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30 Second Mists of Pandaria Preview: Talents

May 032012

Everyone has a talent, not all are useful

Now they may have only recently simplified the talent system in World of Warcraft recently, it seams that has not stopped them taking another look at it in Mists of Pandaria.

This version of the talent system seem to have taken some serious influence from the one that was found in the Diablo III beta. As you reach each tier of the tree you are given a selection of 3 spells to choose from.

Each of these spells will have a similar nature to them. So in the video you will see the monk talents and all the spells in the first tier are related to modifications of the ‘Roll’ ability they have. All of these skills are useful and have more to do with your personal playstyle that your specialisation choice.

This will mean less people arguing about the ‘Perfect Build’ (oh who am I kidding they will still be there) and more about which is the most fun to play.

30 Second Mists of Pandaria Preview: Pet Battles

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May 022012

Raptor vs Tree, who will win? Only one way to find out, FIGHT!!

Those faithful little companions, your mini Diablo, your little grey owl, even your little singing sunflowers if you finished the quest to get one, They have all been at your side since the very start of World of Warcraft. While they are fun to have along for the ride they don’t really do much more than look pretty.

Well that is until now, Mists of Pandaria will be adding a Pet Battle System. This system will see your vanity pets going into battle pokemon style.

I know its lazy writing to jump straight to a comparison but really there is no better way to describe this new system. Each type of mini-pet will now have its own levelling bar and as it grows in strength by competing in battles it will unlock new skills.

Each pet’s skills will differ based on its pet class, from flying to elemental, mechanical to beast, they will all have a base set as well as some pets having their own unique abilities.

Aside from making use of all the vanity pets in the game already, there are now 500 to be collected in total. These will come from various locations such as vendors or achievements, but many will have to be caught in the wild by finding them and battling them.

What makes that bit interesting is that they have confirmed that some of the pets will only be available at certain times of the day, or in certain weather types in the zone – so the truly OCD hunters amongst you will have your work cut out for you.

I already have my dream team in mind, Mini Moonkin, Mine Tyreal & One Eyed Willy!

30 Second Mists of Pandaria Preview: Pandaren

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May 012012

Peaceful and carrying beer, this is my kinda panda

As I mentioned on Friday there is too much information to get across about the new World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria, that I just physically could not cram it all into on video. I tried a few times but in the last one I was talking that fast that I had just become a barely audible squeak.

So this entire week will be dedicated to the various features of the game, from the new Monk class to the Pet-Battles.

But naturally if your going to start with a game named after newest race, it only makes sense to make the base the first video in the set on these lovable panda people.

While it may not seem that way, the Pandaren have actually been a part of Warcraft lore for a very long time. Sure they may have started as a joke but they soon evolved way beyond that, the lore about this race is greater that that of some of the games previous playable races (Check out a lot of it http://www.wowwiki.com/Pandaren).

However for reasons that will remain unknown, Blizzard held back this race until now. All I have to say is that it is about damn time!

What is good is that they have changed the faction mechanic, Pandaren are able to become members of either faction. This choice is made at the end of your starting zone quest-chain and is none reversible (at this point anyway) but its still good to have the option of have this race whichever side of the faction fence you have been on all these years.

Diablo III with an X-Box Controller Revisit Using XPadder

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Apr 302012

That was one hell of a curry last night

With the Diablo III beta finally coming to its natural end on May 1st, I like the rest of you will be plunged into the nightmare of having to wait till the 15th to get my fix of carnage.

However before it shut down I did say that I would go and take a second look at playing the game with an Xbox controller.

While the first video showed that it did indeed work, I used a program that was so obscure that nobody had ever heard of it not even me and I was the one using it.

Thankfully though in the comments youtube user THUND3R1871 suggested that I take a look at XPadder (http://xpadder.com/) and as it only costs £6 I thought I would give it a shot.

Boy am I glad I did, this little one man project is exactly what the doctor ordered. So much simpler to configure than the previous little tool I found, I was up and running around sanctuary in a matter of minutes. One other improvement is that it fully registers all of the controllers buttons meaning I could have everything i needed mapped.

As for the gameplay, once you get used to using the controller it is incredibly fluid. So much so that you are left wondering why there is no native controller support – but I’m sure Blizzard will add that when they finish the console edition of the game.

Below is a video of me using the controller with the game and having a quick play to show it working, I even cap the video off with a overview of the things that have changed in the game since I last recorded a video of it. Hope this helps some people out.

Oh and if you are interested in using a controller for Diablo III and have XPadder, here (http://8bitalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/xpadder.zip) is my controller mapping for you to use as a basis for your own.

Darkness Falls, Heroes Rise: Diablo III

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Apr 292012

Poor Deckard Cain, the guy can catch get a break

Its actually coming! My word its not as if they have not kept us waiting for long enough.

Now, okay so we have known that the Diablo III has had a release day of May15th – but this is Blizzard we are talking about so I never fully trust their release dates.

However the other day the press release arrived in my mail box confirming the special launch events for this release. While I wouldn’t put it past them to push it back, I think you can pretty much assure that it is actually going to release

As part of the build-up, they have had a reveal site running here that has been revealing each of the classes, videos for which are available after the break.

But in order to tease you here is the recently released TV Trailer

30 Second Game Review: Well Kinda!

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Apr 272012

Who would have thought this was the face of a crazy person

If you have looked at this video you will no doubt have notices that it is not actually 30 seconds long.

The plan was to do a Mists of Pandaria preview today, but after an hour of trying to fit everything I wanted/needed to say into 30 seconds, I realised it just was not possible. Not wanting to leave you without a video I instead have fallen back on the old faithful clip show.

So enjoy the full collection of my craziness, the last out-takes show was a bit limiting by keeping it to 30 seconds as well.

Next week will be Mists of Pandaria week – all 4 videos will be on different elements of the beta and my take on them so you have that to look forward too.

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