COSMOS Mage Day 11 to Day 14

Hey guys, I am shocked at how strong and fast I am making progress with this mage. For example I came up to catacombs level 90 with just ~22k BR and a green Pan with lowbie Templars. My guildmates were shocked and so was I - how important it is to make a perfect character finely tuned.

In the Battle Ground today I earned ~600 honor while still wearing blue items and not having neither the arena set nor the PVE set and I was killing level 54s while being 50 myself. This was totally unexpected which is why I did not even plan to record it, but I will start recording my BGs to share with you. Of course I also died a lot, but several times I was on a killing spree.

I have now 1 item from the 40 pve set and 79 crystals (1 short) for another one - not a single crystal dropped from all the campaigns :( and i have switched to and started doing GOD MPD gathering items for 50 set now, so I will not go for full 40 set, especially since I saw that I can be successful in the BG with even blue items that I have.

Here below are the screenshots from COSMOS Mage Day 11 to Day 14 from Wartune Kabam Server 4 Europe.

By the way the plan now is to hold level but since I maxed out talents already for level 50 I automatically became level 51 at the end of day 14.

KABAM Day 11 - COSMOS Level 50 - BR 21479

KABAM Day 12 - COSMOS Level 50 - BR 24561

KABAM Day 13 - COSMOS Level 50 - BR 23940

KABAM Day 14 - COSMOS Level 51 - BR 27254

And if you have not seen the balen spending videos here they are Part 1 and Part 2, each with 30,000 balens making a total of 60,000 balens:



2 additional pictures from my Wartune following request from Leo:

  What Wargaming Has Done Right, and What They Can Do To Improve

 

I know what you're thinking, those of you who know what the word contrarian means. Why would I bother to write about what Wargaming has done right? If we look at the definition of contrarian, we find it means this:

con·trar·i·an

noun \kən-ˈtrer-ē-ən, kän-\

: a person who takes an opposite or different position or attitude from other people

While I know I have mentioned some things they've done right, and some of their successes previously, I will try to explain here why their success is very much a good thing, and how it can possibly further the positive development of World of Tanks. You see, although I'm a contrarian to a great extent, I still want to see this game succeed. At the very least, I'd like to see the game spur other developers to succeed with their idea on this unique genre of player versus player armored vehicle combat. So far, sadly, only Gaijin (developers of War Thunder) has stepped up to the plate. As I've mentioned before in a previous article, this is quite surprising to me, and tells me that major game developers are stuck in the mud for the most part. This means that they simply want to continuously rehash the same old sequels, prequels, etc, until you have Call of Duty 15 (do we really need that?). This leaves game development largely up to indie developers, kickstarter heroes (Uber Entertainment with Planetary Annilhation), and lesser-known but very successful developers like Wargaming. I fully believe that these types of developers and publishers are the future of gaming. Of course, the only time that major game producers will take notice and stop producing garbage is when people simply stop paying them (Capcom). 

What Wargaming Has Done Right

There's a lot of evidence showing what Wargaming has done right as far as their development of World of Tanks is concerned. In my first article, I gave quite a few examples of this. Make no mistake, this company has gone from 3rd rate nobody to raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in only a few years. They've managed to create something quite unique indeed in World of Tanks, and millions of gamers have taken notice. This game truly is the very first online player versus player armored vehicle game that has been done so well that while not everyone pays for it, those that do in some cases have spent hundreds or thousands on the game. For those that don't, they've spent a lot of time grinding, in some cases, years to get a few tier ten tanks. Wargaming has created a game that draws people in and either forces them to spend money, forces them to grind for long periods of time, or forces them to quit (or all of the above). This has proven to be a very successful business model, as Wargaming has shown time and time again:

http://ftr.wot-news.com/2013/12/17/wargaming-buying-a-new-building-on-cyprus/

http://ftr.wot-news.com/2013/12/28/wargaming-to-restore-dornier-bomber-for-300k-eur/

(source: http://ftr.wot-news.com/)

(source: http://ftr.wot-news.com/2013/12/17/wargaming-buying-a-new-building-on-cyprus/)

So, not only have they bought up multiple gaming studios, and a bank, but also a new gigantic futuristic-looking building, and are in the process of a restoring an old bomber. These purchases may seem perhaps a bit much, but if you know anything about business tactics, then they make sense. 

