Steady's Gaming Blog

My Gaming Community the Combat Engineers is looking for more active gamers. So here is what what we are all about, and what we are looking for.

1. Mature, must be over the age of 18..

2. Respect. We do not do DRAMA, (let me repeat, we do not do DRAMA), fight over gear, taunt or harass. Profanity is not allowed. Any type of racial, religious, gender, sexual orientation, or political slurs are not allowed. Stealing from us will get you booted out of the group for sure.

3. Helpful. If you cannot be kind, and helpful to other players, this is not the place for you.

4. We are not in a hurry, if you are looking for farming or power leveling; you are most likely in the wrong place. I am not saying it does not take place in this group, I am just saying it is not the norm.

5. Have fun. We like to have fun. If we fail an instance, or a task force, it is not the end of the world. We will make every effort to complete a task, mission, instance or raid, but we are not going to do it at the expense of not having fun.

6. Able to function on a team. Each event or team will have a clear leader. All we ask is that you follow the direction of the team leader. If you have a suggestion, speaks up, just do it in the right way. The leader may or may not use you suggestion. If you have a better way to do something, sign up to be the leader for the next run.
7. Register for the forums. If you are a leader, list events and other thing there.

Where will you find us.

www.combatengineers.net is our main webpage

http://www.xfire.com/communities/moonb on xfire.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Combat-Engineers-Gaming-Community/248825615272 on Facebook

http://twitter.com/Steadycombateng to follow us on Twitter.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/combatengineers on Steam

Feel free to join any and all of these groups. I encourage all of our current active members to join these groups if they can.

What are we playing; more like what are we not playing.

City of Heroes- We have established SGs on the Freedom, Liberty, Justice, and Virtue Server. Freedom is the most popular. Liberty is dead, Justice and Virtue are very small.

City of Villains- Established VG on Freedom. It is dead, needs active members, willing to run teams and recruit.

Aion- Have a legion on the Kaisinel Server, Elyos. Have a some Asmodians on the Meslamtada Server. Needs leadership and active members.

World of Warcraft, we have a pretty active group, Alliance, Elune server. Running instances and leveling right now. Some day we would like to start running some 10 mans. Gear hounds, thief’s, immature people, need not apply.

Champions Online – semi established SG. Lacks leadership, nice for active players that would like to run an established SG.

Dungeons and Dragons Online – Old dead Guild on the Sarlona server. Needs active members, leadership.

Everquest II, on the Bazaar server, have a few active players. Do not have a guild yet, like to find more to start a guild.

Global Agenda- One man agency. Looking for leadership, and active members.

Star Trek Online- Yet another dead, one man fleet. Needs active members, and leadership.

Lord of the Rings- Two man kinship, is at the maxed out level. Needs active members and leadership.

Warhammer Online- No guilds, but we play Destruction on Badlands, and Order on Iron Rock. Looking for more to start a guild

All Points Bulletin – Have a group, just started playing, get in on the ground floor.

Games that we sometimes play and have teamed in are Team Fortress 2, Planetside, Battlefield Bad Company 2, and Battlefield Heroes.

So if you are interested in joining the Combat Engineers, contact me at steady@combatengineers.net.

This is my Hall of Fame. These are my characters that have reached the level cap in that particular game. I am attempting to get as many characters on this list as I can. I am not a power leveler. In fact, I am never in a hurry to get to the max level. I like to play the games, not rush to the end. I have also included the date the max level was achieved.

City of Heroes

Steady Ice Smash
Level 50 Fire melee/Ice Armor Tank – Liberty Server
2/20/2008

Steady Rifle
Level 50 Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster – Freedom Server
3/19/2008

Steady Claudio
Level 50 Dark Melee/Regeneration Scrapper – Virtue Server
5/22/08

Steady Double
Level 50 Dual Blades/Willpower Scrapper – Freedom Server
4/24/2009

Steady Icemaker
Level 50 Ice Blast/Mental Manipulation Blaster
8/4/2009

Steady Rock
Level 50 Ice Melee/Stone Armor Tank – Freedom Server
9/10/2009

Steady General
Level 50 Energy Melee/Ice Armor Tank – Freedom Server
3/7/2010

City of Villains

Steady Chain Smash
Level 50 Super Strength/ Fire Armor Brute
10/08/2008

Champions Online

Steady Enforcer
Level 40 Melee Tank
6/17/2010

World of Warcraft

SteadyC
Level 80 Rogue
7/21/2010

Warhammer Online

Steadydark
Level 40 Discpline of Khaine, Badlands
7/3/2010

Last week I finally made it to level 40 on Steady Enforcer my melee tank in Champions Online. I know, it took me long enough. So I have few thoughts about leveling in Champions Online.

