tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58729477049442918882024-03-08T00:43:35.398-08:00Æji ŸûliÁñtÓ¤ ™Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-34139554313279000542009-11-25T18:24:00.000-08:002009-11-25T18:30:02.783-08:00World of Warcraft: Naxxramas Raid Guide<p>With the latest World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard's stated aim has been to get more people involved in the game's top-tier "raid" dungeons. It's made all of them accessible to 10-player groups, and attempted to smooth their notoriously steep difficulty curves. In the first of an occasional series aimed at the novice raider, we present a tour of Lich King's "starter" raid, Naxxramas, in its 10-man version.</p><p>The little-seen pinnacle of Blizzard's 40-player raid design, the Naxxramas Necropolis makes a welcome return in new expansion Wrath of the Lich King, now serving as an entry-level raid dungeon for 10- and 25-player groups. Hovering ominously over the south-eastern area of Dragonblight, it is home to Kel'Thuzad, right-hand man of the Lich King, and his legion of unpleasant minions. While some of the encounters have been tweaked and simplified from their original versions to reflect the smaller group sizes and a less strict class representation, the principles remain largely the same and can provide a considerable challenge for those unfamiliar to them and/or new to raiding.</p><p>With the expansion directly addressing many of the issues of group composition and "class stacking" that affected raiding in the past, raiding is no longer so strictly balanced around assuming specific classes, talent specs, and the abilities available only to them. Blizzard has said that its intention now is for groups to "bring the player, not the class" - and as a result, this new incarnation of Naxxramas demands very little in terms of arranging groups, and class stacking is unnecessary for quick progression.</p><p>The only real requirement now is that you have two tanks and two healers - the rest is up to you. Naturally, things may be easier with certain abilities available to call upon, but as long as the raid is skilled and geared to an appropriate degree - say, at least all blue-quality gear from level 80 dungeons - and is able to grasp the mechanics of the encounters, any reasonable combination of classes and talent specs should be able to succeed.</p><h3>The Arachnid Quarter</h3><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=346181&position=1" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/3/4/6/1/8/1/ss_preview_n1.jpg.jpg', 'Naxxramas broods over Dragonblight. ', 'gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=346181&position=1', '640', '400'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/3/4/6/1/8/1/a_med_n1.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Naxxramas Raid Guide' Screenshot 1" /></a><p class="caption">Naxxramas broods over Dragonblight. </p></div><p>Generally considered the easiest of Naxxramas' four wings, the Arachnid Quarter contains 3 bosses lurking amongst enough spiders to make an arachnophobe out of anyone. The first of these is <strong>Anub'Rekhan</strong>, a giant scarab-like creature. He begins the fight alone but regularly calls for guards to assist him which must be quickly picked up and killed before returning attention to Anub'Rekhan. Other than his guards, he has three abilities of note: firstly, he sends a trail of spikes along the ground to impale anything in their path, so everyone should avoid bunching up; secondly, anything that dies during the fight, be it guards or players, will spawn dozens of vicious scarabs soon after which will swarm your healers if not dealt with; and lastly, roughly every minute or so, he will begin to cast Insect Swarm, a deadly aura that destroys anything close by, so the tank must run to the other side of the chamber in a manner than prevents the Insect Swarm coming close to the rest of the group, as the slow-moving scarab lord chases after.</p><p>Defeat Anub'Rekhan and you should soon find your way to <strong>Grand Widow Faerlina</strong> and her entourage. Unlike most fights where the boss has guards nearby, these should not be killed immediately, as they play an important role in the battle. While having a rain of fire and volleys of poisonous bolts at her disposal, Faerlina's deadliest ability is her Frenzy, whereupon she will increase both the damage and frequency of her attacks to the point where your tank will soon crumble. However, killing one of her worshippers after it occurs will nullify the effect and return her to normal for a while, so they should all be held by a second tank, and one killed by the raid whenever necessary. Due to the limited number of worshippers, Faerlina's frenzy cannot be dispelled indefinitely, so the group cannot take too long to kill her.</p><p>The final boss of the Arachnid Quarter is <strong>Maexxna</strong>, an ever-so-slightly large spider. The most testing encounter of the area, she unleashes dozens of spider hatchlings, will randomly place a player in a poisonous cocoon that must be broken quickly if they are to survive and, worst of all, uses a web spray to completely immobilise everyone for 8 seconds at a time, putting the tank in dire peril as she continues to attack. To make matters worse, the closer she gets to death, the more powerful she becomes, so those 8 second periods become unbearably long as she rains blows on the tank while everyone watches helplessly. Survive this torturous final 30 per cent, and with her death a portal on the wall becomes active and the raid can return to the centre of the necropolis to decide the next place to go.</p><h3>The Construct Quarter</h3><p>Housing more bosses than any other, the Construct Quarter contains all kinds of bizarre experiments dreamt up by the Lich King's mad scientists. While Naxxramas was originally famed for the varied mechanics of its battles, the first construct boss, <strong>Patchwerk</strong>, was the exception to the rule and is the concept of a 'tank & spank' fight taken to the brutal extreme. Hitting both the tank and offtank devastatingly and relentlessly, healers are tasked with keeping both up in the face of Patchwerk's fearsome barrage of blows. Meanwhile, the raid's damage dealers must go all out with everything they have if they are to kill him within 6 minutes, at which point he enrages and becomes unstoppable. Relying less on execution or strategy than the other encounters, Patchwerk serves as the first real "gear check" of Naxxramas. </p><p>With him gone, there's a fun Frogger homage before you encounter <strong>Grobbulus</strong>, a strange, lumbering giant in the next room. Creating ever-increasing ripples of poison at his feet, Grobbulus must be moved all around the room if they are to be avoided. He also randomly injects players with venom, both poisoning them and causing them to spawn ripples of their own after a few seconds, thus reducing further the already limited amount of space available. Finally, he will create blobs of slime which must be tanked and killed. Not a particularly demanding fight, the main problem is the lack of space that ensues as it goes on, and the raid will likely find itself hemmed in with nowhere to run as the fight nears its end. </p><p>A quick jaunt up a ramp and through a sewer pipe and you'll arrive at <strong>Gluth</strong>, essentially a giant zombie dog, and one with quite the appetite. Possessing a vicious anti-healing debuff, you'll need two tanks to take turns on him while it wears off. Gluth also regularly frenzies, increasing both the speed and damage of his attacks, though this can be dispelled by certain classes. While all this goes on, numerous zombies are dumped into the room to feed him. Untankable and with too much health to be immediately killed, some lucky soul must kite them around for 90 seconds or so until Gluth uses his Decimate attack. This reduces the health of everything in the room to a quarter of its normal amount and sends the zombies running towards him. Any that reach Gluth are immediately eaten, with each one restoring 5 per cent of his health, so they must quickly be blasted down with all the area-of-effect (AoE) attacks the group has at its disposal. </p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=346181&position=2" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/3/4/6/1/8/1/ss_preview_n2.jpg.jpg', 'Heigan the Unclean from the Plague Quarter. Everybody dance! ', 'gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=346181&position=2', '640', '480'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/3/4/6/1/8/1/a_med_n2.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Naxxramas Raid Guide' Screenshot 2" /></a><p class="caption">Heigan the Unclean from the Plague Quarter. Everybody dance! </p></div><p>With Gluth dead, the gate to his room is unlocked and the path is clear to the final encounter of the Construct Quarter - <strong>Thaddius</strong>. Blizzard's homage to the story of Frankenstein, Thaddius plays no part in the fight at first; instead he lies inert at the back of a huge chamber. Two guards, Feugen and Stalagg, stand watch on raised platforms on opposite sides of the room and it is them the raid must first deal with. Apart from regularly pulling the other's tank to them, they pose little real threat. However, they must die within seconds of each other before the next stage of the fight can start else the first to die will resurrect itself, putting things back to square one. Should you time it right, both of them die and the raid has a few seconds to leap across to Thaddius' platform for the second stage of the fight.</p><p>Tesla coils overload and Thaddius springs into life! After a few seconds of combat, he begins building up a large burst of electrical energy which polarizes everyone with either a positive or negative electrical charge. There are a few scant seconds for the players to sort themselves into + or - groups, apart from each other - if stood near players with the same polarity as you, your damage capabilities are multiplied, and this buff is essential as Thaddius has a huge amount of hit points to whittle down before he enrages. However, if players with opposite polarities stand too close to each other instead, sparks really will fly. To complicate matters further, he will continue to hit the group with the charges, sometimes changing their polarity and sometimes not, so players must be aware and ready to move again if necessary. </p><h3>The Plague Quarter</h3><p>The smallest wing of the four, the Plague Quarter has three bosses in fairly quick succession. The first of these, <strong>Noth the Plaguebringer</strong>, lies not far from the entrance and paces restlessly in his lair until the raid attack him. As the fight goes on, he calls upon the dead to rise up and assist him, so attention must be spread equally between attacking him and killing the spawns so the raid isn't overwhelmed. To make matters worse, Noth will randomly apply a curse to three members of the group which, if not removed within 10 seconds, will cause substantial damage to the entire group. He will also Blink away on occasion, resetting all threat and so putting any inattentive damage dealers at risk if they don't give the tank time on him again. Lastly, after 90 seconds of combat, Noth will teleport completely out of range and send more risen dead against the raid for a couple of minutes. Each time he does this, more and more skeletons will spawn so if he doesn't die before the third teleport, the raid runs the risk of being overrun completely.</p><p>With Noth out of the way, a gate to a dank grotto filled with grubs, bats and shambling beasts is revealed. After clearing a path through it, the raid will confront one of the more notorious inhabitants of Naxxramas, <strong>Heigan the Unclean</strong>. A fight split between two alternating stages, the first sees Heigan dragged back and forth across the floor of his chamber by the tank and melee while the healers and ranged attackers stand on his platform. The second phase begins when Heigan teleports back to his platform and starts channelling a deadly aura around him, forcing everyone off. It's at this point the Heigan Dance begins. Acid erupts from the floor below and the raid must quickly run across the room, stopping briefly at certain safe spots before moving off to the next. Any delay or wrong positioning will see players almost instantly killed by the eruptions, so knowing when and where to move to is crucial. After avoiding 8 or so eruptions, Heigan will rejoin the fray, and so things repeat until he finally dies.</p><p>After Heigan is a corridor filled with rapidly respawning grubs and faintly sinister eye-stalks. Originally it was used as part of the Heigan encounter, with a few players randomly teleported to the far end of it and having to battle their way back to their teammates. Now, it simply serves as the last minor obstacle before the final boss of the Plague Quarter, <strong>Loatheb</strong>. </p><p>In his original form, Loatheb was arguably the epitome of all that was wrong with raiding prior to the 2.1 patch of The Burning Crusade. Requiring almost every buff possible for every serious attempt, it was not unheard of for guilds to pay other players hundreds of gold to turn in items that provided world buffs (Onyxia's Head, Hakkar's Heart and so on) for any advantage they could get to defeat him. Fortunately, while the basic principles of the fight remain, it's been changed to be far less demanding. Loatheb's main ability is a Necrotic Aura which is applied to the entire room. Lasting for 15 seconds at a time, it negates any and all healing effects completely, even potions and healthstones. Additionally, he places various curses on the raid which deal damage over time and gradually leave everyone's health perilously low. Once the Necrotic Aura runs out, there are a few seconds before it's reapplied so the healers must use that time to heal both the tank and the raid as much as possible. </p><p>The other component of the fight are spores which periodically appear. When destroyed, they shower a small area directly beneath them with a buff that grants whoever receives it increased damage and chance to hit, and they're essential for undergeared groups if they are to have a chance of victory (though naturally there is an achievement based around not using any at all). </p><h3>The Military Quarter</h3><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=346181&position=3" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/3/4/6/1/8/1/ss_preview_n3.jpg.jpg', 'Death Knights in the Military Quarter. ', 'gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=346181&position=3', '640', '480'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/3/4/6/1/8/1/a_med_n3.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Naxxramas Raid Guide' Screenshot 3" /></a><p class="caption">Death Knights in the Military Quarter. </p></div><p>Rounding off the four corners of Naxxramas, there is the Military Quarter, where the Lich King's Death Knights like to hang out and swap fishing stories. There are lots of patrols to be dealt with here, more than in the other wings, and it can take some time to clear through to the first challenge of the area, <strong>Instructor Razuvious</strong>. </p><p>A fearsome Death Knight, and Karate Kid fan to boot, Razuvious is accompanied by a pair of students who are key to defeating him. Unlike other bosses, Razuvious generally hits far too hard for any tank to realistically cope with so, thanks to the handily-placed mind-control devices, his students must be used to taunt and tank him instead, while the raid attack him. The students must take turns, as even with their greater health, they will quickly die unless their Bone Armour ability is available to use to reduce the damage taken. In addition to his great strength, Razuvious will also randomly throw knives at players and cause AoE damage to everyone with a Disrupting Shout. Though initially tricky, this is one of the easiest encounters in Naxxramas and it shouldn't take too long to beat. </p><p>Following Razuvious and the various trash packs lurking after lies <strong>Gothik the Harvester</strong>, observing all from the safety of a balcony high out of reach. A wall and gate divides his room in two and the raid must equally split into a side each. Once the encounter begins, the gate slams shut and Gothik sends his legions into battle on the left side of the room, slowly at first, but in eve- increasing and more powerful numbers. Each that dies on the 'live' side is then raised to attack the players on the 'dead' side of the room. The danger here lies in the live side team killing their enemies so quickly as to swamp the dead side, yet killing fast enough to make sure they themselves aren't overwhelmed instead. After a few minutes of this, the waves cease, and Gothik leaves his balcony to join the attack on the live side group, teleporting back and forth between both sides of the room. Eventually, the gate opens and the players are reunited as they try and finish him before his ever-increasing debuff reduces the raid's stats completely and kills it.</p><p>With Gothik's demise, just one obstacle remains between the raid and entry into the heart of Naxxramas - the <strong>Four Horsemen</strong>. Both acclaimed and reviled in their original incarnation for the degree of co-ordination, tactical expertise and class stacking required to defeat them, the Horsemen remain a tricky proposition even in this simplified form.</p><p>The Four are Sir Zeliek, Lady Blaumeux, Thane Korgazz and - substituting for absent former horseman Mograine - Stratholme's own Baron Rivendare. The former two can be tanked by anyone standing within 20 yards of them, while the latter two are tanked normally. Each horseman has a variety of unique attacks, but all have one thing in common: after a certain number of seconds, each will apply a damaging and stacking debuff named after themselves (for example, the Mark of Rivendare) on anyone within a large radius of them, and will continue to apply more until the damage it does becomes fatal. To cope with this, the simplest way is to just have your respective tanks trade places with each other so that the first set of marks fade while another set are applied from their new target. As each horseman reaches 50 per cent health, they will Shield Wall to reduce the amount of damage they take, and even if killed, their corpses will continue to apply marks to whoever is in range.</p><p>With all four quarters cleared, the platform above the entrance becomes active, and access to the heart of Naxxramas is available.</p><h3>Frostwyrm Lair</h3><p>A large circular room with a mass of bones in its centre, the opposite side of Frostwyrm Lair features a doorway covered in ice. As the raid nears the centre, the bones begin to swirl and come together until the frostwyrm <strong>Sapphiron</strong> is formed. A blue dragon encountered by Arthas and Anub'arak as they journeyed through Northrend, the then-Death Knight was impressed with his foe and raised him from the dead to serve the Scourge. </p><p>A relatively straightforward battle, Sapphiron could nonetheless be the hardest encounter to be found in Naxxramas. Like many dragons, he has a highly damaging cleave that will easily kill any melee who stray too near his front, and a whip of his tail will send players flying across the room. Additionally, Sapphiron will cast a large blizzard to rain ice shards down on parts of the room, as well as a life-drain on a selected player which, if not dispelled, will quickly reduce their health while increasing his own. Despite these formidable abilities, it is his ever-present Frost Aura that presents the greatest danger to the raid, constantly dealing damage to everyone every few seconds throughout the fight and likely to tax your healers to the limit. Frost resistance gear, while not necessary, may be a great help to inexperienced or undergeared groups here. </p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=346181&position=4" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/3/4/6/1/8/1/ss_preview_Sapphiron.jpg.jpg', 'Sapphiron in Frostwyrm Lair. ', 'gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=346181&position=4', '640', '400'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/3/4/6/1/8/1/a_med_Sapphiron.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Naxxramas Raid Guide' Screenshot 4" /></a><p class="caption">Sapphiron in Frostwyrm Lair. </p></div><p>After a minute or so of combat, Sapphiron will take flight and spit frost bolts at 2 to 3 players, each doing considerable damage to anyone nearby and encasing the target in a block of ice, immobilising them for as long as it lasts. He then takes a deep breath and unleashes a huge cloud of frost over the entire chamber that slowly falls to the ground, which will instantly kill anyone it touches. The only way for the players to save themselves is to rush to the ice blocks their team-mates are trapped in and hide behind them, out of line of sight from Sapphiron and the frost cloud. Once the cloud hits the ground, the ice blocks are destroyed, and Sapphiron flies back down to resume the fight. The pattern repeats until death, whereupon a member of the group can loot an item that will allow access to the Malygos encounter in Coldarra. Meanwhile, the barricade of ice over the door shatters and the path is cleared to... </p><h3>Kel'Thuzad</h3><p>Once a member of the Kirin Tor who became enamoured with the forbidden arts of Necromancy, Kel'Thuzad was lured to Northrend by the Lich King and went on to become perhaps the most notable and infamous of his subjects. He is untargetable at first, and calls upon the legions of the Scourge to aid him; a small army of walking dead, abominations and banshees appear to answer this call. After a few minutes with the raid under siege, their numbers begin to thin out and Kel'thuzad finally joins the fray.</p><p>His most common attack is a volley of frostbolts which will hit most - if not all - of the raid. Additionally, he casts a single, highly damaging frostbolt at the tank, and a frost blast at a player which encases them and anyone standing too close at the time in a block of ice for 4 seconds, and does a fatal amount of damage over that time if not healed through. Another spell at his disposal is Detonate Mana, which burns through a portion of a caster's mana and causes damage to anyone nearby at the end of it. Finally, he will target a player and create a shadowy fissure beneath them which quickly explodes and instantly kills anything within. </p><p>At around the 45 per cent mark, a desperate Kel'Thuzad implores the Lich King for assistance. Portals open around the chamber and two Guardians of Icecrown enter the battle. These must be picked up and offtanked as they have too much health to realistically kill, so the fight becomes a race to finish off Kel'Thuzad before his increasingly powerful Guardians become strong enough to kill your tanks. Once their master is defeated, the Guardians scramble for the nearby portals and leave. Naxxramas is yours!</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-54090567871019950702009-11-25T18:13:00.000-08:002009-11-25T18:15:30.374-08:00World OF Warcraft Wrath Of The Lich King<p>It's been two months now since Blizzard unveiled the next expansion pack for World of Warcraft. Or, more accurately, since the Internet unveiled it - but the official announcement still caused a stir amongst the hardcore fans who made the pilgrimage to BlizzCon.</p><p>But despite its impressive fanbase (nine million players and counting), WoW is facing tougher competition than ever before. Some players have defected to the Lord of the Rings MMO, while others are taking a serious interest in the development of Warhammer Online. WoW is three years old now and the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, left some players wanting more. </p><p>That's what Blizzard intends to provide with Wrath of the Lich King. As previously announced it will raise the level cap to 80 and introduce a new Hero character class, a new trade skill and extra tools, amongst other features. </p><p>But is that going to be enough to keep WoW's momentum going? Our friends over at <a href="http://www.eurogamer.fr/" target="_blank">Eurogamer.fr</a> spoke to lead designer Jeff Kaplan and lead character artist Chris Robinson to find out. </p><p class="interviewQuestion"><span class="whoistalking">Eurogamer</span>: There were some flaws in The Burning Crusade, such as the difficulty of accessing certain instances and other elements which caused concern for hardcore players. What did you learn from that?