h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A quick squint at Google reveals three possibilities for the new Alliance race...

In order of likelihood:
Draenei
Murloc
Panda-people

Some where there is a photoshopped image of the pandarans (or whatever they are called), I think it all started as an April Fool joke last year. It has been denied by Blizzard, but the speculation is fun.

Murlocs would be amusing, they walk like Charlie Chaplin.

And make noises like someone vomiting.

Interesting thought I've just had... if Murlocs *were* the new Alliance race would that make the ones found in Elwynn, Westfall, etc. neutral or even friendly instead of hostile?

I *hate* murlocs.

The Daralan city would be a fun instance if handled right. I don't know if it will be in the expansion or not.

At the moment I am trying to level up my rogue so I can go to Molten Core. Right now I am questing with 4 friends on a fairly regular basis. We have been playing quite a lot together and have become quite adept at tactics. The priest is our healer, the warlock DOTs mobs, the two warriors keep aggro off of the rest of us and my lowly rogue (lvl 32) does DPS.

I'm having quite a bit of trouble handling things with my main character... I find that now I'm at a higher level all the monsters I encounter are in much larger and/or denser groups than before and I get swamped quite quickly. Unfortunately most of the other players of my level I encounter seem to have formed little cliques already so I feel I can't just ask for help.

I think I'll revisit my Hunter for a while.

I've had a look at WoW again, and something that I find a bit disappointing is that there doesn't seem to be a way to try out the game without actually buying it.

Considering it costs not only to buy it, but also to play it (except for the first month, if I understand it correctly) I'm not sure I want to pay for something only to discover that I still prefer PE.

I've been practising some crafting in PE lately, and managed to tailor a pair of male pants (I tried to tailor female pants, but male seems to be easier for some reason). Not only did they turn out ok, but I also managed to colour them in the colours of the Swedish flag!

My rogue is lvl 58 and attuned, but I've not been to MC yet. Still have loads of quest in BRD, Scholo and places. But I've started a priest and having fun with her at the moment.

I've found that being in a guild or at least in a chat channel to help look for people to quest with is vital. Have you visited the official forum for help, MrD? You could even start a chat channel if there isn't one.

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The game actually comes with a ten-day free trial key... basically you give a friend the discs (as you don't need the discs to actually play the game) along with the trial key and they get ten days in which to try the game for free before they have to buy it.

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I'm nearly in a guild (just waiting for Fords to get enough names on the charter)... and although I am aware of the usefulness of General Chat when trying to group up I don't know how to actually put a message on it!

I have thought for a while that one possibility for a new alliance race are the centaurs - after all, they are the Tauren's sworn enemy. It would make transportation a bit of a problem but eh.

We shall all have to wait and see.


And as for Dalaran, that shield is there because they're rebuilding under it, right? So I don't think it would be a dungeon instance, if they ever did let people in. But it would make sense for the town to be instanced, as it doesn't have a very big radius but it is magical, so it is probably much larger than it seems.

From a Q&A to Blizzard about Dalaran:

"10 Can we hope discovering what lies under the Dalaran dome ?

Blizzard : This is an exciting notion for many, however, we do not have any definite plans regarding the Dalaran dome at this time."

So either they're being coy or they really have no diea what's going on there yet. Oh well.

Blizzard is rather good at building expectations...

I give you WarcraftIII, Starcraft, Diablo II. Blizzard takes a long time to release a product but it is always a great product.

Centaurs would be cool, especially if they made them as fast as 'normal' (i.e. characters on mounts) cavalry.

>>The game actually comes with a ten-day free trial key... basically you give a friend the discs>>

Ah, but that would require me knowing anyone in my neck of the woods who plays WoW - and I don't.

Nearest h2g2 researcher that I know of is Freedom, but she hasn't been online for ages.

I think some video game magazines have been doing 14 day trials lately.

Marv said, "We have been playing quite a lot together and have become quite adept at tactics. ..., the warlock DOTs mobs, ... and my lowly rogue (lvl 32) does DPS."

Marv (or anyone), what do those initials mean?

Ummm... ummm... I have no idea what those initials are. I suppose I should as I play WoW myself!

Damage over time and damage per second.

So ideally, in a lot of games, people who are proficient at knives will sacrifice damage per hit for damage per second, especially if you can do things like poison your blade or enchant it with fire, etc. - anything that will add a constant damage to your variable damage.

For instance, I would chose this weapon:

Fake Dagger +1
23-34 damage, 120 delay
(27.9 dps)
Additional: chance to add +30 nature damage on successful hit

Over a:
Fake Sword +2
52-74 damage, 470 delay

Of course those stats are made up entirely, but if you do the math it is quite worth it in a lot of cases to use a lower delay/lower damage weapon (unless you're given bonus to use a heavier weapon).

In FFXI when I play a red mage, I often use a dagger called a Hornetneedle. If I have the equipped as my main weapon, haste myself and cast an en-spell on myself (Enflame, Enblizzard, etc), I hit the mob so fast that even if the dagger does 4-10 damage the en-spell damage adds up to make it more than worthwhile. It's the same principle.

Oh, and as for DOT this is of course spell based. Most spells stack on top of each other, so you could have the potential to not-so-slowly kill a target with DOT - in fact in PvP I am often killed by DOT from priests.

In FFXI DOT spells are not so fast acting. There are only a few, such as Dia, Bio, Poison and various elemental spells that lower a stat and all do the same amount of low-level damage.

Sporky has it right. So this is how it works in my group.

Eviscaria Priest -- Healing and shadow damage (spells cast by this class that do damage

Davi Warrior -- Tank. He holds the aggro (the attention of the mob/monster we are currently attacking) and absorbs damage

IPFreelike Sucky Warrior -- He charges everywhere and tends to pull too much aggro and then trains it all back to the group, thereby wiping us

Ombremort Warlock -- Minion's either tank (void walker) or distract mobs (sucubus) and spell damage by DOTing

Beldrop Rogue -- This is my char, I do melee damage for DPS with my poisoned blades and various attack types.


So my group uses teamspeak, a voice over IP program, to talk to eachother during the game. This allows us to tightly controll our actions (other than a certain sucky warrior) while we quest or run instances. We plan our attacks carefully and try not to wipe. We also use it for PvP (player vs. player) when we run across Alliance characters. We work as a group and we tend to level up rather quickly. We share loot maing sure that the proper pieces og to the proper user. All in all it is quite successful.

*Goes out in search of a friend with a WoW demo disk, now that he knows of their existance*