World of Warships
screw the grinding, goodbye iconians, i'm gonna be sailing the ocean breeze! :woohoo:
calx
Angelsilhouette
World of Warships
I never knew that humble had a deal to get into the CB. I'd have jumped on that. I'm especially jealous because people who played at least X number of games in CB got a free Arizona class battleship.
Having played through to the battleship, I must say that I am very VERY impressed. The graphics are really good (though I may turn them down a bit to take the fog out of the distance), really VERY good, the physics are awesome (Firing a salvo with the battleship displaces a heck of a lot of water, just like in real life), but I'm wondering about the viewing distance. They've gone into INCREDIBLE amounts of detail in nearly every aspect but two: One is that it doesn't seem that they've taken the curvature of the earth into account. The other is that the guns on the South Carolina could shoot about 18km (and up to 25km on WWII battleships) in real life, but the game restricts me to about 10km. I'm guessing that's for fairness' sake, though.
The game isn't for everyone, though; my friend gets really frustrated with it. It's worth it to give it a try, though, I promise.
You start with both an Erie class American cruiser and a Hashidate Japanese cruiser. They play very similarly, but may fool you into thinking that the rest of the two nations ships do, as well.
Initially I chose America while my friend chose Japan. The American Tier 2 and 3, though, are quite different from the Japanese Tier 2 and 3.
The American 2/3 ships are a bit slower, but the guns load much faster. The Japanese ships are noticeably faster, but the tier 2's guns load much much more slowly. Fortunately, when you upgrade your hull, you are given a total of 4 extra guns to the 2 extra guns the American tier 2 is given. I earned the tier 2 Japanese ship because my friend was getting frustrated and I wanted to understand why, oh boy did I find out. The guns on that tier 2 Japanese ship load so slowly that it made getting hits and therefor xp very tedious. Once he got to Tier 3, though, that changed.
The Tier 3 American ship is a St. Louis class; to use a crude comparison, it is like an old wooden war ship. A bit sluggish, but she has an 8 gun broadside and the guns reload SO FAST. I love her to death.
The Japanese Tier 3 name escapes me at the moment. It may be Tenryu, but I think that's the tier 2. She gets 4 single gun turrets for half of the broadside but she has two triple torpedo launchers on pinions so they can fire to either side. The guns load much faster than the Tier 2, and my friend says that at half ahead, she goes as fast as the tier 2 at full ahead. That said, he still seems to have more problems getting XP with her. The torpedoes have long range, but they're slow, so hard to hit people far away; though he's sunk a battleship at close range with a full broadside.
Like me, he is also going the battleship route, and I'll be extremely jealous if we reach tier 10, because he'll be sailing a Yamato class while I'll be in a Montana.
I say I'm going the battleship route... Now that I've bought my first battleship, I'm not so sure. I've got an 8 gun broadside, still, but they fire in pairs and it takes a full 30 seconds to reload each turret. On top of that it moves like a pregnant cow with short legs, so the many and near constant atoll maps are ridiculous when trying to line up shots.
All ships get a repair ability to put out fires and repair damaged turrets, screws, and rudders, but the battleships get a heal ability to go with it. Both have a 2 minute cool down and the heal ability has 3 charges.
If you go the battleship route (or the Japanese tier 2 route) don't fire full salvos until you get your eye in. Test fire from a single turret to make sure that you're leading the enemy ship enough; once you get your eye in, you can let them have it.
There is also an auto pilot mode, handy for my battleship since it takes me forever to get places and I've got half a minute load time. You bring up the map, click a destination and shift-click to add waypoints. The game will take care of the rudder, you just control the speed. Putting your screws to reverse or attempting to steer will break the autopilot, though.
Lots of people drive with their binoculars on, so there are occasional collisions and groundings. Keep one eye on your minimap and one on your target.
Approaching torpedoes don't always come with a warning. If you're vigilant, you'll see the little (very little) red torpedo indicator on your hud, showing you the direction from which they are approaching. If you're not, you'll get a pinging sound to let you know that you're about to die. Generally if you hear the pinging, manoeuvring to avoid them will be quite difficult.
XP is gained by hits, sinking doesn't seem to get you a very big bonus, just a notch on your belt. The most XP I tend to receive are from citadel hits, or hits to the command superstructure or conning tower. Very rarely I'll punch through into a powder magazine and blow a ship with a single salvo, most of the time you'll be pounding on the other ship for a while before it goes down if you don't have torpedoes, even if you're in a battleship.