</p><p class="interviewAnswer"><span class="whoistalking">Jeff Kaplan</span>: I fully agree with you, we did learn many lessons from The Burning Crusade. We've already fixed the access issue with recent updates. I can't tell you a lot about the progression system in Wrath of the Lich King, but we're exploring new paths to make this add-on accessible to everyone.</p><p class="interviewAnswer">For example, we could imagine some open content for a server rather than for a specific guild, like we did with Ahn'Qiraj. We could even push this basic concept a little further. You could also imagine a system which would allow you to grant access to all your characters once you've unlocked it with one of them. It's a very important matter for us; we don't want to remake what I personally consider a mistake in the Burning Crusade.</p><p class="interviewAnswer">We want to re-examine all the trade skills one by one. For example, the leather craft in the Burning Crusade was interesting only in the first level of the add-on. It became rather obsolete later compared to the objects you could take from the monsters, get as rewards for quests or find inside dungeons. In the Wrath of the Lich King, we want everyone to be satisfied with the trade they choose and we want it to be rewarding. Therefore we're going to analyse everything we did with The Burning Crusade and previously to work out what was good and what was missed out. </p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/article_gallery.php?article_id=84878&image=assets/articles//a/8/4/8/7/8/lk1.jpg.jpg&position=1"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/8/4/8/7/8/a_med_lk1.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King' Screenshot 1" height="179" width="260" /></a><p class="caption"> </p></div><p class="interviewQuestion"><span class="whoistalking">Eurogamer</span>: You've previously stated that Lich King will let players customise their avatars to a greater degree than ever before. Why have you waited so long?</p><p class="interviewAnswer"><span class="whoistalking">Jeff Kaplan</span>: The customisation of avatars is one of the key points of an MMORPG which enables players to identify with their characters. Development-wise it involves a huge amount of work, since you've constantly got to ensure the customisation options won't break the whole balance of the game. It's pretty hard to master. </p><p class="interviewAnswer">We felt it was the right moment since if we'd spent more time on these elements before, we couldn't have used that time for things we considered more important gameplay-wise.</p><p class="interviewQuestion"><span class="whoistalking">Eurogamer</span>: How much time will it take an average player to progress from level 70 to level 80?</p><p class="interviewAnswer"><span class="whoistalking">Jeff Kaplan</span>: While we design some elements of WoW for hardcore gamers who spend a lot of time playing, we mainly aim at average players. Theoretically, it takes as much time to progress from level 70 to level 80 in Lich King as it did to progress from 60 to 70 in The Burning Crusade.</p><p class="interviewAnswer">But I'd say we didn't think in those terms. We mostly worked on creating a new territory with enough areas, quests and instances to allow for constant progression. The continent we created is really cool and full of new stuff. It was designed to match the progression curve of the player, so the game experience would be constantly enticing and unique. </p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/article_gallery.php?article_id=84878&image=assets/articles//a/8/4/8/7/8/lk2.jpg.jpg&position=2"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/8/4/8/7/8/a_med_lk2.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King' Screenshot 2" height="192" width="260" /></a><p class="caption"> </p></div><p class="interviewQuestion"><span class="whoistalking">Eurogamer</span>: What can you tell us about the new heroic class, Death Knight?</p><p class="interviewAnswer"><span class="whoistalking">Chris Robinson</span>: Firstly, the word heroic doesn't mean it will be more powerful than the other classes. As yet, we don't know which level it will be possible to acquire it on. It might be between level 55 and 70, but that's still to be determined. </p><p class="interviewAnswer">When your character reaches the required level, you can unlock the Death Knight and create a new character from your existing one. The Death Knight uses runes from three different schools of magic (Blood, Unholy and Frost) and he can enhance his weapons with six of them. These runes enable the player to cast spells, to call on powers or to invoke creatures. The choice is entirely up to the player. </p><p class="interviewAnswer">Also, Death Knights will be granted access to specific quests, and their progression through the game towards level 80 is likely to be slower than the other character classes.</p><p class="interviewQuestion"><span class="whoistalking">Eurogamer</span>: Don't you worry everyone will want to give up their former characters to become a Death Knight?</p><p class="interviewAnswer"><span class="whoistalking">Chris Robinson</span>: : Not really. Firstly, the Death Knight will be a totally different character from the former one and I'm not sure most players are likely to give up an avatar they've patiently shaped up for three years. Though a majority of players will probably try this new class, I don't think a lot of them will end up making it their main character.</p><p class="interviewAnswer">Furthermore, the Death Knight is subject to some restrictions. As I said before, the progression will probably be slower. The range of available weapons will be restricted to swords, possibly axes and may be some others. Nothing's certain for the moment.</p><p class="interviewQuestion"><span class="whoistalking">Eurogamer</span>: Will it be possible to play as a Death Knight from level one to level 80?</p><p class="interviewAnswer"><span class="whoistalking">Chris Robinson</span>: No, it's definitely a high-level class. For example, if you eventually need to reach level 55 to create a Death Knight, then he'll begin at level 55 too. That's a deliberate choice we made so as to offer players new content. We want them to spend time exploring what's new in the game and not replaying what they've already done.</p><p class="interviewAnswer">By equipping the Death Knight with tank-like skills, don't you risk alienating players who have spent ages building up Warriors or even defence-specialised Paladins?</p><p class="interviewAnswer"><span class="whoistalking">Jeff Kaplan</span>: The right balance between the various character classes is certainly harder to set in this kind of game. We definitely don't want any player having chosen to play as a tank or a defence-specialised character to feel like giving up because of the introduction of a new character class. </p><p class="interviewAnswer">Therefore as soon as a Death Knight appears on one of our servers, we'll take a special care to balance his skills in terms of resistance, DPS et cetera so that each character class and specialisation can keep all of its importance within the game. We're perfectly aware that's something the players might worry about and we'll take care that no class should be devalued.</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/article_gallery.php?article_id=84878&image=assets/articles//a/8/4/8/7/8/lk3.jpg.jpg&position=3"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/8/4/8/7/8/a_med_lk3.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King' Screenshot 3" height="198" width="260" /></a><p class="caption"> </p></div><p class="interviewQuestion"><span class="whoistalking">Eurogamer</span>: Could you tell us more about the new voice chat tools?</p><p class="interviewAnswer"><span class="whoistalking">Jeff Kaplan</span>: We've just started implementing the voice chat on the test servers. It's an important evolution for WoW. Lots of players are used to running that kind of system using software like Team Speak or Ventrilo. Now we want to implement this in WoW for many reasons. </p><p class="interviewAnswer">Firstly, we want vocal chat to be available to every player, including those who don't have the technical knowledge to install and set up that kind of software. We also wish to ease the lives of players who constantly have to alt-tab to switch between their software and WoW or play in a windowed mode. </p><p class="interviewAnswer">In the system we're testing, the interface flashes and a window containing the name of the player who's speaking pops up. You can set this window anywhere on the screen so that it doesn't hinder the flow of the game. As an example, when a member of your actual party asks for cure you just click on the window and the appropriate spell to help him. </p><p class="interviewAnswer">We want to offer a service which is fully integrated within the game and user-friendly for newbies. The hardcore gamers will get something more out of it thanks to some more specific settings. For example, it will be possible to get the sounds of the game through loudspeakers and redirect the vocal chat only to headphones. Or you can set the balance on the loudspeakers so as to decrease the level of the ambient sounds when someone's speaking. We're highly excited by the development of that kind of tool. </p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/article_gallery.php?article_id=84878&image=assets/articles//a/8/4/8/7/8/lk4.jpg.jpg&position=4"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/8/4/8/7/8/a_med_lk4.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King' Screenshot 4" height="192" width="260" /></a><p class="caption"> </p></div><p class="interviewQuestion"><span class="whoistalking">Eurogamer</span>: What can you tell us about the dungeons in Lich King?</p><p class="interviewAnswer"><span class="whoistalking">Jeff Kaplan</span>: As was the case with The Burning Crusade, there will be dungeons to fit each level from 70 to 80. In fact, fans of that kind of gameplay will have been able to level up simply by playing through instances. </p><p class="interviewAnswer">We're going to offer more ten-character party instances from the start. Some of them will feature different areas depending on the level of the players. For example that's the case with Utgard Keep, which has a wing reserved for level 70 players and another one for the level 80 - as well as an instance for a 25-character raid. </p><p class="interviewAnswer">There will also be a return to the Caverns of Time where you'll find a Stratholme inspired from a mission of Warcraft III called The Culling. The players will have to set Stratholme on fire so that its zombie inhabitants don't contaminate the rest of the kingdom.</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/article_gallery.php?article_id=84878&image=assets/articles//a/8/4/8/7/8/lk5.jpg.jpg&position=5"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/8/4/8/7/8/a_med_lk5.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King' Screenshot 5" height="192" width="260" /></a><p class="caption"> </p></div><p class="interviewQuestion"><span class="whoistalking">Eurogamer</span>: In the Burning Crusade you introduced a new PvP system. How will Lich King take this further?</p><p class="interviewAnswer"><span class="whoistalking">Jeff Kaplan</span>: The presence of open, large PvP areas is one of the main innovations brought in by the Wrath of the Lich King. These won't be instances, they'll be integrated within the various territories of the add-on and those not keen to participate won't be obliged to do so. </p><p class="interviewAnswer">We're going to place siege weaponry within these areas and buildings or other elements these machines can destroy. That's definitely a huge novelty in the PvP game. </p><p class="interviewAnswer">We're thinking of extending the concept of the Alterac Valley, which consists of retrieving marks on the enemies' corpses to exchange them for bonuses, but we still have to rack our brains to work it out.</p>Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-90341793950966052702009-11-25T18:02:00.000-08:002009-11-25T18:11:58.931-08:00Making World Of Warcraft<p><em>In <a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/the-making-of-world-of-warcraft-article">part one</a> of our exclusive look at how the biggest game in the world was made, key Blizzard developers took us through development from the earliest concepts to the game's launch. In the second and final part this week, we look at how Blizzard reacted to its unexpected success, and how it's changed in the years since.</em></p><p><strong>Before the launch of World of Warcraft</strong> one of the game's lead designers, Tom Chilton, estimated that it might sell 750,000 copies - possibly even a million if the team really struck gold. "I don't remember a specific moment when it really hit me," he says now, "but I'd say that within the first six months or so, we realised that this was really going to blow away all of those expectations." It now counts over 11 million subscribed players.</p><p>Veterans of the first six months of World of Warcraft know just how badly the company that made it, Blizzard, underestimated the audience for the game. Servers filled to capacity, with immense queues forming as gamers tried to get online to play their characters. Blizzard struggled to get new servers online, but supply couldn't keep up with demand - each new realm that appeared filled up straight away.</p><p>"We were surprised by the number of people that jumped in and wanted to play, certainly in those early months, that first year," recalls Blizzard's vice president of creative development, Chris Metzen. "There were a whole bunch of hard lessons to learn."</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=5" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/ss_preview_1.jpg.jpg', 'One of the earlier content patches added atmospheric realtime weather effects to the game.', 'gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=5', '640', '472'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/a_med_1.jpg.jpg" alt="'The Making of World of Warcraft' Screenshot 1" /></a><p class="caption">One of the earlier content patches added atmospheric realtime weather effects to the game.</p></div><p>"It stressed us operationally," admits Chilton. "We didn't plan for that kind of success in terms of our server infrastructure or our data hosting, all that kind of stuff. It really stressed us, and it freaked us out a bit: 'Oh my God, is our game going to collapse under the weight of the number of people trying to play?'"</p><p>Meanwhile, the creative team had to try to distance themselves from the operational problems and focus their minds on the updates which players were already demanding. The breakneck pace of the last 12 months of development barely faltered when the game launched, as the team's energies had to be refocused on patches, new dungeons and, crucially, the player-versus-player features they had longed, but failed, to implement for the game at launch.</p><p>Chilton, a veteran of Ultima Online, knew that WOW's rudimentary PvP wouldn't cut it for very long. As he'd expected, players learned to make their own fun - largely in the form of giant battles which raged between the towns of Southshore and Tarren Mill, turning the Hillsbrad Foothills zone into a no-go area on PvP servers - but his plan for PvP would move it from open-world events to instanced Battlegrounds, in line with the team's vision for "Battlefield 1942 meets Warcraft III" combat.</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=3" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/ss_preview_2.jpg.jpg', 'The Zul\'Gurub dungeon was the first successful experiment with a smaller raid size of 20 players...', 'gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=3', '640', '480'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/a_med_2.jpg.jpg" alt="'The Making of World of Warcraft' Screenshot 2" /></a><p class="caption">The Zul'Gurub dungeon was the first successful experiment with a smaller raid size of 20 players...</p></div><p><strong>The decision to launch Battlegrounds which</strong> were separated from the game world was controversial - but Chilton is adamant that it was right. "Instanced battlegrounds have provided a much better experience for players than non-instancing would have," he insists. "Having come from working on Ultima Online, which was entirely non-instanced, having experienced what can be compelling about non-instanced PvP there - that also taught me a lot of the problems that go along with it.</p><p>"There is what I would call a fantasy of world PvP - raging world battles that are meaningful, players taking control of stuff and so on," he says. "What I have found over the years is that that fantasy is really cool from a very high-level perspective, when you're looking at the game from a god point of view. But actually making that fantasy work, making that fantasy play out in a way that each individual person feels like it was satisfying... That's not something that anybody has solved yet. It wasn't something that we thought that we were going to be able to solve.</p><p>"We felt like instancing was the only way to make sure that the fights were fair, because what happens in that fantasy of world PvP is that the fights are never fair. Ultimately, that ends up breaking the experience for PvP in general."</p><p>As the game was launched around the world and its audience continued to grow, and as the PvP and raiding endgame continued to take shape, Blizzard started looking to the next giant challenge. An expansion pack was inevitable - but first, there was to be a major change at the top of the WoW team.</p><p>Most of the key people on the game were long-time Blizzard staffers, and new blood was being sought to bring a new perspective. That led to the hiring of J. Allen Brack, who is now production director on the game. An MMO veteran, he had been working on Star Wars Galaxies for several years before jumping ship to Blizzard - where he was dropped in at the deep end as the team geared up production on what would be one of its best-loved updates, the stunning level 60 raid dungeon, Naxxramas.</p><p><strong>Naxx, as players would quickly dub the dungeon</strong>, was the last major content update to the original World of Warcraft. For Brack, it would be a rapid baptism in Blizzard's development philosophy, as he observed the team's comprehensive post-mortem of its previous major content launch - the raid dungeons of Ahn'Qiraj - and its handling of feedback from the player community.</p><p>But as the game's audience stretched into the millions, picking through the sheer volume of feedback became difficult. "It's an imperfect process, definitely," Brack admits. "We have a lot of different types of inputs - our community team and what they find on the boards, our customer service team, our cadre of friends who play the game, or players we know well...</p><p>"I think the team is actually very good at taking those inputs - hundreds of thousands of them, literally - and coming up with changes to make, things to do and not to do. Could we do a better job? Absolutely - but I think this is something the team is actually very good at."</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=7" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/ss_preview_3.jpg.jpg', '...But it accidentally gave rise to the vicious "Corrupted Blood" plague that decimated low-level characters.', 'gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=7', '640', '512'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/a_med_3.jpg.jpg" alt="'The Making of World of Warcraft' Screenshot 3" /></a><p class="caption">...But it accidentally gave rise to the vicious "Corrupted Blood" plague that decimated low-level characters.</p></div><p>Chilton, for his part, isn't intimidated by the large community. "If you're trying to use the forums as a good source of ideas, then sure, it's harder to have that big community because you're looking for a very small signal in a lot of noise. But if you're looking for the noise, then it helps, because the the noise for certain topics is so clear and so obvious - you know that this is what people really care about, this is what they're really upset about right now."</p><p><strong>The content update cycle for the original</strong> World of Warcraft ended with Naxxramas. The team's focus now moved to new territory - the launch of WOW's first expansion pack, The Burning Crusade. The scale of the expansion would dwarf previous updates to the game, providing an entire new continent for players to explore.</p><p>"Really, the main thought was just that we definitely wanted to add ten more levels of content," explains Brack. "WOW is a content game, so we were trying to think of the types of content that players want to experience, whether they know that they want to experience it or not." </p><p>For Chris Metzen, the expansion represented an opportunity to push the creative boundaries of what World of Warcraft was. In creating a whole new continent - in WOW's mythology, actually the shattered remains of a different planet - the team would be able to create something radically different. </p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=1" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/ss_preview_WOW_pt_2_picture_4.jpg.jpg', 'Burning Crusade\'s London launch drew bigger crowds than those of for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.', 'gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=1', '640', '427'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/a_med_WOW_pt_2_picture_4.jpg.jpg" alt="'The Making of World of Warcraft' Screenshot 4" /></a><p class="caption">Burning Crusade's London launch drew bigger crowds than those of for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.</p></div><p>"Burning Crusade was a strong removal from the tones and values of Old World Azeroth," Metzen says. "You had broken, burning, alien landscapes, primordial fungal swampland and giant crystal spaceships - these were definitely far out, comparatively.</p><p>"If you had never played [Warcraft II expansion] Beyond the Dark Portal all those years ago, if you knew nothing about those concepts, it was pretty funky, right? Even internally, we went round and round on whether this was the right idea, whether it was too far away from what our players would expect. Just how far can you push away from people's expectations - both our own and those of the players - before you have alienated them?"</p><p>In order to keep players involved, improving WOW's storytelling was especially important, says Brack. "Giving players the idea of an overarching story... of these villains and the reason why you're doing this stuff - that's much more present in Burning Crusade than it is in the original game."</p><p>It wasn't just the setting that was off the wall. One of Brack's favourite innovations in Burning Crusade was the invention of bombing run quests, which send the player on flying sorties over enemy territory. "That just started out as a crazy idea," he recalls. "Some guys made this bombing run, and I saw that and just felt, holy crap, this is amazing. It's the first time that you get to kill hundreds of units all by yourself - you feel very powerful. It's an awesome, epic moment."</p><p><strong>Tom Chilton, too, viewed the expansion as</strong> an opportunity to make radical changes - changes he'd debated for a long time, as some of the flaws inherent in WOW's Battlegrounds and PvP honour system became apparent to him.</p><p>"The honour system was one of those things where I think we made a mistake in our original philosophies," he admits. "Both Rob [Pardo, Blizzard's design chief] and I had pretty strong feelings that we didn't want just a grind-based system, a system that was based entirely on time investment. We wanted to be able to rank PvPers based on success."</p><p>It didn't work, because the team didn't want to punish players for being "ganked" - dispatched by far more powerful opponents. Just as WOW doesn't subtract experience when you die, it doesn't subtract honour when you are killed by another player, because the game has no way of knowing if it was a fair fight. As a result, Chilton acknowledges, "it turned into a competitive grind, meaning that time investment still mattered the most. On a weekly basis, it was a question of how much more time you could put in than the other person.