The T69, a feared 7/42 opponent

Gameplay

It's really the gameplay of World of Tanks that gets people hooked. The learning curve is punishing, there are many players who will make you pay for your mistakes, and some of the grinds are very tough indeed. Despite all this, the game manages to be very, very fun, if you stick with it. If you can manage to find tanks you enjoy, and become very good, or at least adequate in them, you will find the game to be much more engaging and less bland than many games. Every battle is different, every battle is a chance for you to be a hero, or get utterly destroyed in a smoking wreck. There's the thrill of the fight (que Eye of the Tiger), and the danger that you can die at any time and thus have no further affect on the battle. There's the thrill of hitting a crazy shot at a crazy angle, the thrill of one-shotting big tanks, the thrill of ramming the enemy at high speed and then shooting them to death. Once you learn some of the game mechanics, the game can work for you in many cases, and become quite the experience. It's really the gameplay, and the ability to move up the tiers and unlock new tanks, that keep people motivated to play the game. Wargaming has done an outstanding job on this, and thus people empty their paychecks into the game. 

either lots of time or lots of money

Progression

I mentioned previously about moving up the tiers. This is really the end-game of World of Tanks, and goes hand and hand with the end-game battle scenarios of Clan Wars, Team Battles/E-sports, and Tournaments. It's quite exciting to unlock that next tank, buy it, upgrade it, and play it. In some ways it's almost like trying a new car, Wargaming has made sure that this is something to be eagerly anticipated. When I was still in a clan, almost everyone would tell people when they got a new tank, and people would congratulate them, and it was a fun experience. Getting a new tier ten tank is especially nice, since even with gold/free experience, it is usually quite the grind. This is of course not mentioning the people who literally use their hundreds of thousands of free experience, and tons of gold, to get a tier ten in seconds (very expensive unless the gold comes from tournaments/clan wars, etc). 

What Wargaming Can Do To Improve

While there are many good aspects of World of Tanks, there is definite room for improvement as well. One of the primary concerns about the game is the matchmaker, which for the most part has been bad for years. This could be part of how Wargaming gets people to pay, as mentioned in previous articles. In beta, you had horrible battles like this:

tier 1 vs tier 9 (IS-4 was once tier 9)

Instead, now you have horrible battles like this:

have fun with that

Obviously, they have improved the matchmaker to an extent. Improving upon something that is as bad as the beta matchmaker though, is still not really that great. I believe they should implement a one tier spread at this point, which would cause battles to be much closer, and the top tanks then do not have the massive advantage that they still currently have. Everyone wants closer battles right? Who wants 0-15 or 15-0? It was mentioned before that we didn't have the server population to sustain a one tier spread, people would have to wait forever, etc. I believe now the server population is high enough that this method could work. As shown on wot-news:

NA Server

Total Players:                                  5,240,056

Active players in the last week:      1,187,643

In June of 2011, shortly after World of Tanks launched, there were 177,827 registered that month. Compare that to June of 2013 which is 776,593, which is the largest spike of registered users ever for the NA server (source: http://wot-news.com/stat/server/us/norm/en). Thus you can see that the population of the NA server has significantly increased, and indeed my experience can attest to this as well. I remember when the game first came out, you had around 10-15k at most, online at one time, and now you have 25-40k on average.

Aside from the matchmaker, there's the RNG of 25%, which I feel is far too high, and should be lowered to 10-15% at least. RNG simply makes bad players make big plays, and downplays the effective skill of good players by a roll of the dice. It can be one of the worst aspects of the game, as some games you simply won't be able to salvage a win. 

There's also the camouflage and spotting mechanics, which simply favor high view range, high camo tanks, such as high tier TDs. It also makes light tanks, even high tier lights, that much less effective, as many of the higher tier TDs, heavies and mediums will see them before they can do anything. 

Finally, you have powercreep, which Wargaming insists upon ramping up, almost on a monthly basis. This is something that definitely makes them a lot of money, and while I have no problem with them making money, I do have a problem with obsoleting current or past tanks with newer better ones. It's been proven that over time, powercreep does kill games, and this one will be no different, if they continue. 