Leveling can be slow, but once you hit lv 4 you'll get 3k free xp to research your ship, hitting lv 5 will net you 750k money to buy your next ship.
That's all I can think of to share, right now. :p
=edit=
Ah yes. Aircraft carriers. You can work laterally along the tree to unlock them at Tier 3. From what I've read it seems that they play a bit like an RTS. You go into map mode, launch your planes and send them out via waypoints to look for targets. You've got torpedo bombers, dive bombers, and fighters. So far I'm always glad to see a fighter wing in the air above me so I won't have to worry about torpedo bombers. You'll want your torpedo bombers to approach ships perpendicular to the direction of its movement, but you want dive bombers to attack along the length of the ship.
Destroyers.
I haven't played with these yet. They are small, quite fast, very nimble, and always equipped with torpedoes. They have guns, but it doesn't seem to be their focus.
Having played through to the battleship, I must say that I am very VERY impressed. The graphics are really good (though I may turn them down a bit to take the fog out of the distance), really VERY good, the physics are awesome (Firing a salvo with the battleship displaces a heck of a lot of water, just like in real life), but I'm wondering about the viewing distance. They've gone into INCREDIBLE amounts of detail in nearly every aspect but two: One is that it doesn't seem that they've taken the curvature of the earth into account. The other is that the guns on the South Carolina could shoot about 18km (and up to 25km on WWII battleships) in real life, but the game restricts me to about 10km. I'm guessing that's for fairness' sake, though.
The game isn't for everyone, though; my friend gets really frustrated with it. It's worth it to give it a try, though, I promise.
You start with both an Erie class American cruiser and a Hashidate Japanese cruiser. They play very similarly, but may fool you into thinking that the rest of the two nations ships do, as well.
Initially I chose America while my friend chose Japan. The American Tier 2 and 3, though, are quite different from the Japanese Tier 2 and 3.
The American 2/3 ships are a bit slower, but the guns load much faster. The Japanese ships are noticeably faster, but the tier 2's guns load much much more slowly. Fortunately, when you upgrade your hull, you are given a total of 4 extra guns to the 2 extra guns the American tier 2 is given. I earned the tier 2 Japanese ship because my friend was getting frustrated and I wanted to understand why, oh boy did I find out. The guns on that tier 2 Japanese ship load so slowly that it made getting hits and therefor xp very tedious. Once he got to Tier 3, though, that changed.
The Tier 3 American ship is a St. Louis class; to use a crude comparison, it is like an old wooden war ship. A bit sluggish, but she has an 8 gun broadside and the guns reload SO FAST. I love her to death.
The Japanese Tier 3 name escapes me at the moment. It may be Tenryu, but I think that's the tier 2. She gets 4 single gun turrets for half of the broadside but she has two triple torpedo launchers on pinions so they can fire to either side. The guns load much faster than the Tier 2, and my friend says that at half ahead, she goes as fast as the tier 2 at full ahead. That said, he still seems to have more problems getting XP with her. The torpedoes have long range, but they're slow, so hard to hit people far away; though he's sunk a battleship at close range with a full broadside.
Like me, he is also going the battleship route, and I'll be extremely jealous if we reach tier 10, because he'll be sailing a Yamato class while I'll be in a Montana.
I say I'm going the battleship route... Now that I've bought my first battleship, I'm not so sure. I've got an 8 gun broadside, still, but they fire in pairs and it takes a full 30 seconds to reload each turret. On top of that it moves like a pregnant cow with short legs, so the many and near constant atoll maps are ridiculous when trying to line up shots.
All ships get a repair ability to put out fires and repair damaged turrets, screws, and rudders, but the battleships get a heal ability to go with it. Both have a 2 minute cool down and the heal ability has 3 charges.
If you go the battleship route (or the Japanese tier 2 route) don't fire full salvos until you get your eye in. Test fire from a single turret to make sure that you're leading the enemy ship enough; once you get your eye in, you can let them have it.
There is also an auto pilot mode, handy for my battleship since it takes me forever to get places and I've got half a minute load time. You bring up the map, click a destination and shift-click to add waypoints. The game will take care of the rudder, you just control the speed. Putting your screws to reverse or attempting to steer will break the autopilot, though.