</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=2" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/ss_preview_5.jpg.jpg', 'Outland provided vistas you\'d never have seen in the original game...', 'gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=2', '640', '512'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/a_med_5.jpg.jpg" alt="'The Making of World of Warcraft' Screenshot 5" /></a><p class="caption">Outland provided vistas you'd never have seen in the original game...</p></div><p>"We ended up realising that, OK, we really need to separate the competitive system from the grind system - we can't try to jam those into the same system. That's how the Arena system evolved, with the chess-style rating system where we really control the scenario. We were able to use that as the measurement of skill in PvP, while we could use Battlegrounds as the fun activity that you could grind out points in and get stuff."</p><p><strong>The launch of the Burning Crusade</strong> on January 16th, 2007, confirmed just how insanely popular World of Warcraft had become. Over 2.4 million copies were sold in the first 24 hours after its launch, stretching to over 3.5 million within the first month in Europe, North America and Australasia alone. At the time, it was the fastest-selling computer game ever - a record it would hold for almost two years.</p><p>Nonetheless, the same in-depth post-mortem process which Brack had witnessed in operation on Ahn'Qiraj and Naxxramas was brought to bear on The Burning Crusade, and the team found plenty of room for improvement. Some of the things they learned would have an impact on the next expansion pack. Others, however, caused more urgent problems.</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=6" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/ss_preview_6.jpg.jpg', '...But some of Burning Crusades best questing and storytelling were to be found back on terra firma, in the new races\' starting zones.', 'gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=6', '640', '471'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/a_med_6.jpg.jpg" alt="'The Making of World of Warcraft' Screenshot 6" /></a><p class="caption">...But some of Burning Crusades best questing and storytelling were to be found back on terra firma, in the new races' starting zones.</p></div><p>One of those things was the immense and almost immediate success of Karazhan, a ten-player dungeon which was launched as part of The Burning Crusade. The team had debated hotly the decision to drop the raid size from 40 to 25 in the expansion, with this smaller dungeon a mere afterthought. As it turned out, the sweet spot for many players was neither 40 nor 25 - it was ten.</p><p>"We were very surprised by the success of Karazhan," admits Brack. "It's probably one of the most popular pieces of content, just in terms of number of players that have experienced it, that we've ever done."</p><p>That success upset the team's plans to push ahead with 25-man raids, in the form of the massive Black Temple, but it was too late to change course. "We made a mistake in releasing Black Temple when we did," says Brack. "If we could wave the magic wand and go back, we would have released ten-man Zul'Aman, and then Black Temple afterwards."<br /></p><p>There were problems brewing, too, for Chilton's PvP systems. While players had embraced the Arena combat, enjoying its highly skill-based nature, there was discontent over what were termed "Welfare Epics" - high-level gear which, as far as many players were concerned, was being handed out like candy to PvP players without having to put in the kind of effort that raiding players needed.</p><p>"The path of least resistance for the player base was that PvP allowed you to get gear easier than PvE," Brack admits. "In the Burning Crusade days, the PvE stuff was very hard on the 25-man content side. It took a lot of coordination and a lot of effort, and it felt like, on the PvP side, it didn't quite have the same level of commitment, the same level of expense, of time, of everything that you needed to have."</p><p><strong>"The idea of having ten-person raids and 25-person</strong> raids in Lich King stemmed directly from the popularity of Karazhan and the realisation that people really liked ten-man content," says Brack. Simultaneously with the updates to The Burning Crusade, Blizzard had started work on the second expansion Wrath of the Lich King, which would return the action to Azeroth and bring back Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne's major villain, Arthas, the Lich King.</p><p>"A lot of people's comments were, I never got to see Illidan! I never got to do that content - he's the big boss, he's in the intro of Burning Crusade, but only the very highest-end guys could ever really get to see him," says Brack. "We thought, OK, what if we make two versions of the same thing and give more players that opportunity?"</p><p>Meanwhile, new technology created for Wrath of the Lich King would give Chris Metzen and his creative team new tools for storytelling. At last, the static world which had given him so many creative headaches before the launch of the original game was going to become a little bit less static.</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=10" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/ss_preview_7.jpg.jpg', 'The team regret not releasing the 10-man Zul\'Aman dungeon earlier, to capitalise on the success of Karazhan.', 'gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=10', '640', '423'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/a_med_7.jpg.jpg" alt="'The Making of World of Warcraft' Screenshot 7" /></a><p class="caption">The team regret not releasing the 10-man Zul'Aman dungeon earlier, to capitalise on the success of Karazhan.</p></div><p>"We developed technologies that allow us to push the envelope a little bit: the phasing technology," Metzen says. Phasing, which allows players to move seamlessly and in large numbers between world-states, was exemplified by the spectacular starting quests for Lich King's new character class, the Death Knight.</p><p>"If you play through the Death Knight experience, we make great use of phasing in terms of concluding certain chapters of the story. The world begins to change and the plot can really change on a dime with phasing. It frees us up to construct less of a static world," Metzen says. "If you play through the old-world quests, and then you play something like Wrath of the Lich King, I think it's so much more rewarding and satisfying - from a fictional standpoint, from a game design standpoint. You can definitely see us learning on the job."</p><p>It's not just quality but quantity which has increased. "WOW at release had about 2000 quests," reveals Brack. "Burning Crusade had 5500 quests. Wrath of the Lich King has, I think, around 8000 quests - and those are on just ten levels, versus the first 60 levels in the original game."</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=4" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/ss_preview_8.jpg.jpg', 'One of Arthas the Lich King\'s many cameos in the expansion that bears his name.', 'gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=4', '640', '480'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/a_med_8.jpg.jpg" alt="'The Making of World of Warcraft' Screenshot 8" /></a><p class="caption">One of Arthas the Lich King's many cameos in the expansion that bears his name.</p></div><p>Another facet of storytelling which Blizzard has learned on the job is how to handle its villains. From hiding Illidan away in a deep dungeon in The Burning Crusade, the team moved into Lich King with the intention of making Arthas much more of an out-and-about, man-of-the-people kind of bad guy.</p><p>"The big villain needed to be much more accessible," confirms Brack. "You can see a lot of those changes in how we handle Arthas in low-level quests - and there's an entire chain of quests in Icecrown that players can do at level 77 where you actually get to control Arthas, to live through his story.</p><p>"There's the Culling of Stratholme where you actually fight beside Arthas, before he becomes the Lich King. You see his moment of decision, the moment he decides to start down the dark path. Those kind of things help people to understand why they're here, what it's about, what they need to be doing. This is why I'm conquering Northrend. This is why I'm levelling up - beyond just wanting better gear and achieving the next level."</p><p><strong>Not everything that went into Wrath</strong> was brand new, however. One important decision harked right back to the beginning of Brack's tenure at Blizzard. Naxx was back.</p><p>"It was one of the most popular dungeons that we've ever made," says Brack of the floating necropolis. "The encounters were awesome, really well done and well tuned, and the players loved it - but so many players didn't get to experience it. Getting that out in front of more players, having more players experience it and being able to have other players have that same kind of shared experience... that's really compelling from both a game developer and a game player standpoint."</p><p>Tweaked and updated, and now divided into both 10-man and 25-man versions, Naxxramas was to be the first raid dungeon players would encounter in Wrath of the Lich King. Despite being based on an existing dungeon, Brack confirms that "many, many work-weeks of effort" were involved in getting it up and running - a time commitment which makes the team wary of player petitions to update other old favourites, such as Molten Core, to "Heroic" level 80 versions.</p><p>Other ideas in Wrath were the culmination of many years of effort and experimentation - most notably the variable difficulty level of the Obsidian Sanctum raid, where players can decide how difficult they want the encounter to be by killing or ignoring any of three drakes during the battle with the dragon Sartharion.</p><p>"The three drakes that we did with the Obsidian Sanctum is something that we've wanted to do for literally years," reveals Brack. "We've wanted to have an encounter that you could beat in different ways, and depending on if you beat it the easy way or the hard way, you would get better loot. We tried once with the Twin Emperors in Ahn'Qiraj, but that didn't really accomplish the objective. We tried again again with the Twins in Sunwell - we learned a lot from that, but Obsidian Sanctum was the time when we really feel like we nailed not only the difficulty, but the reward versus the effort."</p><p><strong>Wrath of the Lich King launched in November 2008</strong>, and to nobody's great surprise, it became the world's best selling computer game - shifting 2.8 million copies in 24 hours and overthrowing the record set two years previously by The Burning Crusade.</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=8" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/ss_preview_9.jpg.jpg', 'Naxxramas - the dungeon so good they made it twice.', 'gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=8', '640', '400'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/a_med_9.jpg.jpg" alt="'The Making of World of Warcraft' Screenshot 9" /></a><p class="caption">Naxxramas - the dungeon so good they made it twice.</p></div><p>Today, the Blizzard team is working on content updates for Wrath of the Lich King, but is undoubtedly also plotting its next expansion behind closed doors. Five years down the line, you have to wonder if deja vu is setting in - but the team's enthusiasm for creating more WOW seems not to have dimmed.</p><p>"Every time out, we want to outdo ourselves," says Metzen. "We're certainly aware of the competition, the amazing games that have popped since WOW came out - just stunning vistas, stunning world visions - and certainly we want to be competitive. We want to provide a vision for our fans that is as good as anything else out there, but really, we have always been our own worst critics.</p><p>"As a group of artists and designers, we always want to outdo ourselves, and really stretch ourselves, get outside of our comfort zones and really push this thing, maybe by inches, into new territory."</p><p>Art director Sam Didier chips in. "Warcraft is really fun to create art for because anything goes," he says. "We now have motorcycles in World of Warcraft! We have giant guys running around on mammoths next to guys that are on gyrocopters next to guys who are on transparent nether-drakes..."</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=9" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/ss_preview_10.jpg.jpg', 'Vehicle combat is one of Lich King\'s more controversial innovations.', 'gallery.php?game_id=1185&article_id=712864&position=9', '640', '451'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/1/2/8/6/4/a_med_10.jpg.jpg" alt="'The Making of World of Warcraft' Screenshot 10" /></a><p class="caption">Vehicle combat is one of Lich King's more controversial innovations.</p></div><p>"With giant crystal spaceships from other planets crashing down," Metzen interjects.</p><p>"I don't know that we ever decided to do this, specifically, but what has happened over time is that WOW has become the kind of fictional exercise that can substantiate almost any whim," he continues. "We want to go and chase crazy Cthulu mythology or Egyptian art sets, we can do that. It'll handle it. Like Sam said, if we want to chase gyrocopters and motorbikes and steam tanks, it can handle that. Somehow the fiction has developed into a playground, or a sandbox if you will, that can really integrate almost any goofy idea we want to chase.</p><p>"My great hope is that we can continue to push the boundaries, and continue to show players visions of this world and of this franchise that they do not expect, and that we continue to take risks with this world overall," Metzen concludes. "I think that's where we're going to maintain our integrity as artists - and really just take people for a ride."</p>Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-11344497217525555212009-11-25T17:44:00.000-08:002009-11-25T18:00:39.169-08:00World OF Warcraft : Dragons Raid GuideRyan Laverick<br /><br />2 March, 2009<br /><br />agons. Wise, majestic and graceful beings entrusted by the Titans to watch over Azeroth in their absence. If you have even a cursory knowledge of World of Warcraft, you'll know that dragons frequently play an important part in events. However, today we come not to praise them but rather to bury them, for majestic they may be, but all too often they're either irredeemably evil or completely insane (usually both) and, more importantly, they tend to carry a fabulous amount of gold and loot on them.<br /><br />While there are scores of dragons in Northrend, there are currently just two top-level raid encounters available for players looking for a change of scenery from Naxxramas. - Sartharion, in the Obsidian Sanctum, and Malygos, in the Eye of Eternity. We'll look at both in their 10-player incarnations.<br />The Obsidian Sanctum<br /><br />Let's start with Sartharion, the Onyx Guardian and his trio of Twilight Drake cohorts, Tenebron, Shadron and Vesperon. Between them, they guard the Black Dragonflight's latest little science project - a clutch of Twilight Dragonflight eggs. They can be found in the Obsidian Sanctum, which you can travel to via a portal below the Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight.<br /><br />Why do we care? Officially, because a race of vampiric drakes gadding about the place would be a Very Bad Thing. Unofficially, the aforementioned fabulous amount of gold and loot.<br />The basics<br /><br />The Sartharion encounter presents an unusual challenge in that it essentially has four levels of difficulty to choose from. In addition to Sartharion himself, the three Twilight Drakes found inside the Sanctum can each be killed beforehand or left alive for when you attack Sarthation. If you opt for the latter, each drake you haven't killed provides various buffs to Sartharion and debuffs to the players, making the fight considerably harder depending on how many you've left alive.<br /><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Siswa/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg" alt="" /><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Siswa/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg" alt="" /><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Siswa/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-2.jpg" alt="" /><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Siswa/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-3.jpg" alt="" /><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Siswa/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-4.jpg" alt="" />http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/4/3/2/4/5/2/a_med_sart.jpg.jpg<br /><br />If you choose to kill all the drakes before engaging Sarthation, you won't have much to worry about. Alone, he has all the usual dragon characteristics - a flame breath that hits for around 10k damage, a (somewhat weak) cleave, a stunning tail whip and a generally withering contempt for any "lesser beings" intruding on his baby-sitting assignment. In addition, there are also the following to consider:<br /><br /> * Lava Wave: a tsunami of lava rises up from either the north or south and washes over the island, bar for a couple of gaps players run to to avoid it. In the most basic form of the encounter it knockbacks players caught in its path, and leaves a debuff causing a moderate amount of damage over time. In more challenging forms, it will pretty much kill any player it hits within a few seconds.<br /> * Lava Strikes: small lava bombs caused by cyclones in the lava surrounding the island, a minor annoyance in the main, but they can be dangerous in the harder versions of the encounter.<br /> * Lava Blazes: fire elementals that spawn randomly from Lava Strike impacts. They only have 28k health, hit like your grandmother and will need to be tanked and killed. However, if hit by the lava wave, they enrage, increasing health by 40k and dealing four times as much damage.<br /><br />The main danger from the fight comes from the lava waves sweeping across the battlefield, as players not only have to make sure they avoid them, but ensure the Lava Blazes do as well. Other than that, all that's left to worry about is the final per cent, where Sartharion goes berserk in a last ditch attempt to stop the raid from killing him. Stay cool, don't panic and you'll finish him off.<br />The drakes<br /><br />That's the easy way; the hard way is somewhat different. By leaving one or all of the Twilight Drakes alive, you introduce numerous factors into the equation. Each drake brings his or her own bag of tricks to the party which increases the threat posed by Sartharion as well. Once you pull Sartharion, the raid is immediately afflicted with debuffs from each drake still alive (The Power of Tenebron, Shadron or Vesperon respectively) and they will join the fray at certain intervals.<br /><br />In Tenebron's case, she lands 30 seconds after the pull and presents arguably the biggest DPS test of the fight. Like all the drakes, her direct attacks are limited to melee, a shadowflame breath and targeting players with bright blue void zones, but she also has some unique abilities too. The Power of Tenebron is an aura doubling any shadow damage the raid takes, making the void zones fatal for anyone caught in them when they detonate. Additionally, some 15-20 seconds after landing she will open a twilight portal and hatch a clutch of eggs inside, the whelps from which will swamp the raid roughly 15 seconds later. The key to tackling any version of the fight with Tenebron up is to kill her before she spawns a second wave of whelps, as the whelps inflict a stacking armour reduction debuff on whoever they hit, meaning the person tanking them is going to be as strong as tissue paper if a second wave piles on.<br /><br />If you haven't killed him either, Shadron will swoop down and join the fray 75 seconds after the fight begins. Shadron's unique abilities are the Power of Shadron, an aura that doubles any fire damage taken and which presents the biggest threat to the raid, as it makes Sartharion's flame breaths on the main tank practically unmanageable without resorting to whatever cooldowns the tank and the raid possess in order to survive them. Additionally, Shadron also opens a twilight portal inside which an Acolyte of Shadron can be found channelling the Gift of Twilight - a buff that makes Sartharion immune to harm and grants him 50 per cent more fire damage (note that when killing the drakes before engaging Sartharion, this will be cast on Shadron instead). Combined with the Power of Shadron, Sartharion's flame breaths begin to get alarmingly high...but wait! It gets worse!<br /><p>If alive, <strong>Vesperon</strong> will land at the 2 minute mark. His aura, the Power of Vesperon, reduces everyone's maximum health by 25 per cent and, like Shadron, he will open a twilight portal where an Acolyte of Vesperon will channel a spell called Twlight Torment, which affects everyone. Twilight Torment makes an already difficult DPS race that little bit tougher as it increases shadow and fire damage taken by 75 per cent, and causes damage to a player whenever they deal damage themselves. By now, Sartharion's flame breaths are reaching one-shot territory, even on a well-geared tank, while dual shadowflame breaths on the drake tank are likely to cause a few scares too.</p><p>Naturally, while all of this craziness is going on, the raid still has to deal with other things as well, such as Lava Waves, Lava Strikes, Lava Blazes, and Lava Trucks. Okay, maybe not Lava Trucks. Finally, for each drake that is killed, Sartharion's damage will increase by 25 per cent, so by the time you finally get around to tackling him, your tank is going to be taking some pretty heavy hits.</p><h3>Three's a crowd</h3><p>Sartharion alone or with a single drake is fairly forgiving in terms of raid composition. If attempting with two or all three drakes up, a reasonably balanced raid for the encounter will look something like this:</p><ul><li>Sartharion tank: this guy is going to need a massive amount of health and mitigation, and be ready to blow whatever cooldowns are available to survive the insane damage of the flame breaths.</li><li>Twilight Drake tank: this benighted soul has arguably has the toughest job of all, having to dodge void zones and tsunamis while tanking and moving two drakes at a time for the crucial part of the fight.</li><li>Lava Blaze & Twilight Whelps tank: ideally someone tough who can put out enough damage to kill most of the Blazes on their own. They'll need to be aware of Lava Waves and keep the Lava Blazes away from them.</li><li>A damage dealer who can tank in a pinch: a feral Druid, DPS Warrior, retribution Paladin or Death Knight - basically someone to enter the portals and keep the Acolytes from annihilating non-plate-wearing DPS and healers.</li><li>Two dedicated healers, and a third specced for damage but able to switch to help raid healing after Tenebron is down, such as an elemental Shaman or a balance Druid.</li><li>Three damage-dealers of your choice, ideally with strong area-of-effect capabilities and geared well enough to put out at least 3400 damage per second on a single target.</li></ul><p>Scared yet? Well, no one ever said it was going to be easy.</p><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=432452&position=4" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/4/3/2/4/5/2/ss_preview_090107.Sartharion.3D.jpg.jpg', '', 'gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=432452&position=4', '640', '512'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/4/3/2/4/5/2/a_med_090107.Sartharion.3D.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Dragons Raid Guide' Screenshot 2" /></a></div><p>Have your Sartharion tank make the pull, and take him to the south-east corner of the island, at the buffing spot. This allows the tank to move easily between Lava Waves, while keeping the rest of the island nice and open for everyone to cope with the upcoming chaos. Damage at this point is unimportant as Sartharion isn't a concern until all the drakes are dead, so just leave them to it and get the drake tank, healer and DPS over to the west of the island for Tenebron's arrival.