I do like some thinks about Champions. I enjoy the nemesis system. It is fun, and a nice addition to game play. Most of the nemesis door missions are very well done. I don’t care too much for the open world missions, but I understand that they do have to vary the missions. In general, most of the leveling door missions are well done. They usually have a pretty good story line, and are fun to play.

Costume design is another good feature. I am not someone who spends a lot of time on costumes, but this system did entertain me for longer then most.

My biggest complaint is lack of content. The game does not have enough content to level a character from 1 to 40. It is as simple as that. They have added a zone, and some repeatable content in the past few months, but it is still not enough.

Upon hitting 40, I ran the unity missions. They were not bad, pretty easy. I ran the mission at the end, again, a pretty fun mission. Here is my problem, the rewards. Most of the good unity rewards cost 1,000 unity merits. I picked up about unity 20 merits the other day on my first run. I don’t think I will do those everyday for 50 days. The missions are not that varied, and it is just too much of running the same think over and over to hold my attention.

The same holds true for the nemesis rewards. I ran every nemesis mission, and have 288 nemesis merits. Most of the good rewards cost 1,000, so that leaves running the nemesis end game mission several times in order to get a decent reward.

So I am on the fence with this game. It is OK, but not great. It certainly has not knocked City of Heroes off its perch as the top game in this genre. In fact the numbers at Xfire and Raptr show that more people are playing City, then Champions already. I am disappointed, and here is why. This is not the first superhero game that Cryptic has made. They should have learned from the mistakes they made in City of Heroes. Instead, they used none of the previous knowledge to make this game better. They just rolled out an incomplete game, and say here you go, play it. I will still play Champions; I am a junkie after all. It will just not get as much game time as other games. Hopefully they will continue to add content, and improve some of the endgame.

Becketts massive online gamer released its reader choice awards for the best MMO’s of 2009.

Here are the results.

Best MMO of 2009
World of Warcraft, but not by much. It defeated Dungeons and Dragons online by a mere 68 votes. That is a shocking development. I remember when D & D was a ghost town before Turbine changed the pricing model. Some of these gaming developers need to pay attention to what Turbine has done, and how they have done it. I mean really, they brought D & D back from the dead. Wizards 101, Aion and City of Heroes were also in the top five. Looks like NCsoft has two of the top five games.

Best New Release of 2009

Aion, no big surprise here. This game is Ok; it looks nice, but lacks content. It is a grind fest after level 25. Aion winning is more about all of the bad games released this year, not the fact that it is a good game. The little engine that could took second place, Fallen Earth. I like this game, it has some bugs, but is one of the few games I have played this year where I felt the developers actually gave a damn about the product they were producing. Champions Online was third, which is a total embarrassment for Cryptic. Champions has been out for six months, and still lacks content in the mid 20’s and 30’s. It is painful to level in this game. They have ignored this fact, and done nothing to improve their game. In fact, the world famous kitchen sink patch was an epic fail, causing more problems then it fixed.

Best Fantasy MMO of 2009

D & D slays the dragon and beats out World of Warcraft. Who says a free to play game cannot be successful. I need to spend a bit more time playing D&D.

Best Sci-fi/Superhero MMO of 2009

City of Heroes followed by Star Wars: Galaxies. Anyone who reads this blog knows I am a big City of Heroes fan. I have not played Star Wars Galaxies in a bit, but might have to go back. Fallen Earth was third. This has to be a total embarrassment for Cryptic. It was beat out by two older then dirt games (in MMO years, like dog years), and an independent developer with about half the budget that Champions had.

Best MMO expansion.

Turbine takes the top two with D & D, Eberron Unlimited, and Lord of the Rings, Siege of Mirkwood. Both good expansions that were well planned, and well done. Turbine had a really good year.

Best Kid Friendly/All Ages MMO of 2009
Wizard 101 wins by a large margin. Steady jr., is allowed to play Wizards for a few hours each week. It is a very entertaining game. Pirates of the Caribbean comes in second. Not sure about this one, last time I was in there, the chat was full of profanity.

Best Free MMO of 2009

Runes of Magic, followed by D&D, and Maplestory. I avoid free to play games other then D & D, too many trolls for me.

Most Anticipated MMO of 2009

Star Wars: The Old Republic, followed by Star Trek. Score one for the old gamers like me, two games with themes from the past. You know we do have more money to spend then those youngsters.

So just my thoughts on Becketts games of the year for 2009. Everyone have a great gaming day.