Lots of people drive with their binoculars on, so there are occasional collisions and groundings. Keep one eye on your minimap and one on your target.
Approaching torpedoes don't always come with a warning. If you're vigilant, you'll see the little (very little) red torpedo indicator on your hud, showing you the direction from which they are approaching. If you're not, you'll get a pinging sound to let you know that you're about to die. Generally if you hear the pinging, manoeuvring to avoid them will be quite difficult.
XP is gained by hits, sinking doesn't seem to get you a very big bonus, just a notch on your belt. The most XP I tend to receive are from citadel hits, or hits to the command superstructure or conning tower. Very rarely I'll punch through into a powder magazine and blow a ship with a single salvo, most of the time you'll be pounding on the other ship for a while before it goes down if you don't have torpedoes, even if you're in a battleship.
Leveling can be slow, but once you hit lv 4 you'll get 3k free xp to research your ship, hitting lv 5 will net you 750k money to buy your next ship.
That's all I can think of to share, right now. :p
=edit=
Ah yes. Aircraft carriers. You can work laterally along the tree to unlock them at Tier 3. From what I've read it seems that they play a bit like an RTS. You go into map mode, launch your planes and send them out via waypoints to look for targets. You've got torpedo bombers, dive bombers, and fighters. So far I'm always glad to see a fighter wing in the air above me so I won't have to worry about torpedo bombers. You'll want your torpedo bombers to approach ships perpendicular to the direction of its movement, but you want dive bombers to attack along the length of the ship.
Destroyers.
I haven't played with these yet. They are small, quite fast, very nimble, and always equipped with torpedoes. They have guns, but it doesn't seem to be their focus.
Angelsilhouette
Skyforge Closed Beta key giveaway!
How do you like it?
It's really fun. I'll be trying again in the open beta to see what new is added.
All of the missions seem to be instanced; some private, some public. In the CB you had 3 sort of lobby zones: A training / customisation area, the mission staging area (A beautiful big library with a giant holographic globe in the centre), and a sort of park / promenade area that looks to be for socialisation purposes only (I didn't really get very far before the beta ended). I expect that there will be many more beautiful maps opened up, but I don't really expect it to be an open world game. As I said before, quite a lot like Phantasy Star Online. Very fun, but only in small doses for me.
One of the things that stands out most, to me, is the character creation. You start out as a centurion in futuristic Roman lorica and a futuristic Corinthian helmet. In the CB you started automatically as a male (so far as you can tell) in this fully enclosed armour and you are telling your tale of how you arrived. As you begin to tell your tale, you are transported to the starting zone to 're-live' the tale. Once you get to the training area, you take a class, but your awesome lorica and helmet are removed and you are able to select your gender, customise your body and face, and select some clothing.
I'm with WhiteOnmyoji, the Cryomancer is very VERY cool. My friend played a Paladin but, while it was ostensibly a tanking class, he got no tanking skills for a while. Once he did, though, I was no longer constantly stealing aggro from him.
Considering the type of relationship I have with games and gaming, I'd say that for everyone else, this game would be a LOT of fun and that you would like it a lot.
AndreaMaria
I'm HIV positive. Touch me?
... You can't get it by touching someone.
Precisely.
Yes. I would have hugged him.
tuvak
[PRIDE EVENT] Scavenger Bingo
didn't paddington bear like to use orange marmalade or something like that? you think he likes to spread it thinly across nick's.... i mean on some toast?
Parker
I'm HIV positive. Touch me?
I have HIV+ friends. I would have definitely hugged him. You can't get it by touching someone.
The New Fleet Armada System
Priority One podcast just had a great episode discussing the armada system with lead designer Al "Captain Gecko" Rivera. They mentioned everything EXCEPT if the armada system would or wouldn't be faction specific. Part Two broadcast this Thursday!
How are we going to tier our fleets? Alpha Stonewall, Beta KDF & Beta ROM, Alpha Stonewall, Beta Fed aligned Rom/ Alpha KDF, Beta KDF aligned Rom, Alpha Stonewall, Beta KDF, Gamma Rom? B)
One of the devs posted that the Armadas will be faction specific so HNR will be kind out on its own for this one. We won't be creating any new fleets just to fill slots in the Armada, but instead will be looking for other fleets to join us.
williamjaneway
mykaels
I'm HIV positive. Touch me?