</p><p>Just before or after she lands will be the first of many Lava Wave tsunamis. The tank should grab her and move her down to the south-west/southern part of the island while DPS go all-out off the bat - if someone gets aggro, taunt it right back and pray she doesn't breathe on anyone while it's going on, but it's imperative that as little DPS time as possible is lost, as she <em>must</em> die before the second wave of whelps hatch without fail, so holding back isn't really an option. While all this goes on, your blaze/whelp tank will be running around gathering strays and wearing them down as best they can. Unfortunately, the number of Lava Blazes that spawn is completely random, so it's possible your blaze tank may get overwhelmed, but they'll just have to deal as best they can and try and hold out until Tenebron dies - your DPS can't really spare the time before then.</p><p>Depending on your DPS, Shadron will fly in and land when Tenebron's between the 50 and 25 per cent mark. The drake tank must pick him up, but focus on keeping maximum threat on Tenebron, who will hopefully be close to death but probably also close to turning on the DPS. If she dies before hatching a second wave of whelps, the tank should drag Shadron around the island to the north position while the raid AOEs down the whelps and Lava Blazes in the middle before turning attention to Shadron. If you have it, now is a good time to use Bloodlust or Heroism.</p><p>45 seconds after Shadron lands, Vesperon will land at the north point of the island and quickly open a portal, causing Twilight Torment to be applied to everyone. This is the make-or-break point, as the amount of raid damage will be taking a terrible toll on your healers' mana, and the Sartharion tank will be close to running out of options to mitigate the flame breaths. The DPS/healer should switch to full-time raid-topping at this point, as the DPS will come close to killing themselves in their efforts to kill Shadron. If Shadron dies, quickly pick off any Lava Blazes, then all DPS plus the hybrid healer should enter the portal to take down the Acolytes, beginning with Shadron's. Beware when the second Acolyte is close to death, as once dead, everyone inside the portal will be dumped back outside - so if there's a tsunami on the way, there's going to be trouble.</p><p>Once the Acolytes are dead, the hard part is done, and you're almost there. Finish off Vesperon, take out any Lava Blazes and the new Acolyte (if another should spawn) and collect yourselves for a moment. Throw out any Innervates and combat resurrections if available and required, and get ready for the finish straight!</p><p>By now your main tank will be back to 100 per cent health, and the flame breaths won't be anything like the object of abject terror they were earlier. However, Sartharion will be dishing out 75 per cent more damage overall, so don't take him too lightly. Depending on your setup, you may want a tank with better avoidance and mitigation to taunt and take over, but it's not strictly necessary. In any case, just keep calm, stay alive, keep the Lava Blazes under control, avoid the tsunamis and wear him down. Remember, he goes berserk at 10 per cent, but it's still quite mild compared to most other bosses' freak-outs.</p><p>So, still scared? It's understandable - this 10-player version of the fight is far more demanding than its 25-player equivalent, and arguably the most tightly-tuned encounter since the notorious M'uru from the Sunwell. You really need to be on your toes and geared out as best you can - but the beauty of it is, it's only as hard as you want it to be. If you feel it's asking too much of your group, you can decide to go just with two drakes or even one. </p><p>Sure, you won't get the mount reward, but you will still get extra drops (including one equal to 25-player gear if at least two drakes are up), so you're only really missing out on a vanity item. If you do decide to just go for two drakes, I suggest killing Shadron off beforehand. Firstly, you'll have 90 seconds to deal with Tenebron and the whelps before Vesperon lands - that gives you plenty of breathing room. Secondly, your tank won't be at risk from the crazy flame breaths as neither the Power of Shadron or the Gift of Twilight will be present.</p><p>But where's the fun in that? Two drakes are for gnomes and Pernod-drinkers. You know what you have to do.</p><h3>The Eye of Eternity</h3><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=432452&position=5" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/4/3/2/4/5/2/ss_preview_Malygos_kill.jpg.jpg', '', 'gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=432452&position=5', '640', '374'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/4/3/2/4/5/2/a_med_Malygos_kill.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Dragons Raid Guide' Screenshot 3" /></a></div><p>Residing in the Eye of Eternity, a location accessible only via a portal in the Nexus, Malygos, Lord of Magic and head of the Blue Dragonflight, orchestrates the war against all Azeroth's magic users. As far as Malygos is concerned, the lesser races (i.e. you and me, and especially gnomes) shouldn't be dabbling with magic, so he's decided to put a stop to it. Unsurprisingly, this has upset more than a few people, so the Kirin Tor of Dalaran have tasked you with entering his lair and convincing the all-powerful and knowledgeable Guardian of Magic of the error of his ways. Naturally, you do this out of a sense of civic duty, community pride and concern - the veritable treasure trove of riches and magical artefacts Malygos has acquired over the millennia plays no part in any of this at all. No, none whatsoever.</p><p>Until Ulduar arrives soon, The Eye of Eternity serves as the final encounter of the current player-versus-environment content, a three-stage fight against the Spell Weaver (Malygos has more titles than rogues have stuns). Phase one is more or less a tank-and-spank; phase two consists of killing adds and staying alive while the entire raid is bombarded with magic damage; phase three is similar to the final battle of the Oculus, with every member of the raid riding a ruby drake to end the threat posed by Malygos once and for all.</p><p>Unlike the other raid encounters in Northrend, the Eye of Eternity does have one prerequisite before you can attempt it. One player in the raid needs to have retrieved a quest item from Sapphiron in <a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/world-of-warcraft-naxxramas-raid-guide-article">Naxxramas</a> - the Key to the Focusing Iris - and handed it in. Once done, that player can start the encounter. There is no trash to clear beforehand, and the fight itself has a 10-minute time limit. As gaining possession of the quest item indicates, the raid is expected to be reasonably well-geared and capable of defeating the majority of Naxxramas bosses before tackling Malygos.</p><h3>Phase One</h3><p>Once able players activate the Focusing Iris in the centre of the arena, Malygos will fly down and attack the raid. Like most dragons, he has a cleave, but unusually he does not have a tail swipe. His breath attack does upwards of 18,000 damage in an arc to anything in front of him, and additionally causes a DOT that explodes for 10,000 damage to anyone within 10 yards. Every so often he summons Power Sparks that appear at the edges of the arena and travel slowly towards him. If they reach him, they increase his damage by 50 per cent. However, if killed, the sparks drop an aura onto the ground that grants 50 per cent damage to all players standing in it instead. They can be stunned, snared and rooted and can also stack twice, so should any overlap, the raid's damage output can rise considerably, making this a rare fight where threat really can be a problem if people aren't careful.</p><p>While most of his attacks are aimed strictly at the tank, Malygos does have one highly damaging raid-wide attack to call upon. Every forty seconds he will turn away from the tank, lift off and create a vortex that sweeps all players up high into the air and deals roughly 20,000 damage over 10 seconds before dropping everyone into the centre of the arena. This is unavoidable unless you are a Rogue with Shadowstep or a Warlock, who can drop a Demonic Circle down beforehand and teleport to it while everyone else flies around overhead. While the vortex is active, any Power Sparks in play will stop moving.</p><h3>Phase Two</h3><p>Once his health reaches 50 per cent, Malygos walks to the centre, takes off and gives a little speech about underestimating you, after which he becomes untargetable - but he will still take damage until he finishes the speech, so give it all you've got for as long as you can as soon as hits 50 per cent, as aggro is no longer a concern while he's in the air. Note: if he's causing a vortex when he goes under 50 per cent, he will finish it first, so there's extra time for DOTs to tick on him. </p><p>Once he finally finishes talking and flies away, a group of Mages will appear on hoverdisks and attack the raid. Some will float above the arena firing Arcane Barrages at the raid (the Scions of Eternity); others at ground level will engage the raid directly (the Lords of Eternity). When killed, both Lords and Scions drop their disks onto the ground, at which point players can mount them and fly to engage the remaining Scions. Even better, players riding these hoverdisks take no damage unless all ground targets are dead.</p><p>Meanwhile, Malygos will bombard the raid with Arcane Storm blasts, dealing 10k to whoever they hit along with a knockback. Occasionally he will also cast a Deep Breath at the centre of the arena for 5 seconds, dealing 5000 damage every second. Fortunately, this can be mitigated by standing inside the shields created by the Arcane Storm charges, which look like big pink bubbles. A word of caution - when running for cover inside these anti-magic shields, <em>do not jump into them</em>. This causes issues with the server not realising you've actually crossed the shield's threshold, so you end up taking full hits from the deep breaths and anything else that hits you while seemingly safe.</p><h3>Phase Three</h3><div class="illustrationPreview"><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=432452&position=1" onclick="javascript:showPreview('http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/4/3/2/4/5/2/ss_preview_malygos_in_eye.jpg.jpg', '', 'gallery.php?game_id=8181&article_id=432452&position=1', '640', '512'); return false;"><img src="http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/4/3/2/4/5/2/a_med_malygos_in_eye.jpg.jpg" alt="'World of Warcraft: Dragons Raid Guide' Screenshot 4" /></a></div><p>Once all the Lords and Scions are dead, Malygos flies into a rage and returns to face the raid. Pausing only to give yet another speech, he shatters the arena completely, causing the raid to plummet through space to their deaths...</p><p>..or not, because the cavalry has finally arrived! Each player is picked up by a Ruby Drake, at which point you have full control over them and their abilities, which are:</p><ul><li>Flame Spike - spits a fireball at the target, gives a combo point.</li><li>Engulf in Flames - consumes your combo points to create a DOT on target causing 1500 per tick, lasts longer depending on however many combo points were on the target (5 max). Can stack unlimitedly</li><li>Revivify - a heal-over-time that heals the friendly target over 10 seconds, gives a combo point. Stackable (5 max)</li><li>Life Burst - consumes your revivify combo points to give a 15k heal to everything within 60 yards.</li><li>Flame Shield - consumes your combo points to generate a shield to reduce damage taken by 80 per cent, lasts up to 6 seconds depending on the number of combo points on the target.</li><li>Blazing Speed - boosts movement speed for a few seconds.</li></ul><p>There are various ways to handle this: some surround him in a circle, others group up in one spot with those on healing duty using Life Burst to outheal as much of the incoming damage as they can - but this leaves the entire raid vulnerable to the effects of the Static Fields that Malygos will periodically envelop players in (not really a problem as long as everyone moves quickly). The bulk of Malygos' damage comes from his Surge of Power blast, which is targeted at a single player who must shield him or herself, just as he finishes casting, or else take about 72k damage over the space of 3 seconds.</p><p>Essentially, the phase boils down to this: the designated healers heal the raid with Revivifies and Life Bursts while the rest try to get their personal stack of Engulf in Flames on Malygos as high as possible, with all being ready to use their Flame Shield if Malygos targets them with a Surge of Power. One example of this is to use two Flame Spikes, wait for your drake's energy to reach 80 energy, cast Engulf and repeat unless you are targeted for a Surge of Power, in which case activate your shield (hence waiting for your drake's energy to reach 80 again, so you have enough left for a shield if needed). Although confusing and disorientating at first, it really is that simple.</p><p>If you find yourself struggling with it and want more practice on riding the drakes, the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=13414" target="_blank">Aces High!</a> daily quest found on the upper rings of the Nexus is little more than a Phase 3 training mode, should you need it. Really though, just keep building the Engulf stack or healing everyone depending on your role, move away from Static Fields and shield yourself if necessary and you'll be fine.</p><p>It won't look like you're making much impact at first, but once the Engulf stacks reach higher and higher amounts, Malygos' health will drop very quickly and he'll soon give up the ghost, whereupon you can pick his corpse clean - that is to say, rest safe in the knowledge that you have saved the world, again. Alas, there's no time to sit back on your laurels as word is something evil is stirring in Ulduar. An adventurer's lot is rarely a peaceful one...</p>Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-61836410996882535882009-11-18T17:39:00.001-08:002009-11-18T17:39:35.138-08:00History of Dota<div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10868"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 31px; font-weight: normal;"> G7 Teams: Over $355,000 in unpaid prize money </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10868"><b>The G7 Teams step up to ensure that gamers get their assured prize money from organizers. </b></a> Who are the culprits and how to beat them? Find out inside.<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10867-dxd-one-on-one-tournament"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 31px; font-weight: normal;"> Dota Extreme Domination organizes a 1v1 tournament </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10867-dxd-one-on-one-tournament"><b>Rules, information and prizes:</b></a> Duel other competitors, win booze and money!<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> DTS to miss SMM </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10863-dts-out-of-smm"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;"> JoliE joins DTS for SMM, but DTS may have to pull out </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10863-dts-out-of-smm"><b>DTS out of SMM?</b></a> Current H1N1 epidemic may stop DTS from going to SMM<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> GosuCup - Post tournament coverage </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <center> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10851-gosucup-grand-finals-battle-report"><img src="http://www.gosugamers.net/images/DotA/gosucupseason1finals.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; max-width: 470px;" /></a> </center> <br /> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10851-gosucup-grand-finals-battle-report"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal;"> GosuCup Grand Finals - Match Report </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10851-gosucup-grand-finals-battle-report"><b>Post tournament coverage including game reviews, video commentaries</b></a> and much much more!<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> Become a moderator </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/thread/457205-become-a-moderator"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal;"> GosuGamers needs you </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/thread/457205-become-a-moderator"><b>Apply as a moderator today</b></a> Stop the flames and spam<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> Misery </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10856"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal;"> Misery: I'm not sure where Loda was </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10856"><b>Misery expresses his views about the current </b></a> form of the team and the continued absence of LodA in important matches<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> Interview with MYM|Pusher </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <center> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10838-pusher-interview-part-2-asians-make-the-shittiest-hero-usable"><img src="http://www.gosugamers.net/images/people/hl_mym_pusher_surf_470.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; max-width: 470px;" /></a> </center> <div style="float: right; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 3px;"><span style="font-size: 10px;">Pusher playing at Gamescom 09</span></div> <br /> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10838-pusher-interview-part-2-asians-make-the-shittiest-hero-usable"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 31px; font-weight: normal;"> 'I never shave when we're on a winning spree' </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10838-pusher-interview-part-2-asians-make-the-shittiest-hero-usable"><b>INTERVIEW: Part 2 of this big but interesting interview with Pusher.</b></a> If you liked the first part, don't miss the second.<br /></div><div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10831-pusher-interview-part-1-my-archenemy-became-my-friend"><b>INTERVIEW: Part 1 of an interview where MeetYourMakers assist Pusher reveals his innermost secrets,</b></a> his ideas about playing assist and his views about all the DotA players he has played with.<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> PokerStars to PokerIdol </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10849-pokerstars-changes-sponsors"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal;"> The DotA Idol has been chosen </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10849-pokerstars-changes-sponsors"><b>First ever DotA idol chosen</b></a> Find out who it is<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> ADC II playoffs </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10842-aeon-and-cybertime-dominate-asia"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 24px; font-family: Georgia; font-weight: normal;"> Razer ADC III Regular Season ends - Next up: Playoffs </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10842-aeon-and-cybertime-dominate-asia"><b>Asia's finest set to compete in full swing</b></a> - Fixtures and coverage details available<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> A legend saying goodbye </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10839-maelk-i-don-t-have-the-same-commitment-and-love-to-the-game"><img src="http://www.gosugamers.net/images/people/maelk_shouting_245.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; max-width: 200px;" /></a> <br /> </div> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10839-maelk-i-don-t-have-the-same-commitment-and-love-to-the-game"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 24px; font-family: Georgia; font-weight: normal;"> Maelk: 'I don't have the same commitment and love to the game' </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10839-maelk-i-don-t-have-the-same-commitment-and-love-to-the-game"><b>The Danish DotA icon speaks up on recent lineup changes.</b></a> 'I feel there are games they could/should have won much easier, but didn't because of picks'<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> Valeur Interview </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px;"> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10833"><img src="http://www.gosugamers.net/images/DotA/valeur5.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; max-width: 200px;" /></a> <br /> </div> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10833"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal;"> Valeur: 'I lack ingame experience a lot' </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10833"><b>INTERVIEW: The unique captain Valeur tells us about his team,</b></a> his views on DotA and his plans for the upcoming Dreamhack Tournament.<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> GosuCup </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10828"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 31px; font-weight: normal;"> GosuCup finals tonight! </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10828"><b>fnatic vs xFz.int</b></a> 19:00 CET<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> WinDotA.com </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <center> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10819"><img src="http://www.gosugamers.net/images/DotA/win.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; max-width: 470px;" /></a> </center> <br /> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10819"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal;"> Weekend DotA, Big Bucks: Playdota returns as WinDotA </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10819"><b>Playdota.net is now WinDotA.com</b></a> with a new ladder system promising better gameplay and cooler prizes.<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> DotA with a new hero? </span> </div> --> <div class="cont_middle" style="text-align: left;"> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10810-new-dota-hero-in-the-making"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 31px; font-weight: normal;"> FEAR THE NIGHT </h1></a> <div style="line-height: 1.5em; padding-top: 5px;"><span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10810-new-dota-hero-in-the-making"><b>IceFrog publishes a mysterious video.</b></a> Have a look at a possible new hero!<br /></div> </div> <!-- <div class="cont_top_alt"> <span class="headline_subject"> Kael League- Reset </span> </div> --> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10808"><h1 style="margin: 4px 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 24px; font-family: Georgia; font-weight: normal;"> Kael League is back with promises of more prizes and more fun </h1></a> <span style="color:red;">»</span> <a href="http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/10808"><b>The Kael League has been reset</b></a> with the admins promising better level of gaming and more goodies for the players.Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-46491709828370817452009-11-18T17:29:00.000-08:002009-11-18T17:32:09.613-08:00Ambush Attack<p><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Different Ways to Gank</span></strong></p> <div style="border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 5px; padding: 5px; float: right; width: 300px; background-color: rgb(230, 230, 230);"> <div align="center"><a target="_link" href="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota101_gank04b.jpg"> <img src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota101_gank04t.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="176" width="300" /> </a><strong><span style="color:#cc6600;">(1) Sven chases the Lina, thinking that she is alone. </span></strong></div> </div> <p><strong>Casual Entrapment.</strong> A lot of ganks begin as a game of entrapment. You, as a lone hero, scout an area and find an enemy hero, which would most probably try and chase you down; it's human nature to feel superior against another who bids a hasty retreat with your presence. This works to your advantage. </p> <p>You can set the trap prior to baiting the hero, or make your allies aware of the enemy following your tail. They can come to your assistance to help you dispose of the threat. If he chases you closer to your territory, it will be harder for him to have any support from his teammates, especially if he follows you blindly. </p> <p>At some point during the game, this kind of gank become too obvious for the experienced player, and will realize that he is going too deep into enemy territory, and back off.