All of this being said, I believe World of Tanks has been a truly fantastic game. Unique in design, concept, and implementation, the downside to it is the fact that Wargaming is simply content to be ignorant of many player concerns. Perhaps War Thunder ground forces will change this, or perhaps not, either way, I think we can already tell Wargaming is a bit nervous about them. This is evidenced by their future implementation of enhanced HD graphics, more modules being added (extra armor, etc), and other features to come. All of this is to directly compete with Gaijin, the makers of War Thunder ground forces. It will be an interesting battle between the two developers, but the only winner can be us, the players. 

  

Torque3D seems to finally get a Linux port!

Following the release of the Torque3D engine under the MIT license (latest release 3.5 here), there was a lot of back and forth regarding a port to Linux (the engine actually used to have a good Linux port, but that one was dropped a few years back). At some point there was even an official Kickstarter crowed-funding attempt, which however failed to reach the estimated funds (but nether the less more than US$10k were pledged). After that things quited down, but several people continued developing a OpenGL renderer and Linux port.

Now it seems like all these efforts seem to be near a somewhat usable Linux port or at least that's what I understand by following this forum thread.

Torque3D running on Xubuntu 12.10

In the short term the most interesting application of this Linux port is probably that the creator of RotC has announced on his currently running indigogo campaign to liberate (and update) the game, that now there will also be a Linux port.

Great news if you ask me, so don't forget to pledge some of that Christmas money you got towards reaching the funding goal (currently $388 out of $1500, with 36 days left). Let's make this happen!

Edit (nearly forgot): these two projects related to Torque3D might be interesting to follow: Project GREED and Zentense.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.

Console: Nintendo 3DS

Genre: RPG

Release Date: November 22nd, 2013

Date Reviewed: December 27th, 2013

Gameplay:

LOZ: A Link Between Worlds is the newest game added to the Zelda series. A Link Between Worlds is a direct sequel to A Link to the Past for the SNES. After many long years they finally decided to do a sequel to the original. A Link Between Worlds is pure gold and is a must own for everyone. The game is like the original where the camera is a top view camera of Link. It does an excellent job as staying to it's roots from the original with the camera view, the enemies, the temples, and you are in the exact world from A Link to the Past. You start off by sleeping in of coarse and the Blacksmith's son comes to wake you up because you are late as usual for work. When you arrive to the blacksmith's shop he is talking to someone very important. As soon as the important figure leaves the blacksmith proceeds to give you trouble for being so late. After he finished yelling at you he notices that the man forgot his sword. Your errand is to find the man and give him is sword. From this point on, your adventure begins. A Link Between Worlds uses the 3DS extremely well. The game runs at a smooth 60 frames per second with no FPS drops at all. The biggest feature I love about this game is you can do the temples in any order you choose. You don't find your items in the dungeon anymore such as the bow or hook shot. Instead you can rent out all of the items or purchase them for yourself with rupees. This is a very smart thing to be added to the game because with this feature, the game allows you to do any of the temples in any order you choose. There is not a wrong way of doing things. This makes the world feel very open.

The Shop where you buy/rent items!

 

Each temple is fun with clever boss mechanics in each temple. Some of the bosses are beyond easy but what do you expect in a Zelda game now. There will always be a few easy ones. As you progress you discover that you can go into an alternate Hyrule. This place is called Lorule that is ruled by Zelda's counterpart Hilda. In order to access this world you are able to turn into a painting and walk along walls into tears which teleports you into Lorule. Although the overworld is largely the same as that of A Link to the Past, all the dungeons are totally new. Exploration of dungeons utilize the game's 3D effects and feature Link jumping between levels to solve puzzles and advance. It feels very smooth when you transition into new areas.

Like in previous Zelda titles there are always collectable items to be found. When you find all of the babies you get a new attack for your sword. Every time you return 12 at a time the mother will upgrade any of your items of your choosing to make them more powerful. Rupees are much more important in this game because you have to buy the items and they are not cheap. However, rupees are extremely easy to find and add up quickly.

2D Painting of yourself!  

