rather unique way to handle the distribution of a rather unique game.

If you do not really like Japanese anime, and manga you may still like Record of Agarest War. I am not a fan of anime or manga myself, but I enjoy the RPG gameplay of Record of Agarest War. One obviously foreign aspect of Record of Agarest War is that the English version of the game does not have English dubbing which is unfortunate and will be an issue for some who already are hesitant to get a very Japanese game.

Obviously fans of Japanese games, anime, and manga will love this game. If you are not a fan of Japanese pop culture you may still enjoy the game if you are a RPG fan. As an RPG one thing that I don’t like about it is the very old simple style of moving around the map. Even NES RPG games gave more choice in movement. the things about this game I do like far outweigh the things that I do not enjoy.

One innovation in the game is that you can use your characters to work together and use combos. So even if a player is not battling they can still be of use and it adds a level of complexity to the game. This is one aspect that gamers will likely be tinkering with to see what works best. The other innovation that I like is the introduction of dating sim play to the game. The dating sim idea may not work on all games but I think for RPG fans it is something that may not appeal to all players but certainly will have a following in the RPG community. Even if you are a RPG fan that does not like dating sims you will still enjoy using this new feature to create a new character.

I certainly think that this game is not for everyone. However I think Record of Agarest War will be well received in the RPG community for some of its new innovations which I think at least the system of combos will likely find its way into more RPGs. Besides the obvious RPG fans Record of Agarest War will also be popular with fans of Japanese pop culture, whether it is Japan only games, anime, or manga though most of the fans of one of those things are often fans of all the others. Being a download for the PS3 it is priced reasonably. Even as a standalone disc purchase it is reasonably priced especially since you would normally have to find it at a specialty store normally. Overall the Record of Agarest War video game is pretty good and I recommend it to RPG and Japan pop culture fans.

How To Make a Great Strength Pure on Runescape

Dwayne Smith Runescape
How To Make a Great Strength Pure on Runescape

Making a new account: First you will need a new account (go to runescape website). Note: when choosing a name you might want to choose something that looks cool, or use leet speak : 3 for E, 4 for A, 0(zero) for O, for example: 5tr pur3 0wn3d instead of str pure owned. once you have chosen your username, password ect. you then must do the tutorial on how to play runescape. This will only take a few minutes.

Making some money: You will need some money when you first start, to buy weapons, food, and other things. I found killing cows and picking up the hides and selling them was a good way at first to make cash.

Before training or killing anything (IMPORTANT): Before you go off training, you must take note that before you raise any skill, you must think what it will do to your pure, be especially carefull with defence and prayer. since your a melee pure you will want attack, to wield better weapons and take damage more often, and strength for higher hits. I would not get defence at all, it just raises your combat level and one of the main points of being pure is having a low combat level. Prayer is optional, some pures like no prayer to avoid having the extra combat levels, some pures like it to get higher hits when praying. Personally I would go with 13 or 31 prayer, 13 is great because 13 prayer levels hardly raises your combat level and you can use superhuman strength which will raise your strength by 10% when prayed. level 31 prayer is also good because you can use protect item (level 25), so you will keep one more item then usual when it is turned on, so 4 items, or 1 if you are skulled, And Ultimate strength, which will increase your strength by 15% then turned on. So, think about it first, then go ahead.

What to wield: While training just use full iron, an amulet of strength, leather gloves and boots and a normal cape for best offence and defence bonus. Plus the scimitar that you are using.

First steps in training: First you should go to the scimitar shop in Al karid and buy every scimitar from iron to mithril. Get out your iron scimitar. You should first get 5 attack. Just kill the cows in the lumbridge field for this, then get you’re steel scimitar and get you’re strength to 15, also on cows, (a good thing about training on cows is that you can get their hides and sell them in the Grand Exchange for around 100gp each) when you have 15 strength, move onto monks.

You’re geting there!: Go to the monastery just west of Edgeville. The thing about monks is that they heal themselves, and hardly hit much damage at all, 2 at the most. Train your strength to 20 then your attack to 10, then get a black scimitar(you will need to go to the grand exchange for this as not many players sell them). Now get your strength to 30. Then get 20 attack and a mithril scimitar. Note: you will not need food here, the monks will heal you if you talk to them and ask them to.

Minotaurs!: Now that you have 20 attack and 30 strength, I suggest you move onto the minoaturs in the Stronghold of security under the barbarian village. You will need food, I suggest salmon as they heal 9 hp, and arn’t too expencive. Go to the first level in the stronghold of security and you will find verious rooms filled with these minotaurs. They are level 12 with 10 hitpoints. Get 40 strength, then 30 attack, and a adamant scimitar, then 45 strength and 40 attack, and a rune scimitar. Note: minotaurs drop lots of iron arrows, so you may make some cash from that.

45-99 strength: Move to the flesh crawlers at the second level of the stronghold of player safety. To get to a good room of them go through the north doors at the entrance of the second level, then past some flesh crawlers, past a room of zombies, through another set of doors, then around a bend and through another set of doors and you will find yourself in a room of level 35 flesh crawlers. They have 25 hp, and only hit 1’s and 2’s. You will also need food here as they do hit quite a few 1’s and 2’s on level 1 defence, I suggest anything from salmon to swordfish.

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR PURE!