</p> <div style="border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 5px; padding: 5px; float: right; width: 300px; background-color: rgb(230, 230, 230);"> <div align="center"><a target="_link" href="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota101_gank05b.jpg"> <img src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota101_gank05t.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="176" width="300" /> </a> <span class="elBlackBold"> <span style="color:#cc6600;"><strong>(2) Vengeful Spirit stuns Sven. This could end up in a 2v1 battle with Sven dead. </strong></span></span></div> </div> <p><strong>Scouting Jungle.</strong> There are some popular “jungling” heroes, which do not play on a lane, but rather kill the creeps in the forest. These heroes should be ganked if possible, since good junglers can make a good amount of money without disturbance from enemy heroes. </p> <p>Usually, heroes who farm the jungle early game push their hitpoints as low as possible. Catching them at a bad time would spell an early death for such a player. Keep an eye on the lanes – if there’s one less hero, he’s probably killing creeps in the jungle. Use the command –ma (to see the enemy heroes’ level) and –afk (to make sure that the player is indeed playing and not idle). If the “missing” enemy hero is not afk and is gaining levels, then scouring the woods by yourself or with a teammate every so often is a good idea to disturb and kill a jungling hero.</p> <p><strong>Good Old Ambush.</strong> The traditional, most straight-up way to gank a hero is simply considered a heat of the moment opportunity, where one takes advantage of a given situation. Many times, heroes will venture too far out of their safe zones when they are unopposed by an enemy for some time. Moving through the forest to ambush the hero is standard for DotA games.<br /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">How to Avoid Ganks</span></strong></p> <div style="border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 5px; padding: 5px; float: right; width: 225px; background-color: rgb(230, 230, 230);"> <div align="center"> <img src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota101_gank03b.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="173" width="225" /> <span class="elBlackBold"> <span style="color:#cc6600;"><strong>The minimap is your friend. </strong></span></span></div> </div> <p>The concept of avoiding ganks is easier said than done. </p> <p>To ultimately avoid being a victim of ganks, the most important thing to keep in mind is map awareness. Checking the minimap every so often makes you more alert regarding enemy whereabouts. Early game, heroes tend to stay on one lane most of the time. </p> <p>If one enemy hero leaves his lane, there are a couple of things that he could have done: He can either have gone back to the fountain to heal and buy some items, check runes, or ultimately, orchestrate a gank. </p> <p>As part of a team, it’s somewhat your duty to call missing heroes. This means you should tell your allies that your lane’s enemy heroes are missing in action. You can do this by simply typing “missing (your lane)” or any variable of that such as “mis bottom” or “mia top”. This would greatly help your allies be more aware of their surroundings as well.</p> <p>Another way to avoid ganks is investing in the purchase of <strong>Observer Wards. </strong>These items give you a line of sight on areas where heroes might attempt a gank (such as forest entry and exitways) so you can move away when you see incoming enemy heroes.</p><p><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Effective Heroes for Ganking</span></strong></p> <p>Some heroes are best at lane control, some heroes are best at tanking; logically some heroes are best at ganks -- here comes a list of the more appropriated heroes for ganks, divided in several categories.<br /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Nukers</span></strong></p> <p>This might be the most useful category for ganks -- all of these heroes have very powerful abilities that allow them to kill an isolated hero quickly.<br /></p> <div style="border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 5px; padding: 5px; float: right; width: 300px; background-color: rgb(230, 230, 230);"> <div align="center"><a target="_link" href="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota101_gank01b.jpg"> <img src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota101_gank01t.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="176" width="300" /> </a> <span class="elBlackBold"> <span style="color:#cc6600;"><strong>(1) Tinker takes advantage of two enemy heroes that have been taking damage. </strong></span></span> </div> </div> <p><strong>Lion (Demon Witch)</strong></p> <p>Probably the most deadly nuker in early game thanks to his powerful ultimate -- Finger of Death. Catching a hero unaware and using the stun and hex combo, plus the ultimate usually spells death for most heroes at low levels. Coupled with a teammate, it's deadly! </p> <p><strong>Lina (Slayer)</strong></p> <p>This hero is very similar to Lion. Indeed, just as Lion, Lina owns a deadly ultimate which deals 450 damage at level 1. Also, Lina has a stunning spell (Light Strike Array) and an area-of-effect spell (Dragon Slave). In a team, Lina and Lion combined make a lethal early-game combo.<br /></p> <p><strong>Boush (Tinker)</strong></p> <div style="border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 5px; padding: 5px; float: right; width: 300px; background-color: rgb(230, 230, 230);"> <div align="center"><a target="_link" href="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota101_gank02b.jpg"> <img src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota101_gank02t.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="176" width="300" /> </a> <span class="elBlackBold"> <span style="color:#cc6600;"><strong>(2) Double nukes leave the two heroes scrambling home. Tinker manages to kill Luna. </strong></span></span> </div> </div> <p>Tinker is the best nuker of DotA mainly due to his two powers -- Heat Seeking Missle and Laser, which deals more than 600 damage combined. Boush's ultimate is also very useful, it refreshes all of his powers and item cooldowns.<br /></p> <p><strong>Kel'Thuzad (Lich)</strong></p> <p>Lich is a perfect hero to hunt and gang in woods since his ultimate is made to be casted when there are several units. Make sure to use your ultimate when there is at least TWO units nearby (including your target hero) since the nova needs to bounce between units. Casting it while there are too many units makes it less potent, as it might not hit your target hero more than once.</p> <p><strong>Akasha (Queen of Pain)</strong></p> <p>Here is one of the most dangerous heroes of DotA, at anytime of the game. Because of her blink ability, she can enter and leave the fight easily and cast her spells. She can surprise an enemy with Blink and catch them unaware, initiating the gank. She also has very powerful spells that allow her to deal a lot of damage to her enemies.<br /></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Hunters</span></strong></p> <p>These are all the heroes which are very good launching surprise attacks due to their skills which can make them invisible or can help them scouting.<br /></p> <p><strong>Anub'arak (Nerubian Assassin)</strong></p> <p>Anub'arak is THE hero made to gank, give him a Dagon and he can get rid of anything. Thanks to his ultimate which allows him to become invisible and deal up to 525 damage at higher levels. He can also stun and mana burn his opponents. Attacking while invisible (ultimate) deals damage, combined with the mana burn and stun damage usually spells death of several low hp early game heroes.<br /></p> <div style="border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 5px; padding: 5px; float: right; width: 300px; background-color: rgb(230, 230, 230);"> <div align="center"><a target="_link" href="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota101_gank08b.jpg"> <img src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota101_gank08t.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="176" width="300" /> </a> <span class="elBlackBold"> <span style="color:#cc6600;"><strong>(1) Invisible Nerubian Assassin scouts creeping spots. </strong></span></span></div> </div> <p><strong>Rexxar (Beastmaster)</strong></p> <p>The main point of playing Rexxar is using his pets. Indeed, he has a power which allows him to call two animals -- a Quill Beast, which can slow his targets, and a Hawk, which become invisible at level 4 and allows you to follow every move of one hero. Plus, his ultimate is kind of very powerful because of its cooldown and its stunning ability.<br /></p> <p><strong>Rikimaru (Stealth Assassin)</strong></p> <p>This little guy owns an ultimate which makes him invisible permanently when he is not attacking. One of his spells -- Smoke Screen -- inhibits the casting of spells and cancels channeled spells in its area of effect. The biggest advantage of playing Rikimaru is that you can change lane or go to the woods very easily, since it's really hard for the enemies to know if you are gone or not.<br /></p> <p><strong>Gondar (Bounty Hunter)</strong></p> This hero is made to hunt. His ultimate -- Track -- allows him to move faster, to see the prey he casted his spell on and gives him a gold bonus if he manages to kill it. He also has a powerful nuke -- Shuriken Toss – which deals direct damage to the enemy. He can also become invisible and deal extra damage thanks to his critical strike ability.<br /><p><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Others</strong></span></p> <p> </p><div style="border: 0px solid rgb(208, 208, 208); padding: 4px; float: right;"><center><div style="width: 300px; height: 250px;"><span style="position: absolute; z-index: 99;"><script language="JavaScript" src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/mlg.gotfrag/dota/story;s1=dota;s2=story;s3=;kw=;pid=;pos=top;mlg=ad;tile=2;sz=300x250;ord=1201718559?" type="text/javascript"></script><a target="_blank" href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click;h=v8/38ea/0/0/%2a/u;214821841;1-0;0;24815593;4307-300/250;31402892/31420768/1;;%7Esscs=%3fhttp://www.mlgvoice.com/"><img src="http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/1524281/voice_gf_cs_official_300x250_lo.jpg" alt="Click here to find out more!" border="0" /></a> <noscript><a href="'http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/mlg.gotfrag/dota/story;s1="dota;s2="story;s3=";kw=";pid=";pos="top;mlg="ad;tile="2;sz="300x250;ord="1201718559?'" target="'_blank'"><img src="'http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/mlg.gotfrag/dota/story;s1="dota;s2="story;s3=";kw=";pid=";pos="top;mlg="ad;tile="2;sz="300x250;ord="1201718559?'" width="'300'" height="'250'" border="'0'" alt="''" /></a></noscript></span></div></center></div> <strong>Luna (Moon Rider)</strong> <p>Luna is one of those heroes you cannot fight in a single duel. His ultimate casts until 16 Lucent Beams on every enemy units in the area and so deals a lot of damage. If you are all alone against Luna and he uses his ultimate, you will take all the Beams and probably die. Equipping Luna with Lothar's Edge is always smart -- you just need to find an isolated hero, make sure he is not circled by too many allied units and cast your ultimate for an instant kill!<br /></p> <p><strong>Chen (Prophet)</strong></p> <p>Chen is the best "foresting" hero due to his ability to control creeps and give them extra life. You can control until 3 creeps and use their powers which are stuns, slows or net. He can also slow his enemies and deal them random damage. He has also the power of healing all his allied heroes wherever they are in the map.<br /></p> <p><strong>Balanar (Night Stalker)</strong></p> <p>Balanar has two sides. By day, he is not very useful -- he does not move and attack very fast and his powers do not have special characteristics. However, by night, he becomes close to immortal. All of his powers are buffed and gain extra effects, like slow or silence, and he moves and attack very fast. That's why Balanar is made to be discreet by day, and gank everyone by night.</p>Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-63122905265104312762009-11-11T18:42:00.001-08:002009-11-11T18:42:57.908-08:00Gondar ( Bounty Hunter)The Bounty Hunter is a melee ranged agility hero with an array of useful skills that help chasing, killing, and escaping the enemy. His early game revolves around surviving and harassing intelligence heroes and low HP heroes to give him that edge in level. His high agility (but relatively low strength and intelligence) leaves much to be desired, but nothing that can't be remedied by careful play and items.<br /><br />Typically the Bounty Hunter starts to grow weaker as the game progresses as your HP pool is low, but with the right items Bounty Hunter <b>can</b> carry however there are always better options. At most Bounty Hunter fulfills the role of a <b>Chaser</b>.<br /><br /><center><b>Skills:</b></center><br /><br /><b>Shuriken Toss</b><br /><br /><i>The Bounty Hunter throws a shuriken at a target unit, dealing damage. </i><br /><br />Level 1 - 100 damage. Mana - 90<br />Level 2 - 200 damage. Mana - 115<br />Level 3 - 250 damage. Mana - 135<br />Level 4 - 325 damage. Mana - 155<br /><br />Your bread and butter nuke with a slight stun effect. It's great for interrupting channeling and following up to finish a stand-still target. It's got a brief cast time so it's not ideal for firing in-chase unless you're sure it'll K.O. Excellent for harassing.<br /><br /><b>Windwalk</b><br /><br /><i>Turns invisible for a period of time. Deals bonus backstab damage. Transition time decreases per level.</i><br /><br />Level 1 - 30 backstab damage, lasts 15 seconds. Mana - 50<br />Level 2 - 60 backstab damage, lasts 20 seconds. Mana - 50<br />Level 3 - 90 backstab damage, lasts 25 seconds. Mana - 50<br />Level 4 - 120 backstab damage, lasts 30 seconds. Mana - 50<br /><br />Great for harassing, escaping, and getting around the map without being seen. It's a very handy skill.<br /><br /><b>Jinada</b><br /><br /><i>Gives a % chance to evade attacks and 15% chance to deal extra damage.</i><br /><br />Level 1 - 5% dodge, 1.25 critical multiplier.<br />Level 2 - 10% dodge, 1.5 critical multiplier.<br />Level 3 - 15% dodge, 1.75 critical multiplier.<br />Level 4 - 20% dodge, 2 critical multiplier.<br /><br /><br />A decent skill, considering it's a jack-of-all trades when it comes to Critical and Evasion. The evasion is useful, but not greatly so considering how fragile you are. Ideally, you want to avoid getting hit at all costs. The 15% chance to critical hit is extremely useful for you in the mid/end game.<br /><br /><br /><b>Track</b><br /><br /><i>Tracks an enemy hero for 30 seconds or until it dies. You gain 20% movement speed increase. If you kill a hero, you pawn its head for extra money.<br /></i><br /><br />Level 1 - Any hero kill is worth 50 bonus gold, reduces target's armor by 1. Mana - 100<br />Level 2 - Any hero kill is worth 100 extra gold, reduces target's armor by 2. Mana - 75<br />Level 3 - Any hero kill is worth 150 extra gold, reduces target's armor by 4. Mana - 50<br /><br />A useful skill for chasing and/or keeping tabs on your enemies. It's also handy for giving you a brief boost of speed to get places a little bit faster. The extra gold is icing on the cake.<br /><br /><br /><center><b>Builds</b></center><br /><br />Lvl 1: Shuriken<br />Lvl 2: Windwalk<br />Lvl 3: Shuriken<br />Lvl 4: Windwalk<br />Lvl 5: Shuriken<br />Lvl 6: Windwalk<br />Lvl 7: Shuriken<br />Lvl 8: Track<br />Lvl 9: Windwalk<br />Lvl 10: Jinada<br />Lvl 11: Track<br />Lvl 12: Jinada<br />Lvl 13: Jinada<br />Lvl 14: Jinada<br />Lvl 15: Stats<br />Lvl 16: Track<br />Lvl 17+: Stats<br /><br />A standard build that is fairly universal. Track can be interchanged to be gotten at lvl 6 (pending your mana issues) or after you cap windwalk <i>and</i> shuriken. I, personally, prefer capping Shuriken first atleast. By this point in the game with proper harassment with WW and maybe a Shuri (..or two) you can manage chasing with Track until you can land your final Shuriken. If things are going great and you start to build a level gain over the opponent (mainly -em games) one might consider a few stats plugs before Jinada or Track (Lvl 11) since Bounty's early game is extremely mana intensive if you intend on harassing as well as you can.<br /><br /><center><b>Item Builds</b></center><br /><br />There are many different kinds of builds for Bounty since he's kind of a jack-of-all trades. One can play him as a debuffer/chaser at end-game by getting Sheep Stick and/or Shiva's Guard. Or you can do a carry-esque build.<br /><br />My typical build is..<br /><br />1. Bottle<br />2. Null Talisman<br />3. Bracer<br />4. Boots<br />5. Sange & Yasha<br />6. Monkey King Bar<br /><br />In anything but EM, Bottle is a no brainer. Mana regen (Basilus/Void Stone) are great alternatives if you're farming is excellent. Also useful to turn the Void into a Pers and eventually a Linken's Sphere which will help you fend against nukers which can make quick work of you- if you aren't careful.<br /><br />Besides bottle the build is pretty standard. I prefer to keep Boots as the regular item. Treads are optional as you won't really need the small boost of run speed and the enemy won't typically let you wail on them. Travels are a good idea, however only after completing S/Y and MKB.<br /><br />MKB and S/Y are interchangeable. It really depends on how bad you need the HP from S/Y and/or how bad you need the damage/interrupt from MKB. Typically if you're against 1-2 heavy nukers then S/Y is the best choice.<br /><br /><center><b>Gameplay Tips</b></center><br /><br />- Don't worry if you don't go on a massacre early on. Be patient and farm and keep and eye out on low HP heroes<br />- Don't be afraid of packing extra regen. You've got very low HP and you can kill Intelligence heroes very quick (most of them, anyways) however they can also blow through you pretty easily as well.<br />- Never go out of Windwalk without the skill nearing it's cooldown. There's always exceptions. Use your best judgement.<br />- Don't be greedy! The bane of many early game harassers/hero killers is they get far too greedy. Tower diving and taking on full HP heroes equal level to you is silly.Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-88056779103815793702009-11-11T18:29:00.000-08:002009-11-25T17:39:39.608-08:00Defense Of The Ancients<p><b>Defense of the Ancients</b> (<b>DotA</b>) is a custom scenario for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_strategy" title="Real-time strategy">real-time strategy</a> video game <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_III:_Reign_of_Chaos" title="Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos">Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos</a></i> and its expansion, <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_III:_The_Frozen_Throne" title="Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne">Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne</a></i>, based on the "Aeon of Strife" map for <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft" title="StarCraft">StarCraft</a></i>. The objective of the scenario is for each team to destroy the opponents' Ancients, heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the map. Players use powerful units known as heroes, and are assisted by allied heroes and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence" title="Artificial intelligence">AI</a>-controlled fighters called "creeps". As in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game" title="Role-playing game">role-playing games</a>, players <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_up" title="Level up" class="mw-redirect">level up</a> their hero and use gold to buy equipment during the mission.<sup id="cite_ref-gotfragpg2_1-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gotfragpg2-1"><span>[</span>2<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p>The scenario was developed with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_III_World_Editor" title="Warcraft III World Editor">"World Editor"</a> of <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_III:_Reign_of_Chaos" title="Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos">Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos</a></i>, and was updated upon the release of the expansion, <i>The Frozen Throne</i>. There have been many variations of the original concept; the most popular is DotA Allstars, which has been maintained by several authors during development. The current developer is known by his pseudonym as "IceFrog", and has been developing the game since 2005.</p> <p>Since its release, Allstars has become a feature at several worldwide tournaments, including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_Entertainment" title="Blizzard Entertainment">Blizzard Entertainment</a>'s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlizzCon" title="BlizzCon">BlizzCon</a> and the Asian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Cyber_Games" title="World Cyber Games">World Cyber Games</a>, as well as the Cyberathlete Amateur and CyberEvolution leagues; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamasutra" title="Gamasutra">Gamasutra</a> declared that DotA was perhaps the most popular "free, non-supported game mod in the world".<sup id="cite_ref-gamasutra_2-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gamasutra-2"><span>[</span>3<span>]</span></a></sup></p><p>Defense of the Ancients pits two teams of players against each other: the Sentinel and the Scourge. Players on the Sentinel team are based at the southwest corner of the map, and those on the Scourge team are based at the northeast corner. Each base is defended by towers and waves of units which guard the main paths leading to their base. In the center of each base is the "Ancient", a building that must be destroyed to win the game.<sup id="cite_ref-dotafaq_3-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-dotafaq-3"><span>[</span>4<span>]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-techtreepg1_4-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-techtreepg1-4"><span>[</span>5<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p>Each human player controls one Hero, a powerful unit with unique abilities. In Allstars, players on each side choose one of ninety-five heroes, each with different abilities and tactical advantages over other heroes.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-5"><span>[</span>6<span>]</span></a></sup> The scenario is highly team-oriented; it is difficult for one player to carry the team to victory alone.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-6"><span>[</span>7<span>]</span></a></sup> Nevertheless, some heroes, given enough time, can change the outcome single-handedly, while countering the opposing team's heroes. Defense of the Ancients allows up to ten players in a five versus five format and an additional two slots for referees or observers, often with an equal number of players on each side.</p> <p>Because the gameplay revolves around strengthening individual heroes, it does not require one to focus on resource management and base-building, as in most traditional <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_strategy" title="Real-time strategy">real-time strategy</a> games. Killing computer-controlled or neutral units earns the player <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_point" title="Experience point">experience points</a>; when enough experience is accumulated, the player gains a level. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_point#Level-based_progression" title="Experience point">Leveling up</a> improves the hero's toughness and the damage it can inflict, and allows players to upgrade their spells or skills. In addition to accumulating experience, players also manage a single resource: gold. The typical resource gathering of <i>Warcraft III</i> is replaced by a combat-oriented money system; in addition to a small periodic income, heroes earn gold by killing hostile units, base structures, and enemy heroes.<sup id="cite_ref-techtreepg2_7-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-techtreepg2-7"><span>[</span>8<span>]</span></a></sup> This gives rise to a technique called last hitting, which is when the player attacks a hostile unit when "its hit points are low enough to kill it with one blow".