Overall the gameplay is truly remarkable. It has a lot of nostalgia for the old fans and well as some new ones for people who started the series later on. This game has something for everyone. The world is huge, lots to explore, lots of puzzles, and collectables. All of these encourage the play to explore both worlds of Hyrule and Lorule.

Graphics:
The game follows the top-down two-dimensional gameplay of various Zelda games, especially A Link to the Past, though it is now presented with stereoscopic 3D graphics when played on the Nintendo 3DS. The top screen is used as the main screen, while the bottom touch screen contains the map, gear, and items. The loading screen consists of a black screen with a Triforce in the lower right corner. It runs smoothly at 60 FPS with new reduce in frames anywhere in the game. It is very colourful, the environments are large and very beautiful and full of life.

Comparison.

Sound:
The game features slightly updated sound effects from A Link to the Past. The music tracks are arrangements of the originals. In addition to the music from A Link to the Past, the Streetpass battle mode of the game includes two remixed and rearranged versions of the Temple Theme from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The Streetpass mode is inspired by the final "Shadow Link" boss fight from the NES game. It sounds fantastic and has a lot of nostalgia while just listening to the music.

Conclusion:
A Link Between Worlds is a highly recommend, must own game for the Nintendo 3DS. It is one of the best Zelda games ever created. New fans and old fans alike will find something they love about this game. Whether it be the nostalgia, music, graphics, or game play in general, people will find something they love about it. This game provides a lot to do and you can do it in any order you choose to. Fantastic, I hope to see more. Also, when you beat the game, test your skill in Hero Mode.

Overall Score:

10/10

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COSMOS made level 50 in 10 days

Hey guys, some of you might know that i started a 2nd account, a male mage, on Kabam. I have been keeping a picture diary of my progress on that character and I am happy and amazed to be able to tell you that I am now level 50 in 10 days! I could rush higher further, but I just wanted to get the sylph at level 50 and now i will slow down significantly in order to get honor and the Lord Divine title.

And here below are the pictures of every day from Day 1 to Day 10.
(If you like this please click Google+ or share on Facebook, inside the Wartune game, on your guild websites/forums, etc)

KABAM Day 1 - COSMOS Level 29

 KABAM Day 2 - COSMOS Level 35

KABAM Day 3 - COSMOS Level 38

KABAM Day 4 - COSMOS Level 41

KABAM Day 5 - COSMOS Level 44

KABAM Day 6 - COSMOS Level 46

KABAM Day 7 - COSMOS Level 47

KABAM Day 8 - COSMOS Level 48

KABAM Day 9 - COSMOS Level 49

KABAM Day 10 - COSMOS Level 50

Resource Recovery Officer Defeated

Hey guys, I think a lot of people don't know this little piece of information - check it out - the Resource Recovery Officer in the Battle Ground event can actually be killed and nets you a very nice 500 points and 40 honor, which might not be so great for the one who is capable of doing this, but at least the points can be used for healing if needed. Still, an interesting piece of Wartune info, thanks to Thethrell for sharing.

December RTS updates

Merry Christmas from FreeGamer!

As a nice present from the 0 A.D. team, the new Alpha 15 Osiris was released today:



Lots of great new features and especially multiplayer games should be now much easier to do with hosting improvements and a lobby for browsing available games.

Another open-source RTS engine (using Mono/C# though) has also released a new version: OpenRA. Currently it is still geared toward running an assortment of older Command & Conquer based games, so you need to own these for the data. But this release adds lua scripting for the creation of custom missions, so maybe someone will come up with a libre game to run on this engine.

Last but not least, a new version of Warzone2100 was released about a week ago. This one actually includes some higher resolution textures, which is hopefully the first step to officially integrate all the awesome new art assets from the art revolution project.
Speaking of WZ mods: There is also an interesting new tower-defense mod currently being developed.

2 New Tiers in Sylph Atoll

(Posted by Fancypants)
    Hey guys! I have another update for you guys from China. This time it involves sylphs.
   First of all, let me say that I bought some scrolls in the shop to get in to the sylph atoll, as I was only a lvl 22 archer at that time.
   The update is that there are two more tiers in the sylph atoll! I took screenshots of the sylphs for you guys.
Here is tier 3 and the sylphs there

And now tier 4

I am really looking forward to the tier 4 sylph. It looks like the strongest, and overall the best in the long-run, but that is just my opinion:)
                    Until Next Time:D

Class Wars Winners Of US East Servers "DEC 2013"

~Posted by Jack~

Hey guys, inspired by cosmos i m also posting the "Class Wars" winners from "US East" server of December 2013 .