I would have hugged him. Though I am negative, I have lost 8 friends in my lifetime to HIV. I had to get over my fear really fast in the early 90's and it no longer scares me.
calx
Music?
But still, I'm old school. I like my MP3's and lossless FLAC's
I'm ancient skool - i like my wavs :whistle:
calx
WhiteOnmyoji
Skyforge Closed Beta key giveaway!
I loved it. I love the progression system which is very similar to FF X and FF XIII. Every character can be every class. I was making my way to necromancer when the Beta ended I'll be resuming the journey when Open Beta Starts later this week.
Bonisagus
STO Launcher
It seems like the connection to the patch server is getting reset or the connection is timing out from what I can see in the logs. Ping the server and doing a traceroute also indicate from what I can tell an issue between their servers and Verizon FiOS here on the east coast, though I'm not a network expert. This is however, getting to be painfully close to being at work and I'm on vacation until Thursday. :)
stevenb4978
Rasilek
Music?
Hey again, Stonewallers!
It's been awhile..and i never thought i'd add to this age-old thread again. I'm still not sure how often i'll keep making more playlists like those I've shared prior, for even I have resorted to Spotify's sheer wealth of tunes lately to get my fix.
But still, I'm old school. I like my MP3's and lossless FLAC's to arrange into unique sets to share with people. So for this summer (at least for the Northern Hemisphere ;) ) I thought I'd share a set I made last year that provides an hour of chill island and reggae.
You can download "Risa Dub 2410" here: http://tinyurl.com/qy2a7sn
Just random dubs and instrumentals with occasional covers of some classics a la Pink Floyd and Radiohead to name a couple. Can be queued up as background music for parties or for chilling on Risa (as was the inspiration for it.) :)
As for the "Cascade" lists, I have #11 in the works. ;)
In any event, enjoy the summer and the music. See you at Pride this weekend!
Steve
It's been awhile..and i never thought i'd add to this age-old thread again. I'm still not sure how often i'll keep making more playlists like those I've shared prior, for even I have resorted to Spotify's sheer wealth of tunes lately to get my fix.
But still, I'm old school. I like my MP3's and lossless FLAC's to arrange into unique sets to share with people. So for this summer (at least for the Northern Hemisphere ;) ) I thought I'd share a set I made last year that provides an hour of chill island and reggae.
You can download "Risa Dub 2410" here: http://tinyurl.com/qy2a7sn
Just random dubs and instrumentals with occasional covers of some classics a la Pink Floyd and Radiohead to name a couple. Can be queued up as background music for parties or for chilling on Risa (as was the inspiration for it.) :)
As for the "Cascade" lists, I have #11 in the works. ;)
In any event, enjoy the summer and the music. See you at Pride this weekend!
Steve
Unknown Person
I'm HIV positive. Touch me?
A short but emotional video which demonstrates the stigma surrounding people who are HIV positive.
Watching it, I found myself wondering if I had passed him .. if I had saw his sign .. would I have touched him?
I think (and it's horrible to say) that I would of hesitated but I have no idea why I would hesitate.
I hope posting it doesn't upset anyone in our community who may be HIV positive, but if anybody is comfortable talking about it I'd love to hear your thoughts on any stigma that exists.
mykaels
Ngagecloak
The New Fleet Armada System
Priority One podcast just had a great episode discussing the armada system with lead designer Al "Captain Gecko" Rivera. They mentioned everything EXCEPT if the armada system would or wouldn't be faction specific. Part Two broadcast this Thursday!
How are we going to tier our fleets? Alpha Stonewall, Beta KDF & Beta ROM, Alpha Stonewall, Beta Fed aligned Rom/ Alpha KDF, Beta KDF aligned Rom, Alpha Stonewall, Beta KDF, Gamma Rom? B)
How are we going to tier our fleets? Alpha Stonewall, Beta KDF & Beta ROM, Alpha Stonewall, Beta Fed aligned Rom/ Alpha KDF, Beta KDF aligned Rom, Alpha Stonewall, Beta KDF, Gamma Rom? B)
Rasilek
Bonisagus
STO Launcher
Yeah, it seems to be an issue with connecting to the updaters. Both Neverwinter and STO are doing the same thing. I cleared up my TSW issue though. :)