<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-8"><span>[</span>9<span>]</span></a></sup> Using gold, players buy items to strengthen their hero and gain abilities. Certain items can be combined with recipes to create more powerful items. Buying items that suit one's hero is an important tactical element of the scenario.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-9"><span>[</span>10<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p>Allstars offers a variety of game modes, selected by the game host at the beginning of the match. The game modes dictate the difficulty of the scenario, as well as whether people can choose their hero or are assigned one randomly. Many game modes can be combined (for example, an easy difficulty level and a random hero pick), allowing more flexible options.<sup id="cite_ref-gotfragpg1_10-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gotfragpg1-10"><span>[</span>11<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Development">Development</span></h2> <p><i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_III" title="Warcraft III" class="mw-redirect">Warcraft III</a></i> is the third title in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft" title="Warcraft" class="mw-redirect">Warcraft</a> series of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_strategy" title="Real-time strategy">real-time strategy</a> games developed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_Entertainment" title="Blizzard Entertainment">Blizzard Entertainment</a>. As with <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_II" title="Warcraft II" class="mw-redirect">Warcraft II</a></i>, Blizzard included a free "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_editor" title="Level editor">world editor</a>" in the game that allows players to create custom scenarios or "maps" for the game, which can be played online with other players through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle.net" title="Battle.net">Battle.net</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-world_11-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-world-11"><span>[</span>12<span>]</span></a></sup> These custom scenarios can be simple terrain changes, which play like normal <i>Warcraft</i> games, or they can be entirely new game scenarios with custom objectives, units, items, and events, like Defense of the Ancients.<sup id="cite_ref-world_11-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-world-11"><span>[</span>12<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p>The first version of Defense of the Ancients was released in 2003 by a mapmaker under the alias Eul,<sup id="cite_ref-gamasutra-postmortem_12-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gamasutra-postmortem-12"><span>[</span>13<span>]</span></a></sup> who based the map on a previous <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft" title="StarCraft">StarCraft</a></i> scenario known as "Aeon of Strife",<sup id="cite_ref-gotfragpg1_10-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gotfragpg1-10"><span>[</span>11<span>]</span></a></sup> After the release of <i>Warcraft</i><span style="padding-left: 0.1em;">'</span>s expansion <i>The Frozen Throne</i>, which added new features to the World Editor, Eul did not update the scenario.<sup id="cite_ref-gamesetwatch_13-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gamesetwatch-13"><span>[</span>14<span>]</span></a></sup> Other mapmakers produced spinoffs that added new heroes, items, and features.<sup id="cite_ref-gamasutra-postmortem_12-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gamasutra-postmortem-12"><span>[</span>13<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p>Among the DotA variants created in the wake of Eul's map included Allstars, developed by modder <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Feak" title="Steve Feak">Steve Feak</a> (under the alias Guinsoo); this version would become the most popular version of the map.<sup id="cite_ref-14" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-14"><span>[</span>15<span>]</span></a></sup> Feak said when he began developing Allstars he had no idea how popular the game would eventually become; the emerging success of the gametype inspired him to design a new title around what he considered an emerging game genre.<sup id="cite_ref-1up-guinsoo_15-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-1up-guinsoo-15"><span>[</span>16<span>]</span></a></sup> Feak added a recipe system for items so that player's equipment would scale as they grew more powerful, as well as a powerful boss character called Roshan (named after his bowling ball) who required an entire team to defeat.<sup id="cite_ref-gamasutra-postmortem_12-2" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gamasutra-postmortem-12"><span>[</span>13<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p>Feak used a battle.net chat channel as a place for DotA players to congregate,<sup id="cite_ref-gamasutra-postmortem_12-3" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gamasutra-postmortem-12"><span>[</span>13<span>]</span></a></sup> but DotA Allstars had no official site for discussions and hosting. The leaders of the DotA Allstars <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_%28computer_gaming%29" title="Clan (computer gaming)">clan</a>, TDA, proposed that a dedicated web site be created to replace the various online alternatives that were infrequently updated or improperly maintained. TDA member Steve "Pendragon" Mescon created the former official community site, dota-allstars.com, on October 14, 2004.<sup id="cite_ref-dota-pendragon_interview_16-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-dota-pendragon_interview-16"><span>[</span>17<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p>Towards the end of his association with the map, Feak primarily worked on optimizing the map before handing over control to another developer after version 6.01. The new author, IceFrog, added new features, heroes, and fixes. Each release is accompanied with a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changelog" title="Changelog">changelog</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-changelog_17-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-changelog-17"><span>[</span>18<span>]</span></a></sup> IceFrog is notoriously reclusive, refusing to give interviews; the only evidence of IceFrog's authorship was the map maker's email account on the official website and the name branded on the game's loading screen.<sup id="cite_ref-gamasutra_2-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gamasutra-2"><span>[</span>3<span>]</span></a></sup> Icefrog now interacts with players through a personal blog where he answers common questions players have about him and about the game.<sup id="cite_ref-18" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-18"><span>[</span>19<span>]</span></a></sup> He has also posted information about upcoming map releases, including previews of new heroes and items.<sup id="cite_ref-19" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-19"><span>[</span>20<span>]</span></a></sup> In October 2009, Icefrog was hired by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation" title="Valve Corporation">Valve Corporation</a>, leading a team in a project that he has described as "great news for DotA fans".<sup id="cite_ref-20" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-20"><span>[</span>21<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p><i>Defense of the Ancients</i> is maintained via official forums. Users can post ideas for new heroes or items, some of which are added to the map. Players have contributed icons and hero descriptions and created the artwork displayed while the map loads, and suggestions for changes to existing heroes or items are taken seriously; IceFrog once changed a new hero less than two weeks after the new version of the map was released.<sup id="cite_ref-gamasutra_2-2" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gamasutra-2"><span>[</span>3<span>]</span></a></sup> Versions of the scenario where enemy heroes are controlled by artificial intelligences have also been released. Mescon continues to maintain dota-allstars.com, which as of April 2009 has 1.5 million registered members and receives more than a million unique visitors each month. New team members have been added to roll out visual and system improvements to the site.<sup id="cite_ref-dota-pendragon_interview_16-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-dota-pendragon_interview-16"><span>[</span>17<span>]</span></a></sup> IceFrog announced due to conflict of interest that he would be boycotting dota-allstars.com and starting his own web site while continuing game development.<sup id="cite_ref-21" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-21"><span>[</span>22<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p>Because <i>Warcraft III</i> custom games have none of the features designed to improve game quality (matchmaking players based on connection speed, etc.), various programs are used to maintain <i>Defense of the Ancients</i>. External tools ping player's locations, and games can be named to exclude geographic regions.<sup id="cite_ref-gamasutra_2-3" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gamasutra-2"><span>[</span>3<span>]</span></a></sup> Clans and committees such as TDA maintain their own official list of rules and regulations, and players can be kicked from matches by being placed on "banlists".<sup id="cite_ref-gamasutra_2-4" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gamasutra-2"><span>[</span>3<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Reception_and_legacy">Reception and legacy</span></h2> <div class="thumb tright"> <div class="thumbinner" style="width: 182px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WCG_Malaysia_2005_DoTA_Winners.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/WCG_Malaysia_2005_DoTA_Winners.jpg/180px-WCG_Malaysia_2005_DoTA_Winners.jpg" class="thumbimage" height="135" width="180" /></a> <div class="thumbcaption"> <div class="magnify"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WCG_Malaysia_2005_DoTA_Winners.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge"><img src="http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/magnify-clip.png" alt="" height="11" width="15" /></a></div> The top three finalists from the first <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Cyber_Games" title="World Cyber Games">World Cyber Games</a> Defense of the Ancients championship</div> </div> </div> <p>The popularity of Defense of the Ancients has increased over time. The scenario was featured by <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Gaming_World" title="Computer Gaming World">Computer Gaming World</a></i> in a review of new maps and mods in <i>Warcraft III</i>,<sup id="cite_ref-22" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-22"><span>[</span>23<span>]</span></a></sup> and was called "the ultimate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_time_strategy" title="Real time strategy" class="mw-redirect">RTS</a>" by game journalist and developer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Smith_%28writer%29" title="Luke Smith (writer)">Luke Smith</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-23" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-23"><span>[</span>24<span>]</span></a></sup> Allstars became an important tournament scenario, starting with its prominence at the debut of Blizzard's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlizzCon" title="BlizzCon">BlizzCon</a> convention in 2005.<sup id="cite_ref-24" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-24"><span>[</span>25<span>]</span></a></sup> Allstars was also featured in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia" title="Malaysia">Malaysia</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore" title="Singapore">Singapore</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Cyber_Games" title="World Cyber Games">World Cyber Games</a> starting in 2005, and the World Cyber Games Asian Championships beginning with the 2006 season.<sup id="cite_ref-25" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-25"><span>[</span>26<span>]</span></a></sup> Defense of the Ancients was included in the game lineup for the internationally recognized Cyberathlete Amateur League and CyberEvolution leagues.<sup id="cite_ref-26" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-26"><span>[</span>27<span>]</span></a></sup> Additionally, the scenario appeared in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Sports_World_Cup" title="Electronic Sports World Cup">Electronic Sports World Cup</a> (ESWC) 2008;<sup id="cite_ref-27" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-27"><span>[</span>28<span>]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-28" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-28"><span>[</span>29<span>]</span></a></sup> Oliver Paradis, ESWC's competition manager, noted that the high level of community support behind the scenario, as well as its worldwide appeal, were among the reasons it was chosen.<sup id="cite_ref-why_dota_29-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-why_dota-29"><span>[</span>30<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p>The scenario is popular in many parts of the world; in the Philippines and Thailand, it is played as much as the game <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Strike" title="Counter-Strike">Counter-Strike</a></i>.<sup id="cite_ref-Why2_30-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-Why2-30"><span>[</span>31<span>]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-31" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-31"><span>[</span>32<span>]</span></a></sup> It is also popular in Sweden and other Northern European countries, where the Defense of the Ancients-inspired song "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi_sitter_i_Ventrilo_och_spelar_DotA" title="Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA">Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA</a>" by Swedish musician <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basshunter" title="Basshunter">Basshunter</a> reached the European 2006 charts at #116 and cracked the top ten Singles Charts in Sweden, Norway,<sup id="cite_ref-32" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-32"><span>[</span>33<span>]</span></a></sup> and Finland.<sup id="cite_ref-33" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-33"><span>[</span>34<span>]</span></a></sup> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_area_network" title="Local area network">LAN</a> tournaments are a major part of worldwide play,<sup id="cite_ref-why_dota_29-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-why_dota-29"><span>[</span>30<span>]</span></a></sup> including tournaments in Sweden and Russia; however, due to a lack of LAN tournaments and championships in North America, several teams disbanded.<sup id="cite_ref-Why2_30-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-Why2-30"><span>[</span>31<span>]</span></a></sup> Blizzard points to DotA as an example of what dedicated mapmakers can create using developer's tools.<sup id="cite_ref-34" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-34"><span>[</span>35<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p>In June 2008, Michael Walbridge, writing for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamasutra" title="Gamasutra">Gamasutra</a>, stated that DotA "is likely the most popular and most-discussed free, non-supported game mod in the world".<sup id="cite_ref-gamasutra_2-5" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-gamasutra-2"><span>[</span>3<span>]</span></a></sup> In pointing to the strong community built around the game, Walbridge stated that DotA shows it is much easier for a community game to be maintained by the community, and this is one of the maps' greatest strengths. Defense of the Ancients has been credited as one of the influences for the 2009 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_Powered_Games" title="Gas Powered Games">Gas Powered Games</a> title <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demigod_%28video_game%29" title="Demigod (video game)">Demigod</a></i>,<sup id="cite_ref-35" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-35"><span>[</span>36<span>]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-36" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-36"><span>[</span>37<span>]</span></a></sup> with the video game publication <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameSpy" title="GameSpy">GameSpy</a> noting the game's premise revolved around aspiring gods "[playing] DotA in real life".<sup id="cite_ref-37" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-37"><span>[</span>38<span>]</span></a></sup> Guinsoo went on to apply many of the mechanics and lessons he learned from Defense of the Ancients to the upcoming <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Games" title="Riot Games">Riot Games</a> title <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Legends:_Clash_of_Fates" title="League of Legends: Clash of Fates" class="mw-redirect">League of Legends: Clash of Fates</a></i>.<sup id="cite_ref-1up-guinsoo_15-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-1up-guinsoo-15"><span>[</span>16<span>]</span></a></sup> Other "DotA clones" include <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S2_Games" title="S2 Games">S2 Games</a>' <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_of_Newerth" title="Heroes of Newerth">Heroes of Newerth</a></i>.<sup id="cite_ref-escapist-heroes_of_newerth_38-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-escapist-heroes_of_newerth-38"><span>[</span>39<span>]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-1up-heroes_of_newerth_39-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients#cite_note-1up-heroes_of_newerth-39"><span>[</span>40<span>]</span></a></sup></p>Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-59924476724728981132009-11-11T18:20:00.000-08:002009-11-11T18:21:30.089-08:00Dota Tactics<table class="fg_article_bg" align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="100%" width="640"><tbody><tr><td nowrap="nowrap" valign="top" width="480"><table class="table_nopads" style="width: 480px;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding-left: 5px;" valign="top"><b>DotA Tactics</b> <br /><br />There's a wide variety of tactics for playing DotA, and there's no way anyone can describe all of them (though DotA's homepage try very hard to do that, and the forum got tons of information, and many different tactics).<br /><br />In this guide guide we will just scratch the surface of the tactics in DotA, with some (important) information for newbies, as well as a the average players.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a name="denying_creeps"></a> <b>Denying Creeps</b> <br /><br />Denying creeps is essential in the beginning. At level 1 in easymode, you need about 3 or 4 creeps to gain a new level. Denying an opponent a creep will give you the upperhand. You don't just reduce the amount of experience your opponents get, you also deny them the chance of recieving gold from the creeps.<br /><br />To deny a creep, you must deal the killing blow to your own creeps (you can only attack your own creeps when they have lesss than 50% of their maximum hp).<br /><br /><br /><br /> <b>Towers</b> <br /><br /> Most DotA players may know this, or have experienced it, but here is some pointers about attacking towers anyway. <br /><ul><li>If your creeps are attacking the opponents creeps, and none of you creeps attack the tower, the tower will make you it's first priority if you start hitting it.</li><br /><li>If your creeps are attacking the tower, it is safe for you to attack it without worrying about it hitting you.</li><br /><li>An exception to the statement above is if you have lower hp than the creeps, as the towers seem to focus on units with low hp first</li><br /><li>The tower will also start attack you, if you start hitting an enemy hero, in the vicinity of a tower. An exception to this, is if that hero already is taking damage from your teams creeps.</li></ul> Always be careful around towers, it's unwise to let them knock your face in when it is not needed. <br /><br /><br /><br /> <b>Powerups</b> <br /><br />Powerups are a great boost, for several reasons. They may give you time to escape, give you a bigger chance of killing an oponent, or even if it's just giving you the chance of staying longer in combat.<br /><br />Most players, if not all, know that when they are chased by enemy players, taking a detour to a spot where a powerup may be, can save their lives.<br /><br /> To read up on powerups, and what different kinds there are, check out the <a href="http://warcraft.freakygaming.com/pc/strategy/warcraft3-frozen_throne/maps/dota_allstars.html#powerups">Powerups on our DotA review page</a>. <br /><br /><br /><br /> <b>Speed is essential</b> <br /><br />Now, people who have not played DotA at all, or just a few times might think: "500 gold for boots of speed!? Hell no! They wont help me survive or do more damage".<br /><br />Well, maybe there's no player in the world who thinks so, but the point is that, without speed, you will be an easy target for other heroes, and you won't be able to kill other heroes often.<br /><br />Though, to some heroes, speed is not as important as to others. This is because many heroes in the game got "blink" abilities, that teleport you a certain distance, and can indeed be used both to chase other heroes, and for the grand escape.<br /><br />The lesson I wish to teach is that, always keep track of how fast your hero is, otherwise those other items you have gotten won't do you any good. </td> <td style="padding-left: 5px;" nowrap="nowrap" valign="top" width="20"> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> <td rowspan="1" style="padding-top: 5px;" align="center" valign="top"> <br /><div style="width: 160px;"><div><script type="text/javascript">google_ad_client = "pub-9274715271988475";google_ad_width = 160;google_ad_height = 600;google_ad_format = "160x600_as";google_ad_type = "text_image";google_ad_channel ="3885884819";google_color_border = "637074";google_color_bg = "637074";google_color_link = "DEFF00";google_color_url = "DEFF00";google_color_text = "CCCCCC";</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script><script src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/expansion_embed.js"></script><script src="http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/test_domain.js"></script><script>google_protectAndRun("ads_core.google_render_ad", google_handleError, google_render_ad);</script><ins style="border: medium none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; height: 600px; position: relative; visibility: visible; width: 160px;"><ins style="border: medium none ; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; display: block; height: 600px; position: relative; visibility: visible; width: 160px;"><iframe allowtransparency="true" hspace="0" id="google_ads_frame1" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="google_ads_frame" src="http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-9274715271988475&format=160x600_as&output=html&h=600&w=160&lmt=1257992294&channel=3885884819&ad_type=text_image&color_bg=637074&color_border=637074&color_link=DEFF00&color_text=CCCCCC&color_url=DEFF00&flash=0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwarcraft.freakygaming.com%2Fpc%2Fstrategy%2Fwarcraft3-frozen_throne%2Farticles%2Fdota_allstars_tactics.html&dt=1257992312133&correlator=1257992312148&jscb=1&jscd=1&frm=0&ga_vid=667332352.1257992314&ga_sid=1257992314&ga_hid=1317671557&ga_fc=0&u_tz=420&u_his=1&u_java=1&u_h=768&u_w=1024&u_ah=738&u_aw=1024&u_cd=32&u_nplug=4&u_nmime=12&biw=1007&bih=575&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.id%2Fsearch%3Fhl%3Did%26source%3Dhp%26q%3Darticles%2Bdota%26btnG%3DTelusuri%2Bdengan%2BGoogle%26meta%3D%26cts%3D1257991489806%26aq%3Df%26oq%3D&fu=0&ifi=1&dtd=M&xpc=k3dvJlftvI&p=http%3A//warcraft.freakygaming.com" style="left: 0pt; position: absolute; top: 0pt;" vspace="0" frameborder="0" height="600" scrolling="no" width="160"></iframe></ins></ins></div></div> </td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="2"> <table style="width: 100%;" border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr><td style="height: 50px;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-15462616950200399302009-11-11T18:12:00.000-08:002009-11-11T18:14:11.180-08:00AnuB'arak<strong>1. What's the first thing that goes through your head about Anub'Arak?