~First pic is of the winners of the Class Wars from US East server Dec 2013 :-

~Second is the pics of Mage, Knight and Archer Toppers list in Class Wars :-

Mage toppers in cw dec 2013 of US East

Knight toppers in cw dec 2013 of US East

Archer cw toppers in cw dec 2013 of US East

~Third is the pic of the winners of seven seasons of Class Wars in US East :-

*Mage

*Knight

*Archer

> So its all guys see you all later and wish u all a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year <

Merry Christmas and a Happy coming New Year 2014!

Hey guys! Merry Christmas and a Happy coming New Year 2014!
Thanks to all my fans so very much for your support and thanks and everything! I wish everyone wonderful holidays and below is the Christmas card i prepared for all of you - I hope you like it :)!

The secret weapon of Thethrell

Hey guys, I got here a screenshot of the Wartune secret weapon of Thethrell which is just awesome! So check it out below and here are few words from him:

I'm Thethrell from Server Wartune 153. Upgrading this took a purple Apollo. Second star took 15k exp, third took 20k, fourth took 25k, fifth took 30k, and to max it to orange took 35k. Upgrading all the stats on it took getting sepulcrum wherever I could, and a lot of it. I didn't put it into any other sylphs, just this one. I've been playing since September, am level 70, and was doing Class Wars for the first time and wanted to be prepared, and came in 19th, after fighting only lvl 75+. Pretty much once I pull this out I win. I was also able to pass lvl 15 of Necro thanks to this, and made it to 19, and ONLY lose in battleground and group arena to stunners.

Divine Comedy 2 Review First Look

Hey guys, here is a long post - introduction or a first look / review of the China Wartune 2 called now Divine Comedy 2 by Cookie:

OK. Here we go. Let’s see whats new and different on the Sq.7road.com server in China.

Firstly, the name of the game. It used to be Divine Comedy, but now it’s Divine Comedy 2, so they obviously think they’ve changed it enough to make it a “sequel”.

They have a helpful sidebar with links to different tools etc. One of them showed this which I thought was of interest.

You can now battle other players in the wild.

Right, into the game itself. Started as mage (probably shouldn't have as I've never gone a mage before so I don’t know what’s different).

This is the 2nd battle within the opening story. Big guy appears out of nowhere to help (yes, I’m the little one on the far left). No idea what’s going on? All “commentary” is in Chinese obviously.

Intro has you in this “camp” before you fly to your city (see screenshot later)

First intro “campaign” (controllable). Part of intro story but you can see it’s a campaign map. Notice the new quest list look(very nice). New monsters. New music. New animations for attacks. All seems to be little touches to improve the look and feel of the game.

I opened the inventory and it looks the same. Let’s look at the skill tree :

Mage skill tree (is this the same?), but notice 8 more slots grayed out off to the right. Hmmm. I thought it might be for the runes, but there are still the 3 tabs on the left side (unless there’s something else coming)

Blacksmith looks similar but clicking the tabs shows the level you need to be to access them. Tabs 2 and 3 (probably socket and synthesize) open at lvl 15. Tabs 4,5 and 6 (probably refine, recycle and convert) open at lvl 19. But there’s a 7th tab not in our version. Opens at lvl 80! Please can someone translate :)

OK. Now for a screenshot from another part of the intro story. I’m going to start clicking the icons in the top right and see what they are :

1st icon – looks like crystals.
No idea. Guessing it’s a buy some sort of crystals for Balens window.

2nd icon – purple gift.
Er...get presents for something that levels up (through Balens probably).

3rd icon – treasure chest.
Looks like the special offer window. Same as ours – get free stuff if you spend, spend, spend.

4th icon – blue gift.
No idea what this is looks like events but that’s the 5th icon?!

5th icon – Hot Events.
Guessing by same icon it’s the events window. It looks similar. The first tab shown here is different though, looks like “Hot” tab from shop. The other pages are the same as ours.

