Category: Site News

Spawn Room Changes

Over the next month and a half, I will be slowly working on some major changes to Spawn Room. The first, you may have noticed, is a theme change. The current theme is NOT the one that’s going to be used forever. I am currently working on creating a completely custom theme I feel will suit the site well.

The functionality of the website will also be changing. Instead of a bloggish look, it will be more modular and submission focused. I want the main page to be more informative than it currently is. You’ll hopefully see these changes coming sometime in January assuming I have enough time.

Finally, the forums are now LIVE! We’re using bbPress because it has great WordPress integration, BUT I don’t know if this is also the final solution for forums. In any case, they’re up and running so Akheel (WoW guild) has somewhere to post information.

That’s it for now. Thanks for visiting!

(Azgalor) Akheel Recruiting, Softcore 10-mans

Akheel (Alliance) is currently looking for some people interested in doing some intimate late night raids scheduled Tuesday and Thursday, 8pm-12am CST. We’ll also undoubtedly continue our raids more casually later in the week and on the weekend if availability permits.

The guild currently consists of 5 close friends interested in raiding on a schedule and a few more interested in being casually available if people don’t show. We’re looking for at least 5 more interested raiders that want to raid with some close friends in a fun atmosphere. We’re not looking to kill each other with strict rules, but we do want people to adhere to the schedule and focused on progression.

We also enjoy PvP and have plans to do rated Battlegrounds, and form Arena teams.

If you’re interested in learning more or joining our guild, post a response here or PM me in game. You can also contact Vens or Tikos if I’m not available. On a final note, our guild consists of 20+ year old members, and we’re looking to keep it that way. However, if you consider yourself a mature, younger gamer, feel free to contact us.

Classes we currently have: druid (resto), paladin (tank), shaman (dps), druid (dps), and mage (dps).

This post has gone up in a couple places. Akheel, our alliance guild on Azgalor, is looking for some new members. If you’re at all interested feel free to contact us! Oh, and I’m planning on adding forums here soon!

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm TONIGHT

Tonight we finally get our hands on Cataclysm and anticipation has never been higher. We got some food, some drank (caffeinated), and some lovin’ for WoW, and we’re ready to get our hands dirty in this next great expansion. The majority of Spawn Room WoW-ers play on US-Azgalor, so if you want to join us, hop on Mumble and get to playin’. We’ll be on late tonight! Hope to see you on.

WAR Patch 1.4: New Skaven Classes, Revamped RvR

For those of us familiar with Warhammer Online, the game’s latest patch was a long time coming. Game Update 1.4 introduced the much-talked-about Skaven playable classes and several new mechanics in the game’s Realm versus Realm (RvR) campaign. The patch was released Thursday but this weekend’s unusually high influx of players provided me with a glimpse at how the changes would work on a large scale. In short, I am impressed with the new content. The thoughtful changes solved many long-standing problems in WAR. Still, some issues that player’s hoped would be addressed did not make it into this patch.

Probably the most advertised aspect of this patch was the introduction of Skaven, a race of humanoid rats that ordinarily live in underground tunnels, the so-called “Under-Empire” in the Warhammer IP. Unlike the existing 24 careers which fall under the traditional roles of healing, ranged/melee DPS, and tanking, the Skaven classes form specialty support roles in the RvR campaign (see details). Players do not create a Skaven character but transform into one via a special quest. Only a limited number of Skaven transformations are available in each RvR zone, determined by the outcome of a new dungeon for high-ranked players, Thanquol’s Incursion.

The Rat Ogre is an offensive class that must be supported by the Skaven Packmaster.