As a gaming junkie, from time to time, I have to draw a line in the sand. I have to ask myself, how much money Will I pay to play a game. How long will I pay for a game, that lacks content. I asked myself this question this week in regards to Champions Online. In case you missed it, they announced an expansion, Vibora Bay. This will be a new level 37-40 zone. The problem is that they are going to charge players for this expansion. This has caused a really big firestorm on their forums. It is a huge problem, I would say for about 90% of the players. The lifetime subscribers are really upset. So I have a few thoughts.

First, the lifetime subscription covers the monthly fees; it does not cover expansions to the game. So lifetime subscribers, get over it.

Second, shame on you Cryptic, this is total nonsense, to make people pay for additional content, and here is why.

1. Your game already lacks content. My highest character is level 33, and the reason is lack of content. I have ran every level 33 mission I can find, and still need over two hundred thousand experience to make it to level 34. I have already ran several public quests, and I am so tired of running the zombie apocalypse PVP map, that I am have having zombie nightmares. The game lacks content; fix it before you start charging me for more of it. How can you charge me more money for an already incomplete game, come on be real. This is just being unreasonable.

2. Don’t get me wrong, I will pay for an expansion. I just have one rule. I will pay more when the level cap is raised, like World of Warcraft. If this expansion raised the cap to 50, and solved the lack of content problem, I am happy to pay for it.

3. You need to fire someone over there, this is a game killer. Do you have a marketing department, if you do, they need to wake up. Your game is dying, look at sites like Xfire, and Raptr, your game is already dead. I mean come on more people are playing City of Heroes, then your game. Star Trek Online is being released this week; I see were it already has several free expansions listed. The way you are treating your Champions Online player base, does make me want to rush out and play Star Trek Online. I find it hard to believe that you are this stupid. I am beginning to think that Champions Online is being set up to fail, so you can move on. Trust me, this is a bad move. Gamers don’t like being scorned; we will bitch for years and year about bad games.

4. I cancelled my six month subscription. The game just lacks too much content, plain and simple. I still have a month of game play left, and I am really not sure if I am going to keep playing. Cryptic really does not seem to interested in fixing this game anytime soon, I will be surprised if it lasts until the end of the year.

5. While I am on my soapbox. Another sinner in the gaming world is Gearbox, and Borderlands. I still cannot save the damn progress on your overpriced game on my PC. Like all good bloggers I track how many visitors I have, and what search term they use to get here. By far the term that brings the most people to this blog is “borderlands can’t save”. Shame on you for putting out downloadable content for a game that does not work for PC players, that is sad.

This is yet another tank build. This build has evolved several times. Let me know what you think, or have any comments. I am using mostly might powers; they just seem to work best. Don’t be shy, any comments good or bad are welcome.

Superstats:
Level 5: Super Dexterity
Level 13: Super Constitution

Powers:
Level 1: Kinetic Dart — Accelerated Metabolism
Level 1: Experimental Blaster — Crippling Challenge, Rank 2
Level 5: Nanobot Swarm — Rejuvenating Injectors
Level 5: Flight
Level 8: Defensive Combo — Surge Of Strength
Level 11: Bionic Shielding — Overloaded Circuits
Level 14: Force Shield — Force Sheath, Rank 2
Level 17: Resurgence — Evanescent Emergence, Rank 2
Level 20: Lightning Reflexes — Rank 3, Rank 2
Level 23: Haymaker — Nullifying Punch, Rank 2
Level 26: Shockwave — Challenging Strikes, Rank 2
Level 29: Masterful Dodge — Rank 2
Level 32: Enrage
Level 35: Havoc Stomp — Rank 2
Level 35: Teleport
Level 38: Psionic Healing — Rank 2

Talents:
Level 1: One Of Mind And Body
Level 6: Agile
Level 9: Enduring
Level 12: Acrobat
Level 15: Covert Ops Training
Level 18: Survival Training
Level 21: Impresario

As the year draws to a close, I decided to blog a bit about the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Best tool or content update.

1. It has to be the new dungeon finder in World of Warcraft. I am not a raider, but I am a 5 man dungeon crawler. This tool is by far the most useful tool that I have seen introduced in any game this year. You no longer have to hang out with the trolls in order to find a team for dungeons. Have I had a bad group or two, you bet, still I have had more good groups then bad. I like the fact that each group has to have a healer and a tank to start, or continue.