</strong> <p><strong>Whisper: </strong>Annoying. The hero is very annoying. His mana burn makes it very frustrating to lane against him. Also, you always have to watch your back or he'll backstab you with Vendetta. He forces the other team to alter their play.</p> <p><strong>Loda: </strong>Gang-er.</p> <p><strong>zenition: </strong>Excellent ganker, lethal but fragile.<br /></p> <p><strong>2. How different is playing Anub'Arak in competitive and friendly games?</strong></p> <p><strong>Whisper: </strong>In friendly games people tend to purchase less observer and sentry wards. This allows NA to run amok uninhibited, and kill any people wandering off alone. In competitive play, his effect can be limited through smart playing, map awareness, and good ward vision.</p> <p><strong>Loda: </strong>Well, when it comes to NA it's a lot easier to dominate friendly games than competitive games. In friendly games people are much worse at getting wards and sentries etc., but when it comes to competitive games he can often be made useless if you just plant enough sentries.</p> <p><strong>zenition: </strong>Although Nerubian Assassin plays the same role (ganker) in both types of games, the usage of the hero is very different. In competitive games, NA is a very difficult hero to play, because the opposing team will focus alot on countering him, using sentry wards, necrobook etc.</p> <p><strong>3. What are Anub'Ark's strengths and weaknesses?</strong></p> <div style="border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 5px; padding: 5px; float: right; width: 300px; background-color: rgb(230, 230, 230);"> <div align="center"><a href="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota_na01b.jpg" target="_link"><img alt="" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota_na01t.jpg" border="0" height="176" width="300" /></a><strong><span style="color:#cc6600;">NA uses his annoying but effective Mana Burn. </span></strong></div> </div> <p><strong>Whisper:</strong> His strengths include his high instant damage output and effectiveness in lane. He's often able to kill most heroes by himself in the early stages of the game after he obtains Vendetta. He's weak against good ward vision. If the opponents can stay alive and farm some hit points up, then he won't be nearly as effective. Also, he's not the greatest in 5v5 team fights, especially because enemies tend to carry sentries into those.</p> <p><strong>Loda: </strong>His strengths are that he can nullify one hero totally in a battle with vendetta, impale, manaburn + dagon (if u have it). He's a really good lane-partner and can often control a lane with just the help of his manaburn. His weaknesses are that without any farm he's pretty much useless. He needs fast levels early on and if he's nerfed a lot in the beginning it can often be fatal for the whole game.</p> <p><strong>zenition: </strong>As I mentioned before, the strength of NA is his amazing burst-damage output, he is one of the few hero's in the game that can kill another hero almost instantly, and with a dagon(1-5) he stays useful throughtout the entire game. His strength is however also his weakness, as any team will, because of how dangerous he is, try to counter him with warding and truesight, leaving NA almost useless.<br /><br /><strong>4. What makes Anub'Arak stand out/different from other heroes?</strong></p> <p><strong>Whisper:</strong> It's probably the most annoying hero in the game.</p> <p><strong>Loda: </strong>Hm partly cause of the things I said before. He's a melee lane-controler and one of the best gangers, a bit like Lina, Lion, etc. I don't think there is any other melee hero that can control a lane, it's always the ranged one doing this imo.</p> <strong>zenition: </strong>Well, unlike most other heroes, NA can use almost any item, basically all he needs is boots of speed and a bottle. He can become an even deadlier killer with a dagon, a great support hero with an Eul's, or used as a counter to for example warlock and omniknight, with a diffusal blade.<br /><div class="story-body"> <p><strong>5. What are the "must buy" items for Anub'Arak and why?</strong></p> <div style="border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 5px; padding: 5px; float: right; width: 300px; background-color: rgb(230, 230, 230);"> <div align="center"><a href="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota_na02b.jpg" target="_link"><img alt="" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota_na02t.jpg" border="0" height="176" width="300" /></a><strong><span style="color:#cc6600;">A strong lane with NA and Lina. </span></strong></div> </div> <p><strong>Whisper: </strong>Dagon to further increase his instant damage output, necrobook does the same in a different way</p> <p><strong>Loda: </strong>I think a must buy item for NA is mostly Dagon, but only if you can get it fast enough. Atleast before 30 min or so! After that point I think the possibility for NA to own is a lot lower.<br />Necrobook is a possible item vs some lineups like Skeleton King, tree and so on, vs heroes that relies much on their manapool but haven't got so much to begin with</p> <p><strong>zenition:</strong> As I mentioned before, the strength of NA is his amazing burst-damage output, he is one of the few hero's in the game that can kill another hero almost instantly, and with a dagon(1-5) he stays useful throughtout the entire game.</p> <p><br /><strong>6. What's the basic strategy and gameplay for Anub'Arak?</strong></p> <p><strong>Whisper: </strong>The strategy for NA is to annoy the other team as much as possible. You can do this by mana burning them in lane and then leaving the lane to gank once you hit level 6 you can pick good points to try and pick people off but make sure to get some farming in, because if you fall behind in levels and items you'll quickly become completely useless</p> <p><strong>Loda:</strong> The basic strategy of NA is to early on either play on a defensive lane where you help one hero to farm etc by manaburning the opponents. He can also be placed in a really offensive lane like NA + Lina or something like that. After some earlygame ganging etc he should put some time into farming a dagon imo. Many players keeps ganging and just ends up with no items at all, you need to know when farming is the right choice to be stronger later on. When you got a dagon you should try roaming around getting solo gang kills and just keep on doing that the whole game. NA is very good together with Zeus and Furion imo.</p> <p><strong>zenition:</strong> The basic strategy would be to kill as many heroes as possible. In essence, this is what Nerubian was designed for, and what he does best.</p> <p><br /><strong>7. Do you have any tips for a newb Anub'Arak player? Such as when you should stun and when you should not, or when you should use your ultimate?</strong></p> <div style="border: 1px solid rgb(102, 102, 102); margin: 5px; padding: 5px; float: right; width: 300px; background-color: rgb(230, 230, 230);"> <div align="center"><a href="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota_na03b.jpg" target="_link"><img alt="" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/dota_na03t.jpg" border="0" height="176" width="300" /></a><strong><span style="color:#cc6600;">NA uses Vendetta followed with Impale. </span></strong></div> </div> <p><strong>Whisper: </strong>NA's ultimate makes a very distinct noise. Make sure to use it out of "hearing" range, and make sure you actually HIT the enemy before casting impale, and then mana burn.</p> <p><strong>Loda:</strong> hm I don't really know, some classic tips are that you should use Vendetta when u tp to a tower. Press tp on the tower and then hold shift and press v, this makes you arrive invisible to the tower and gives you an easier way to not get detected by the enemy hearing you go invis or something like that you always have to practice so you can execute all skills fast enough! If the enemy has time to react it's possible that he will survive! Be fast with Vendetta then impale manaburn + dagon, don't leave any chance of surviving</p> <p><strong>zenition: </strong>My best tip for a new NA player would probably be, not to forget to kill creeps. It's easy to forget when you're playing a hero with this much killing material, to forget that money for a potential dagon, and levelling is just as important as killing, when playing Nerubian Assassin. If you get Dagon + level 11 quite fast, NA will be able to kill most Agility/Intelligence heroes solo.</p></div>Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-42032387107108534322009-11-11T18:08:00.001-08:002009-11-11T18:12:34.450-08:00Starting ItemsIn the past, my de facto purchase in the beginning of the game was a Ring of Regeneration. After the introduction of Tangos, I've found people who paired them with Branches to boost their early game. While there are still some who prefer purchasing Boots of Speed as their initial item.<br /><br />Early game items don't make or break the game, but it helps shape the direction you'll go. The main point is to hold your lane well, be able to regenerate without having to return to the fountain to soak up as much experience as possible.<br /><br />This article was written pre-v6.50, but the adjustments have been made alongside the changes of the new patch. If you find any subtle inconsistencies, please pardon the writer and leave a note for a correction.<br /><br />Also, this isn't aimed at competitive play, rather to help newcomers decided where to spend their starting money when they play their public games.<br /><p> </p> <div class="scoreboard-header"> <h1>Health Regeneration Items</h1> </div> <p>If you ever have to choose which items to be right at the get go, take these. Health regeneration is very important early game, extending your survivability, allowing you to keep in your lane as long as possible without having to return to the base to heal.</p> <p> So why is NOT returning to the base important? In the early parts of the game, the main focus is to stay in the battlefield as long as possible. Leaving your lane to return to the fountain removes a significant amount of time away from the combat zone, denying you the opportunity to earn gold (by killing creeps) and gain experience.<br /></p> <h2 align="left"><strong><span style="color:#003399;">Ancient Tango of Essification</span></strong></h2> <p align="left"><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/tango.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">Created by cannibals that went vegan. Allows the bearer to consume two trees, restoring 175 hit points over 25 seconds.<br />2 charges. </span></p> <p align="left"><br /></p> <p align="left">This item can earn the distinction of being the most purchased item in the game after it was added into the game. The item is cheap, contains two charges, and allows the user to regenerate a good amount of hitpoints. The best thing about the item is that it’s undispellable, so even if you get hit by enemy fire, you continue regaining hitpoints.</p> <p><strong>Why Buy?</strong><br />Why not? This item is cheap (90 gold), contains two charges and lets you regain hitpoints. You can buy 3 Tangos and hold a lane and farm well, saving up for your eventual items. Almost ALL heroes can benefit from this item, even those who have healing spells – you’ll run out of mana eventually. </p> <h2><strong><span style="color:#003399;"><br />Ring of Regeneration</span></strong></h2> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/ror.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">This ring is considered a good luck charm among the Gnomes, as it provides additional 2 hp per second regeneration.</span></p> <p><br /><br /><br />Ring of Regeneration is one of my favorite starting items, although it’s popularity has waned with the addition of Ancient Tangos of Essification into the game. This item aids heroes by adding a 2hp per second regeneration rate. </p> <p><strong>Why Buy?</strong><br />With the introduction of Tangos, Ring of Regeneration became less popular. But DotA introduced higher-tier items that use the RoR to make it a more reasonable purchase. Buy a RoR if you are against mass spellcasters to create a Hood of Defiance, or planning to make Mekansm (with Headdress of Rejuvenation). </p> <p><strong>This item can be made into: </strong></p> <p><strong>Headdress of Rejuvenation</strong> </p> <p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/headdress.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /> </span></strong></p> <span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">This item gives a +2hp regeneration aura per second for nearby allied units on top of a +2 to all attributes of the bearer.</span> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong><br /><br />Hood of Defiance</strong> </p> <p><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/hood.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></span></strong><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">This item gives a +8hp regeneration per second to the bearer, along with a 30% magic resistance. Good item to go against a team comprising of mainly spellcasters (Lina, Lion, Lich, etc.) due to its ability to block the damage of spells. </span></p> <h3> </h3> <h2> </h2> <h2> </h2> <h2> </h2> <h2><strong><span style="color:#003399;">Ring of Health</span></strong></h2> <img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/roh.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">A shiny ring found beneath a fat halfling's corpse. Provides 5 hit points per second regeneration.</span></p> <p><br /></p> <p>This item regenerates hitpoints double compared to the Ring of Regeneration but costs a bit more (two RoRs = 750) than wielding two of the latter. If you are playing Random heroes, you should be able to get this item quickly.</p> <p>If you plan to take this item, you'll have to be careful about not dying early game to get enough money to buy this item as soon as possible. It’s also not a bad idea to purchase a Tango as a security blanket, instead of holding out completely for a RoH.<br /><strong> </strong><br /><strong>Why Buy?</strong><br />This isn’t an item you can buy immediately, especially if you decide to pick a hero. You can buy a pair or two of Tangos (recommended), and then quickly pooling your money for this item. This item is a component of a lot of popular items, making it a worthy early investment.</p> <p><strong>This item can be made into: </strong></p> <strong>Hood of Defiance</strong> <p><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/hood.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></span></strong><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">This item gives a +8hp regeneration per second to the bearer, along with a 30% magic resistance. Good item to go against a team comprising of mainly spellcasters (Lina, Lion, Lich, etc.) due to its ability to block the damage of spells. </span></p> <p><strong><br /><br />Vanguard</strong></p> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/vanguard.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></strong> This item gives the bearer +5hp regeneration per second, along with a 65% chance to block 35 damage. A good item for tanking heroes to carry to extend their time in battle by deflecting damage. </span><br /></p> <p><strong><br /><br />Perseverance</strong></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/perserverance.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">This is the ultimate regeneration item, giving 100% mana and +5 hp regeneration for the bearer by combining Ring of Health and a Void Stone. A very versatile item that can be made to future, higher tier items. </span></p> <h3> </h3> <h2><strong><span style="color:#003399;"><br /></span></strong></h2> <h2><strong><span style="color:#003399;">Flask of Sapphire Water</span></strong></h2> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/flask.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><br />A canteen full of the purest, bluest water. Heals 400 HP over 10 Seconds on a friendly unit. 1 Charge. Dispels on attack.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><br />The Flask is a good item to regenerate a lot of HP in a short amount of time. However, they lost their popularity after the introduction of Tangos, as Tangos are undispellable. </p> <p>Personally, I sometimes buy this item when I have some extra money and anticipate a lot of heavy nukers. His way, I’d be less afraid of being finished off by an unexpected nuke coming my way behind the tower.<br /><br /><strong>Why buy?</strong><br />This isn’t really the most cost-effective item --- consider it more of a security blanket. This item heals a significant amount of HP in a short amount of time, useful during instances when you fear an ultimate from Zeus, or a gank that can take you down in one hit. If you can keep yourself with decent hitpoints while laning, you can just get purely Tangos instead.</p><div class="scoreboard-header"> <h1>Mana Regeneration Items </h1> </div> Mana regeneration's role in lane control is more offensive than defensive. These items allow you to regain used mana from your hero. Spellcasting heroes such as Zeus or Lina requires a lot of mana to be effective, so they usually start with some items that allow them to regenerate mana to hold their lane and push enemy heroes back. <h2> </h2> <h2><strong><span style="color:#003399;">Sobi Mask</span></strong></h2> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/sobi.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></strong></span> <span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><br />A common mask used by Mages and Warlocks for various rituals. Increases the mana regeneration of bearers by 50%.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><br />Sobi Mask is a good item to buy at the get-go if you’re a spellcaster, especially if you plan to use this item in future recipes. You can also make a Ring of Basilius at the get go for the regeneration aura.</p> <p><strong>Why Buy?</strong><br />This allows you to spam more spells if you want to keep the pressure on your opponents. Buy this is you are planning to make any items that need a Sobi Mask, but if not, stick to consumables instead or other +intel items.</p> <p><strong>This item can be made into: </strong></p> <p><strong>Ring of Basilius </strong> </p> <p><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/rob.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></span></strong><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">Ring of Basilius 0.65 Brilliance Aura and +3 armor Devotion Aura. A good beginning item for a spellcaster and can be disassembled to use the Sobi Mask and Ring of Protection into other recipes. This item is a component of <strong>Vladimir's Offering</strong>. </span></p> <p><strong><br /><br />Oblivion Staff </strong> </p> <p><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/oblivionstaff.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></span></strong><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">This item gives the bearer 10% attack speed, 75% mana regeneration, +6 intelligence and +15 damage. Oblivion staff is a component of <strong>Refresher Orb</strong> and <strong>Orchid Malevolence</strong>. </span></p> <h3> </h3> <h2> </h2> <h2><strong><span style="color:#003399;"><br />Clarity Potion</span></strong></h2> <p><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/clarity.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><br />A live wisp is captured in each bottle. Regenerates 100 Mana over 30 Seconds when used. Dispels on attacks.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><br />As is said in the official description, this item regenerates a hero’s mana. That’s an estimated 3.3 mana points in 1 second. The new patch makes this undispellable, similar to Tangos. You will continue to regenerate Mana despite being hit by the enemy. </p> <p><strong>Why Buy?</strong><br />Buy a couple of these if you don’t have a need for a Sobi Mask or Ring of Basilius at the beginning but require a bit of help in the mana department. It makes little sense to buy this after your first trip back to the fountain to shop.<br /></p> <h2> </h2> <h2><strong><span style="color:#003399;">Void Stone</span></strong></h2> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/void.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">A stone of seemingly endless inner power. Grants +100% mana regeneration.</span><br /></p> <p> </p> <p>Void Stone stands as the most expensive initial item. This item is hard to advocate since it doesn’t help you in being able to heal yourself unless you have a regeneration skill such as the Warlock. </p> <p> It’s probably feasible to get a couple of Tangos and then save up for a Void Stone if you want to spam spells. Make sure you take the top lane for Sentinel or the Bottom lane for Scourge.</p> <p><strong>Why Buy?</strong><br />Void Stone gives you good early mana regeneration if you need to spam spells. On top of that, it’s a component of one of the most used items – Perseverance. </p> <p><strong>This item can be made into: </strong></p> <p><strong>Eul's Scepter of Divinity </strong> </p> <p><strong><span style="font-size:100%;"><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/euls.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></span></strong><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><br />This item gives the bearer the ability to cast Cyclone. In the new version, it has unlimited charges compared to the old version that only had 6. It also gives +20 movement speed, making the wearer move faster. </span><br /></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong><br />Perseverance</strong></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/perserverance.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">This is the ultimate regeneration item, giving 100% mana and +5hp regeneration for the bearer by combining Ring of Health and a Void Stone. A very versatile item that can be made to future, higher tier items such as <strong>Battlefury</strong> and <strong>Linken's Sphere</strong>. </span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse </strong></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/guinsoo.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">The new version reworked Guinsoo's -- the new recipe requires Ultimate Orb, Void Stone and Mystic Staff. This item turns enemy heroes to sheep for a</span></p><div class="scoreboard-header"> <h1>Health and Mana Regeneration Items </h1> </div> <h2><strong><span style="color:#003399;">Empty Bottle</span></strong></h2> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/bottle.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">An empty bottle that has survived through the ages. It can store healing water for up to 3 uses, each healing 200 hitpoints and 100 mana over 3 seconds. Alternatively it can be used to capture magical runes for 2 minutes.</span></p> <p><br /><br />Not really empty as you buy it, since it contains 3 charges when purchased.</p> <p>When your Bottle is empty, capturing a rune and using it refills your bottle with 2 charges. This is useful when trying to gank heroes, giving you various potential powerups such as Haste or Double Damage when taking down the enemy.<br /><br /><strong>Why Buy?</strong><br />A Bottle is close to indispensable to most heroes such as Bounty Hunter, Lina and Priestess of the Moon. This complements their ability to gank enemy lines. While it’s an expensive investment right at the beginning, it can compensate its cost by mid-game with the healing and rune captures.</p> <p><strong> </strong><br /><br /><br /></p> <div class="scoreboard-header"> <h1>Other Starting Items </h1> </div> <h2><br /><strong><span style="color:#003399;">Gauntlet of Strength, Slippers of Agility, Mantle of Intelligence</span></strong></h2> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/str3.gif" alt="" height="64" width="64" /><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/agi3.gif" alt="" height="64" width="64" /><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/int3.gif" alt="" height="64" width="64" /></strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">+3 to Strength, Agility or Intelligence </span><br /></p> <p>These are the main components of the most popular early game attribute-boosting items: <strong>Bracer</strong>,<strong> Wraith Band </strong>and <strong>Null Talisman</strong>. Additionally, Gauntlet of Strength is also a component of <strong>Cranium Basher</strong>. </p> <p><strong>Why Buy?