Welcome to this week’s MMO’s Tavern. Sorry about last week’s rant. Things like that don’t usually get to me something about it just stuck in my craw and I had to get it out. So have a drink and enjoy the news.
Since last we met, Star Wars: The Old Republic deployed patch 1.2, as well as a couple small bug fix patches. Patch 1.2 brought with it a whole range of new features, my favorite being the ability to customize the User Interface. I’d still like to see support for user created mods and a more robust combat log, but I’m spoiled by almost eight years of WoW so I’ll cut them some slack. One of the most interesting features of the patch was the updated and expanded Legacy System. I talked about that particular update a few weeks ago but I really like the idea of seeing new class and species combinations because it never made sense to me that there couldn’t be a Sith Pureblood Imperial Agent…not every Pureblood has to follow the Sith Code, am I right? Along with the patch, the main website for The Old Republic has seen a major redesign. I must admit that the site looks good but I will miss the old one. One last thing, in a bid to draw more people into the game, BioWare is having another free trial weekend for ToR. More information can be found here; the free trial runs until April 23.
Has it been five years already? Apparently it has as Lord of the Rings Online turned five earlier this week. To celebrate the occasion, Turbine released update 6.1 which includes an updated anniversary celebration to better usher in this important milestone. A recent Developer’s Diary gives an in depth account of the update festival. Let’s take a minute here to congratulate Turbine on this anniversary. Five years is an amazing accomplishment for an MMO and they’ve managed to make it this far and make the transition to free-to-play without having to shutdown the game. So let’s all raise our glasses to Turbine and wish them five more years.
Closing in on eight years, World of Warcraft released patch 4.3.4 to the live realms this week. The focus of the patch was to make the in-game customer service menus more user friendly and generally easier to use. Players are now able to more easily report harassment, name violations, and a myriad of other issues through easier to navigate menus as well as from the chat window itself.
The Mists of Pandaria beta released a new patch over the weekend with several bug fixes, as well as opening up the Valley of Four Winds, the next zone on the track to level 90, and allowed users to level up to level 87. This is important as it allows players access to the new spells in Mists of Pandaria. I haven’t had the opportunity to level up to 87 quite yet but when I do I’ll get a video together for the new Warrior class ability, the War Banner. To help test all these new abilities, Blizzard sent out another 400,000 beta invites to annual pass holders. That’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 600,000 potential beta testers so far which is nothing short of monumental for Blizzard. As I always say, check your battle.net account to see if you have beta access, as that is the sure fire way to know.
Before I go I just wanted to say that Diablo III is having an open beta weekend this weekend. I know it’s not an MMO but it is really good and you should check it out if you have the chance. Expect my preview of the game later today or this weekend.
I think that’s about enough for this week. I’ll be back with more news from MMO’s Tavern next week, so until then keep them vorpal blades swinging but not in here. I don’t like fights in my tavern.