2. Mission Architect Arcs in City of Heroes. Yes, it had some problems when it first came out. Yes, since they made it so you could no longer make killer farming missions, it is largely being ignored. People are missing the point here. It is a great artistic outlet for some players. If you take the time to look, there are some really good missions. It extends the game for some players. I no longer have to run the same story arcs to level, lets face it. I have ran most of them. I can now go to the Mission Architect, and find some fresh arcs to run.

Worst tool or content update

1. Champions Online is the big winner here. First, the new chat features were I have to listen to every idiot in Millinimun City talk at the same time. So if there are 15 instances of MC, I have to see the chat for all 15. That is annoying, so annoying in fact that I have turned off zone chat. If you leave it on, it moves too fast, and your friends and Supergroup mates think you are ignoring them, because you never see your chat. Plus, the trolls take over the channel, and it has become useless.

2. Champions holiday content. Nothing new, the Christmas content is just a City of Heroes rip-off. Run around and open presents, lets see where have I seen that before. The whole Clarence thing was a giant bust. Travel from instance to instance killing him, in hopes of some loot, boring. The Halloween content, was repetitive, did not scale to your level, and no fun at all.

I found a few nice tools that are very helpful, if you are playing Champions Online. The first one is a webpage that helps you find missions that you might have missed. You can put your characters info into the search query, and it will show you all the missions you have missed. This is a very helpful tool. I think it still has a few holes in it, but is a very nice program. I noticed one thing when I ran this program on my level 19 character. There are not a lot of missions out there. I noticed that for level 21, this program lists 9 missions, which have 105,060 xp. According to the Champions wiki, 214,500 is needed to level to 22. That is a huge xp gap. Yes this does not include the missions that citizens give you, but generally the xp for those missions it really not very good. I noticed on my level 20 character that these missions were around 3,000 xp. Ok, so I have to say this. These numbers are not mine, they are provided by cryptic, and the author of the crime computer. So they might be a bit off. However I think is does show, that something is not quite right with the leveling system in Champions.

Crime Computer 2.0

The second helpful site that I found was a nice excel spreadsheet that displays the raw numbers for all the power. This spreadsheet is just awesome. The author did spent a lot of time on this, and it is very well done. So take a look at it if you get a chance. I used this with a grain of salt, because really these numbers are changing daily. It is however a nice place to start when making a build for a character.

A Flawed Spreadsheet for Damage and Healing Power Comparisons

Today I rolled an Ice Character, Steady Ice. I always like Ice because of the hold, controls and slow. It looks like it will do some fair damage as well. I choose Regeneration for my passive defense. My thoughts were with all the slows, and holds, that regeneration would have plenty of time to do it’s thing. Took resurgence for a heal, because it works well with regeneration. Also I am still not sure about the healing bots AI. I like frost breath over shatter, because frost breath does not remove chill like shatter does. I just found that at lower levels frost breath just used to much energy. I am looking for some feedback on Ice Burst. Does the spire of ice explode on its own, or do you have to target it. Seems like a waste to have to target something other then a mob. As always all feedback is welcome.

Steady Ice: Level 40 Champion

Superstats:
Level 5: Super Recovery
Level 13: Super Dexterity

Powers:
Level 1: Ice Shards
Level 1: Ice Blast — Rank 2, Rank 3
Level 5: Shatter — Rank 2
Level 5: Ice Slide
Level 8: Regeneration — Rank 2, Rank 3
Level 11: Ice Shield — Rank 2, Rank 3
Level 14: Ice Sheath — Rank 2
Level 17: Resurgence — Rank 2, Evanescent Emergence
Level 20: Vapor Form — Rank 2
Level 23: Ice Cage — Rank 2
Level 26: Wall Of Ice — Rank 2
Level 29: Sniper Rifle — Rank 2
Level 32: Ice Barrier — Rank 2
Level 35: Frost Breath — Frost Bite, Rank 2
Level 35: Tunneling
Level 38: Snow Storm — Rank 2

Talents:
Level 1: Absolute Zero
Level 6: Agile
Level 9: Tireless
Level 12: Impresario
Level 15: Covert Ops Training
Level 18: Martial Training
Level 21: Paramilitary Trainingce: Level 40 Champion

As I played games yesterday, I noticed a few things that just might be helpful.

1. If you are playing Aion, choose a west coast server. All the east coast servers are full all the time.

2. The fight club missions in Millennium City, really does need three people. It is a room full of bad guys, and a nasty super villain.

3. It is hard to get smashed during Brewfest, and find a place to fall 65 feet. Anyone knows of a good spot let me know.

4. Champions Online installed a new patch last night. Looks like it will be easier to earn resources.

5. This comic says it all. Zeros- “A Guide to Popularity”. I really like the caption “pretend you are colorblind.”