Back at the camp I reached level 10 and was awarded with a VIP token (the one you can dodge if you refresh the page, but I just used it). So, let’s have a look at the VIP window on 7Road.

Looks like you get 3 levels of VIP tokens. The one you get forced to use at lvl 10 is the purple one (the expensive one, interestingly). There is a list with 14 entries below. 2 highlighted on the cheap one (blue), 3 highlighted on the middle one (red) and 4 highlighted on the expensive one (purple). It is probably things that are “free” when you use that VIP token.

I’m guessing they are the things listed in our VIP screen under VIP benefits/level comparison. We have 19 things listed though so I wonder if they have merged some or removed them.

Maybe you can buy into our VIP levels rather than earn them through time as on our servers. Who knows?!

VIP Wheel looks pretty much the same (big button is spin once, bottom left button is spin all and bottom right button is refresh). I refreshed it about 10 times to see if there was anything new. It looks like there isn’t. I span a couple of times (with the limited tokens I had) on the 20K, 60K, 500K gold setup (shown as 2W, 6W and 50W in China) and the 20K came in on the 2nd spin. So looks like the same “fixed” spins as now. 20K on 1st or 2nd spin, 60K on 4th or 5th spin and 500K on 7th or 8th spin. Rubbish in between. (Obviously I’m presuming a lot here from 2 spins).

OK. Almost at the end of the intro story stuff. You get on some sort of flying beast and off you go...

Flying into my city (yes that’s me in the middle)!

OK. This is the first proper campaign map. Strangely similar. They’ve gone back to the original quest look, even though it changed for the intro story. Plus it’s the same monsters again. Sigh. I think they will change it throughout in later patches though.

In the middle of the screen is the new player online bonus window (2nd icon in at the top right – looks like a chalice). It looks like they get better stuff than we do, surprise, surprise. Have a look at all those sweet Balens! (And another VIP token!)

There’s nothing new to note in the campaign, except maybe the lack of AFK. I can’t remember if that comes in later.

But, on the 2nd campaign I went into a lair to see if you still get the troops card that I find useless and always sell. Not any more, I got a card that looked like a character (rather than a monster), so I used it, went to troops and there weren’t any new ones spawned, but . . . back in the campaign, my character was now glowing blue and flashing on the screen. It must be a buff of some sort. Maybe the Pandora’s’ box has gone and you need to do the lairs to get a free buff (although it stayed with me AFTER the campaign) and showed up as an icon in the buff icon section next to your character in the top left. Buff lasted for an hour.
OK. Back to the city, some more buildings have opened up so let’s run through them.

Here’s the city when I’m at level 13.

All new graphics, but what else has changed (when clicked)? Top is the town hall, then sweeping from left to right is Forgotten Catacombs (same), Warehouse (same), Cottage (same), Barracks (same, and same troops :(  ) and Tree of Ancients (differences shown in next screen shot).

The first new icon at top right of screen is, I believe, the new guild battle info screen. It’s been updated, but I’m not bothering with a screenshot as it’s all in Chinese and mostly writing.

There’s also a shield with arrows sticking out of it just above the quest list (and they’ve move the full screen icon there too). The shield icon appears to be a shortcut to jump to campaign, barracks, guild, etc. Not sure, but that’s what happens when you click on things in the popup window.

Farm now has a large plot at the end. Interested to see what that’s for.

Here’s the shop. Apart from the ridiculously low prices (50 Balens for a socket rod :(  ) there's no new layout or anything (they've still got the bug on the clothing tab where all the tabs move to the left), but . . .

What are those numbered scrolls? Sigh, 30 Balens instead of 295 for Lvl 7 gem transposer, although they don’t have levels 8 and 9 for some reason :(.
And...

10 pages of sylph skills! Going by the skill colours on the scrolls (blue for Iris, green for Pan, etc), I think there is 6 different sylphs in China.

OK. Well thats my run down of the start of “Divine Comedy 2”, the NEW(ish) Wartune on the 7 Road servers in China. More to come if I get time.

Hope you found it interesting.

(If you like this please click Google+ or share on Facebook, inside the Wartune game, on your guild websites/forums, etc)