</strong><br />If you plan to make a Bracer, Wraith Band of Null Talisman, then you can start with these items. However, if you feel you can survive without having to buy yourself these items and go straight for mid to high-tier items, feel free to do so. These combinations do not combine to any bigger item, and will be generally useless late game. </p> <p><br /></p> <h2> <strong><span style="color:#003399;">Circlet of Nobility</span></strong> </h2> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/circlet.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></strong></span> <span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><br />An elegant circlet designed for human princesses. Increases all stats by 2.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><br /><br />Why Buy?</strong><br />There's only ONE (or three) reasons to buy a Circlet... if you plan to make <strong>Bracer</strong>, <strong>Wraith Band </strong>or <strong>Null Talisman</strong>. You can start with a couple of these to boost your early game stats, while saving enough money to complete the item recipe.<br /><br /></p> <h2> <strong><span style="color:#003399;">Branch of Ironwood </span></strong> </h2> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/branch.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></strong></span> <span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><br />Wearing one of these ensures a Good Game. Increases all stats by 1. </span></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><br /><br />Why Buy?</strong><br />This item is a great early game stat booster. Buying it costs 57g, but selling it back makes its initial cost only 27g. If you don't plan to buy anything else early on and just want a bit of attribute boosting, its good to buy some branches along with some Tangos.<br /></p> <h2><strong><span style="color:#003399;"><br /><br />Boots of Speed </span></strong></h2> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/boots.gif" alt="" align="left" height="64" width="64" /></strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><br />Generic sneakers, increases movement speed by 50.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><br /><br />Boots of Speed is a MUST buy item, although not necessarily right at the beginning. There's little sense to buying a Boots of Speed at the get go since it doesn't help you stay in lane for as long as possible. </p> <p>However, if you're planning to gank heroes early on without returning to the base and/or plan to purchase a Bottle at the secret shop, then an early Boots of Speed might be a possible decent first purchase. Or, you just got nothing else to buy... then Boots of Speed is a fail-safe purchase. </p> <p><strong>Why Buy?</strong><br />You snooze, you lose. You don't want to be the hero who's always last to come in and last to come out. More movement speed is always a plus!<br /><br /></p> <h2><strong><span style="color:#003399;">Belt of Giant Strength, Boots of Agility, Robe of the Magi</span></strong></h2> <p>These items give +6 to a particular attribute, but is purchased more to create higher tier items. </p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/str6.gif" alt="" height="64" width="64" /></span></strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;">This item is made into <strong>Sange</strong> and <strong>Necronomicon</strong>. </span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/agi6.gif" alt="" height="64" width="64" /></strong>This item is a component of <strong>Yasha</strong> and <strong>Maelstrom</strong>. </span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#333333;"><strong><img style="margin-right: 15px; margin-left: 50px;" src="http://www.gotfrag.com/files/upload/int6.gif" alt="" height="64" width="64" /></strong> This item is made into <strong>Eul's Scepter of Divinity, Oblivion Staff </strong>&<strong> Diffusal Blade</strong>. </span></p> <p><br />Additionally, any of these three items is a component of <strong>Power Treads</strong>. </p> <p><br /><strong>Why buy?</strong><br />After the Power Treads remake, purchasing any of these three makes it more appealing if you plan to get Treads early in the game. </p> <p>Also, if you are planning to make Sange for example, you can purchase the Belt of Giant Strength along with a couple of Tangos to keep your lane. The extra HP boost and HP regeneration (especially if you're a Strength hero) helps you be more resilient in battle. </p> <p>If you're planning to make Maelstrom of Yasha first, it wouldn't hurt to take the Boots of Agility either, as it gives you more damage early game. </p>Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-64715966940469874472009-10-14T18:28:00.000-07:002009-10-14T18:32:20.025-07:00Membuat Buku Tamu...<div id="WPC-areaContainer?cellId=Membuat+Buku+Tamu"><div id="WPC-area?cellId=Membuat+Buku+Tamu&version=2&savePath=%2Fpage%2FMembuat%2BBuku%2BTamu&saveType=page" class="WPC-editableContent"><span style="font-weight: bold;">MémbûaT Bûkû Tamû</span><br /><br />Memasang sebuah buku tamu (shoutbox/guestbook) pada sebuah blog adalah hal yang cukup lumayan penting,karena buku tamu ini merupakan salah satu sarana untuk berinteraksi antara yang mpunya blog dengan para pengunjung blog. Dengan di pajangnya buku tamu di dalam blog, maka para pengunjung dapat mengungkapkan isi hatinya tentang blog yang anda buat, yang pasti isi dari sebuah buku tamu ini sangatlah bervariasi bisa merupakan pujian, pertanyaan, sekedar iseng, atau ada juga merupakan kritikan terhadap isi blog anda, dan justru dengan adanya variasi itulah membuat blog kita jadi hidup lebih hidu (kaya iklan aja).<br /> <br />Ok, terlalu lama intermezonya ya, sekarang kita kembali (ke lap...top) ke topikbahasan. Bagaimana caranya mendapatkan sebuah buku tamu. Untuk mendapatkannya sangat mudah, anda tinggal mencarinya pada mesin pencari semisal google ataupun yahoo, silahkan ketikan kata free shoutbox atau free guestbook pada search engine masing-masing situs, maka dalam beberapa detik saja akan muncul berpuluh-puluh situs penyedia buku tamu tadi, anda tinggal klik lalu coba lihat-lihat. Tapi untuk menghemat waktu pencarian anda, maka di sini saya akan langsung memberikan alamat situs penyedia buku tamu yang servernya lumayan bagus dan jarang sekali mengalami down yakni http://www.shoutmix.com. Untuk caranya silahkan anda ikuti langkah-langkah berikut ini :<br /> <br /><ol><li>Seperti biasa anda harus daftar terlebih dahulu dengan cara mengklik tulisan Get One noe, free>>, ataupun dengan mengklik tulisan Sign Up, silahkan anda tulis data-data anda pada form yang telah di sediakan. </li><li>Jika sudah tedaftar, dan di terima jadi anggota shoutmix, silahkan anda login dengan id anda </li><li>Pada kolom yang berjudul Style, klik menu appearance. </li><li>Silahkan klik menu pulldown di samping tulisan Load From Preset untuk mengatur tampilan buku tamu anda, silahkan pilih yang sesuai dengan keinginan anda. Jika sudah selesai klik Save Setting.</li><li>Untuk mendapatkan kode HTML dari shoutbox anda, silahkan klik Use Shoutbox yang berada di bawah menu Quick Start</li><li>Klik tulisan Place Shoutbox on web page. Isi lebar dan tinggi shoutbox yang di inginkan </li><li>Copy seluruh kode HTML yang ada pada text area yang berada di bawah tulisan Generated Codes, lalu simpan di program Notepad anda</li><li>Klik Log out yang berada di atas layar anda untuk keluar dari halaman shoutmix anda. Silahkan close situs tersebut.</li><li>Selesai </li></ol> Untuk menempatkan kode HTML shoutbox tadi pada blog anda, silahkan ikuti langkah-langkah berikut ini. Untuk blogger dengan template klasik : <ol><li>Log in terlebih dahulu ke blogger.com dengan id anda </li><li>Klik menu Template</li><li>Klik Edit HTML</li><li>Paste kode HTML shoutbox anda yang telah di copy pada notepad tadi di tempat yang anda inginkan</li><li>Untuk jelasnya saya ambil contoh dengan shoubox milik saya, untuk menempatkannya tinggal klik Edit pada browser lalu pilih Find (on this page).. trus tuliskan kata buku tamu lalu klik find, maka kita akan langsung di bawa ke tulisan tersebut. Jika sudah ketemu tulisan tadi silahkan paste kode HTML shoutbox nya. </li><li>Klik tombol Preview untuk melihat perubahan yang kita buat.</li><li>Jika sudah cocok dengan perubahan tadi, klik Save Template Changes</li><li>Selesai</li></ol> Sedikit Clue, agar shoutbox anda sesuai dengan ukuran lebar sidebar , anda bisa merubah ukuran lebar ataupun tinggi dari shoutbox , caranya anda tinggal merubah angka Width (untuk lebar) dan Height (untuk tinggi) dari dalam kode HTML shoutbox tersebut. Untuk Blogger baru : <ol><li>Silahkan Login dengan id anda </li><li>Klik menu Layout</li><li>Klik Page Element</li><li>Klik Add a Page Element</li><li>Klik tombol Add to Blog yang berada di bawah tulisan HTML/JavaScript </li><li>Tuliskan judul shoutbox anda pada form title. Contoh : Buku tamu ku, atau my guestbook atau apa saja yang anda suka</li><li>Copy paste kode HTML shoutbox anda di dalam form Content </li><li>Klik tombol Save Changes</li><li>Drag & Drop element yang telah anda buat tadi di tempat yang di sukai</li><li>Tekan tombol Save</li><li>Selesai</li></ol> Selamat mencoba ! Sebagai tambahan, guestbook yang sering dipakai para blogger lainnya : <ol><li><a class="external" href="http://oggix.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="untuk menuju oggix.com. silahkan klik di sini">http://oggix.com</a></li></ol> Untuk langkah-langkahnya hampir sama dengan langkah diatas.</div></div> <!-- google_ad_section_end --> <br /> <br /> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr> <td rowspan="2" style="padding-right: 4px; text-align: center;"> <span style="display: none;" id="WPC-lastRevisionAnonymousAvatarURL">http://static.wetpaint.com/img/bg/1.png?v=20091012113957</span> <a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/account/lukm4n" id="WPC-action_accountMenu?account=lukm4n&from=pageLastUpdateAvatar" class="WPC-action" onclick="return false"> <img id="WPC-lastRevisionUserAvatar?cellId=Membuat+Buku+Tamu" src="http://image.wetpaint.com/image/4/A-qGifEU15DvUEz43N4FQA105034/GW050" class="imageSm" alt="lukm4n" /> </a> <br /><a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/account/lukm4n" id="WPC-action_accountMenu?account=lukm4n&from=pageLastUpdateLink" class="WPC-action" onclick="return false">lukm4n</a> </td> <td> <span id="pageUpdateLabel">Latest page update:</span> made by <span id="WPC-lastRevisionUser?cellId=Membuat+Buku+Tamu"><a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/account/lukm4n" id="WPC-action_accountMenu?account=lukm4n&subject=Membuat+Buku+Tamu&from=lastPageUpdate&pageName=Membuat+Buku+Tamu" class="WPC-action" onclick="return false">lukm4n</a> </span>, <span id="WPC-lastRevisionDate?cellId=Membuat+Buku+Tamu">Today, 7:04 PM EDT</span> (<span class="WPC-tooltip-trigger WPC-normal"><a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/page/Membuat+Buku+Tamu#update">about this update</a> <span class="WPC-tooltip-title">About This Update</span> <span class="WPC-tooltip-content"> <span id="latestEditNote"> <a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/account/lukm4n"><img src="http://image.wetpaint.com/image/4/A-qGifEU15DvUEz43N4FQA105034/GW050" class="imageSm" alt="lukm4n" /></a> <span id="latestEditNoteAccount"> Edited by <a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/account/lukm4n">lukm4n</a></span> <span id="latestEditNoteScope"> <br /> <br /> <span class="nowrap">619 words added</span> <br /> </span> <br /> <a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/page/Membuat+Buku+Tamu/diff/1,2" style="white-space: nowrap;">view changes</a> </span> <br /> </span> </span> - <a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/page/Membuat+Buku+Tamu/history" style="white-space: nowrap;">complete history</a>) </td></tr> <tr> <td> <div class="WPC-tagModule"> <span class="WPC-tagLabel">Keyword tags: </span> <span class="WPC-tagList"> None</span> </div><div id="moreInfo"><span id="moreInfoLabel">More Info: </span><a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/page/Membuat+Buku+Tamu/links">links to this page</a></div></td></tr></tbody></table>Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-45539062047387355782009-08-26T18:24:00.000-07:002009-08-26T18:36:27.731-07:00¤De§åin Jåring�ån¤<div id="WPC-areaContainer?cellId=Desain+Jaringan"><div id="WPC-area?cellId=Desain+Jaringan&version=2&savePath=%2Fpage%2FDesain%2BJaringan&saveType=page" class="WPC-editableContent">¤Jaringan Peer To Peer¤<br />Setelah mengetahui perangkat pendukung untuk membangun sebuah jaringan komputer, maka langkah selanjutnya adalah mendesain jaringan sesuai yang kita perlukan. Berikut adalah langkah-langkah membangun jaringan komputer peer to peer :<br />1. Langkah 1<br />Langkah awal dalam membangun jaringan komputer adalah menyiapkan media transmisi dengan kabel UTP<br />a. Peralatan<br />1. Sediakan dua (2) buah PC (minimal)<br />2. Kabel UTP dengan panjang maksimal 100 meter per titik komputer<br />3. Konektor RJ 45<br />4. Tang (crimping tools) digunakan untuk penyambungan kabel<br />5. Kabel tester<br />6. cutter untuk mengupas pelindung kabel<br />b. Langkah kerja<br />1. Kupas masing-masing pelindung ujung kabel agar kabel-kabel kecil yang ada di dalam pelindung terbuka<br />2. Masukkan ujung-ujung kabel ke konektor RJ-45<br />Jika anda ingin menggunakan jaringan tipe “Straight” maka urutan warna kabel antara ujung 1 dan ujung 2 adalah sebagai berikut :<br /><a class="external" href="http://basiloe.co.cc/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/straight2.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img alt="Desain Jaringan - TIK SMA N 50" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-297" src="http://image.wetpaint.com/image/1/cSn_zsviRJlKVc7YZ_YwKw5685/GW101H295" title="Desain Jaringan - TIK SMA N 50" align="bottom" height="295" width="101" /></a> Sedangkan jika anda ingin membuat jaringan dengan tipe Jaringan Cross, maka urutan kabel di ujung A<br /> <a class="external" href="http://basiloe.co.cc/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/straight2.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img alt="straight2" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-297" src="http://image.wetpaint.com/image/1/cSn_zsviRJlKVc7YZ_YwKw5685/GW101H295" title="straight2" height="295" width="101" /></a>Sedangkan urutan kabel ujung B :<br /><br /><a class="external" href="http://basiloe.co.cc/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/cross.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img alt="cross" class="size-medium wp-image-294 aligncenter" src="http://image.wetpaint.com/image/1/4cLqQkG9OXBG0QiS7jLYLw5686/GW98H297" title="cross" height="297" width="98" /></a> 3. Gunakan krimping tools untuk mengunci ujung kabel RJ-45<br />2. Langkah 2<br />Jika kabel telah selesai dipasang sesuai urutan warna, dan proses krimping juga telah dilakakukan, silakan anda tes koneksi ke-dua ujung kabel tersebut dengan Kabel tester. Langkah selanjutnya, silakan anda pasangkan / sambungkan kabel tersebut ke 2 PC yang telah di sediakan. Untuk setting IP Address, caranya : klik kanan pada Shortcut “My Network Place” -> Properties -> klik Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) -> Properties. Masukkan IP ,sebagai contoh untuk PC 1 : 192.168.1.2 sedangkan untuk PC 2 : 192.168.1.3 Untuk subnetmask nya biarkan dalam keadaan default : 255.255.255.0. Jika proses pemberian IP telah selesai, baiknya anda melakukan restart komputer, agar koneksi kedua PC dapat resolve dengan baik. Untuk test apakah kedua PC sudah tersambung atau belum, anda bisa melakukan PING dari command promt. “C:/Ping 192.168.1.2″ -> dari PC 2 “C:/Ping 192.168.1.3″ -> dari PC 1 Indikator jika jaringan telah terhubung, adalah : Reply from….. Namun jika belum terhubung, indikatornya adalah : Request time out…(dan silakan anda melakukan pengecekan terhadap langkah2 sebelumnya)</div></div> <!-- google_ad_section_end --> <br /> <br /> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr> <td rowspan="2" style="padding-right: 4px; text-align: center;"> <span style="display: none;" id="WPC-lastRevisionAnonymousAvatarURL">http://static.wetpaint.com/img/bg/1.png?v=20090814125003</span> <a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/account/lukm4n" id="WPC-action_accountMenu?account=lukm4n&from=pageLastUpdateAvatar" class="WPC-action" onclick="return false"> <img id="WPC-lastRevisionUserAvatar?cellId=Desain+Jaringan" src="http://image.wetpaint.com/image/4/A-qGifEU15DvUEz43N4FQA105034/GW050" class="imageSm" alt="lukm4n" /> </a> <br /><a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/account/lukm4n" id="WPC-action_accountMenu?account=lukm4n&from=pageLastUpdateLink" class="WPC-action" onclick="return false">lukm4n</a> </td> <td> <span id="pageUpdateLabel">Latest page update:</span> made by <span id="WPC-lastRevisionUser?cellId=Desain+Jaringan"><a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/account/lukm4n" id="WPC-action_accountMenu?account=lukm4n&subject=Desain+Jaringan&from=lastPageUpdate&pageName=Desain+Jaringan" class="WPC-action" onclick="return false">lukm4n</a> </span>, <span id="WPC-lastRevisionDate?cellId=Desain+Jaringan">Monday, 4:50 AM EDT</span> (<span class="WPC-tooltip-trigger WPC-normal"><a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/page/Desain+Jaringan#update">about this update</a> <span class="WPC-tooltip-title">About This Update</span> <span class="WPC-tooltip-content"> <span id="latestEditNote"> <a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/account/lukm4n"><img src="http://image.wetpaint.com/image/4/A-qGifEU15DvUEz43N4FQA105034/GW050" class="imageSm" alt="lukm4n" /></a> <span id="latestEditNoteAccount"> Edited by <a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/account/lukm4n">lukm4n</a></span> <span id="latestEditNoteScope"> <br /> <br /> <span class="nowrap">326 words added</span> <br /> <span class="nowrap">3 images added</span> <br /> </span> <br /> <a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/page/Desain+Jaringan/diff/1,2" style="white-space: nowrap;">view changes</a> </span> <br /> </span> </span> - <a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/page/Desain+Jaringan/history" style="white-space: nowrap;">complete history</a>) </td></tr> <tr> <td> <div class="WPC-tagModule"> <span class="WPC-tagLabel">Keyword tags: </span> <span class="WPC-tagList"> None</span> </div><div id="moreInfo"><span id="moreInfoLabel">More Info: </span><a href="http://tik50.wetpaint.com/page/Desain+Jaringan/links">links to this page</a><br /><br /><br /></div></td></tr></tbody></table>Aji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5872947704944291888.post-5934657531950584382009-07-22T19:25:00.000-07:002009-07-22T19:26:09.014-07:00INTERNET<br />A. Pengertian Internet<br /><blockquote>Ø Interconnected Network - atau yang lebih populer dengan sebutan Internet - adalah sebuah sistem komunikasi global yang menghubungkan komputer-komputer dan jaringan-jaringan komputer di seluruh dunia. Setiap komputer dan jaringan terhubung - secara langsung maupun tidak langsung - ke beberapa jalur utama yang disebut internet backbone dan dibedakan satu dengan yang lainnya menggunakan unique name yang biasa disebut dengan alamat IP 32 bit. Contoh: 192 168 1 12 . Komputer dan jaringan dengan berbagai platform yang mempunyai perbedaan dan ciri khas masing-masing (Unix, Linux, Windows, Mac, dll) bertukar informasi dengan sebuah protokol standar yang dikenal dengan nama TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). TCP/IP tersusun atas 4 layer (network access, internet, host-to-host transport, dan application) yang masing-masing memiliki protokolnya sendiri-sendiri.<br /></blockquote><blockquote>Ø Bila anda mempunyai Komputer minimal prosessor 486, Windows 95, Modem, dan line telepon, maka anda telah bisa bergabung dengan ribuan juta komputer lain dari seluruh dunia dan mengakses harta karun informasi di internet.<br /></blockquote><blockquote>Ø Mungkin agak sulit dipercaya bahwa cikal bakal Internet sesungguhnya diawali dari Unisovyet, ketika pada tahun 1957 mereka meluncurkan sebuah satelit bernama Sputnik. Peluncuran Sputnik ini dirasakan sebagai “ancaman” oleh musuh besar mereka, yaitu Amerika Serikat.Presiden Dwight D. Eisenhower menyatakan perlunya membangun sebuah teknologi yang membuat AS tetap sebagai negara superior. Kemudian dibentuklah sebuah badan yang disebut Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). ARPA bernaung di bawah Departemen Pertahanan Amerika Serikat atau Department of Defense (DoD). Pada tahun 1969, DoD memberi tugas kepada ARPA untuk membangun sebuah mata rantai komunikasi antara DoD dengan militer yang tidak dapat disabot oleh musuh mereka. Jaringan komunikasi yang diciptakan ini disebut ARPAnet. Pada awalnya, ARPAnet hanya menghubungkan empat buah situs saja, yaitu :<br /></blockquote><blockquote><ul><li>· Stanford Research Institute (SRI)</li><li>· University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB)</li><li>· University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)</li><li>· University of Utah</li></ul></blockquote><blockquote>Pada tahun 1970, penelitian yang dilakukan di Stanford University menghasilkan sebuah protokol yang disebut TCP/IP. Protokol TCP/IP inilah yang berkembang terus hingga sekarang dan menjadi protokol standar dalam Internet.<br /></blockquote><blockquote> Ø Prinsip Koneksi<br /></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote>Bagaimana sebuah computer dapat terhubung dengan internet? Satu computer dapat terhubung dengan computer lainnya jika computer tersebut berada dalam satu jaringan dengan computer lainnya. Jaringan dimulai dari yang sangat sederhana sampai ke dalam bentuk yang kompleks. Jaringan sederhana adalah hubungan satu computer dengan computer lainnya. Sedangkan jaringan yang kompleks adalah saling terhubungnya jaringan-jaringan yang sederhana. Selanjutnya bagaimana computer kamu dapat menjadi bagian dari jaringan yang kompleks yang disebut internet? Komputer kamu harus terhubung dengan salah satu computer yang telah terhubung dengan internet. Salah satunya adalah dengan memanfaatkan layanan yang disediakan perusahaan penyedia akses internet yang disebut dengan Internet Service Provider (ISP).<br /></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote> Ø Layanan-Layanan/istilah Internet :<br /></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote>1. WWW World Wide Web merupakan suatu bentuk layanan Internet yang menggunakan konsep hypertext antar dokumen yang berkaitan, yang di dalamnya terdapat halaman web (web page). Untuk mengakses www digunakan protokol http (HyperText Transfer Protocol)<br />2. Protocol : Sejumlah aturan yang menentukan bagaimana dua komputer atau lebih saling berkomunikasi<br />3. Homepage : Tampilan awal (halaman utama) suatu website yang memuat informasi singkat tentang apa isi dari website tersebut<br />4. Situs : Suatu alamat di dalam sebuah web<br />5. Browser : Software yang digunakan untuk surfing atau browsing Internet, seperti Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape dll<br />6. ISP Internet Service Provider : penyedia jasa layanan Internet, seperti Indosatnet, Wasantara, Meganet dll<br />7. Download : Menyalin/mengambil file atau objek dari Internet ke komputer<br />8. E-mail Electronic Mail: suatu layanan/fasilitas yang disediakan untuk saling berkirim surat lewat internet<br />9. Search Engine Mesin pencari: suatu layanan/fasilitas untuk melakukan pencarian diInternet<br />10. Mailing List: Suatu forum/kelompok diskusi di Internet yang dapat saling bertukar informasi<br />11. Chatting : Fasilitas untuk berkomunikasi antarsesama pemakai internet yang sedang aktif (online)<br />12. E-commerce (electronic commerce) : suatu cara berbelanja / berdagang secara online yang memanfaatkan fasilitas website yang menyediakan layanan get and deliver<br />13. FTP (File Transfer Protokol) : Digunakan untuk pengambilan data atau arsip dan file secara elektronik. Di internet telah tersedia fasilitas (data)/dokumen yang siap untuk diakses secara gratis.<br /></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote> Ø Ekstensi Address<br /></blockquote>com : Commerce, komersial<br />co : Company, perusahaan<br />org : Organization, organisasi<br />gov;go : Government, pemerintah<br />ac : Academic, akademik<br />edu : Education, pendidikan<br />mil : Military, militer<br />id : Indonesia<br />us : United State, Amerika<br />au : Australia<br />it : ItaliaAji as DeuXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01085346659867143116noreply@blogger.com0