Playing as a Skaven has been a genuinely fun experience. Your abilities as a Skaven, when used properly, can change the tides of battle. I found myself playing as a Rat Ogre, a Skaven focused on offensive capabilities, which include: a stacking mechanic known as “Warped Rage” which scales the damage of other attacks, knockback, nine-second stagger, and the ability to “hurl” warband or group members over the walls of enemy keeps. It also has an important role during sieges of keeps because only the Rat Ogre and rams can damage keep doors. The downside to all this is that the Rat Ogre cannot function alone–it does not regenerate health and must be healed by the Skaven Packmaster. I was able to work effectively with my Packmaster friend, but observed many players who did not understand this and found themselves dying rather quickly. This design furthers the notion that WAR is fundamentally not a solo game and all careers–including Skaven–must work cooperatively.

The significant changes to the RvR campaign have been well received. RvR is at the heart of the endgame experience in WAR. Two opposing realms, Order and Destruction, seek to control vast areas of the game by capturing Battle Objectives and Battle Keeps. The goal is to lock down as many zones as possible in order to invade the enemy realm’s capital city. Prior to 1.4, this processes of conquering objectives and keeps was dominated by a massive group of players, the “zerg”, who overwhelmed smaller forces in every encounter. The game was predictable…a zerg moving from zone to zone, largely uncontested. But now things have changed to discourage such tactics. The status of a zone is now determined by capturing the enemy keep. The defenses of the keep and offensive weapons available are increased as the realm gathers resources by taking battle objectives and ensuring the survival of NPCs who transport resources. No longer can the zerg dominate the battlefield because the tasks are multi-faceted and change quickly. Instead, smaller groups who communicate with each other and move quickly will be most effective in the new system. Coordination is the key, not the sheer number of players in group. Now the game is much less predictable, more dynamic, and lively as ever.

1.4 brought a number of other changes to WAR and the patch notes are available here.

In all reality, this has been one of the most successful and substantive patches for WAR, a game which launched over two years ago. The changes were bold and I give enormous credit to Mythic for having the tenacity to re-engineer many of the game’s core aspects. This patch injects new life into a game that many criticized for being complacent.

World of Warcraft patch 4.0.1 Is out!

Hey guys it’s Jalmari here to talk about the new World of Warcraft patch 4.0.1 that was released Tuesday. Links to the patch notes can be found here :
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/patch4p01.html

So where to begin?! I’ll start off at the beginning i guess…
After playing the patch for 4 days I still have mixed thoughts. The general, yet major changes to the game are as follows: (I’ll briefly talk about each)

The new UI: Is almost completely redone. Upon logging in I was completely lost and confused as to where things were and everything looked completely different. After 4 days of play however, I think I’ve got the hang of it. There is a new guild interface which I don’t care for. It is now a separate tab brought up by the letter “J”, instead of being part of the old social button. Although it is weird to look at, it has its perks. Anyone that is on in the guild will show up and there are tabs at the top to specify what you need to know about them. The best one, I think, is the guild professions tab. Clicking this will allow players to view the professions of guildies that are on and letting them scroll your prof book to see if you can do anything they need. This is a great feature! Other UI changes include spell alerts. These are new notifiers for players with procs. When a spell or ability is proc’d, a flashing spell alert flashes on the screen and the spell will light up on your bars. This is a great way to never miss those procs people! great for dpsing. Another big change was the player page. The page is still opened with the letter “C” however upon doing so opens the page like normal but gives a side arrow to view stats. This window was very detailed and gave a great overview of all aspect of my toons.

HUGE CHANGES-
MP5, Armor pen,Spell Power(on items) and Defense are GONE. Armor pen has converted into crit and MP5 is gained by spirit now for healers. Intellect has been reworked and now gives Spell Power as well. This is a crazy new thing. My Shammy, spec’d resto before the patch, was sitting at about 24k mana. After patch day she is now at 33k. Most geared pally healers are sitting at around 40-45k mana. Defense is gone, replaced by a talent in the respective tanking trees(ie. Druid, Warrior, Pally, DK) making them uncrittable. Kinda cool but the tanks now have to waste two talent points for that… : / These numbers are insane for me to comprehend. I really hope this doesn’t get out of hand… with blizzard adding all of this stuff, numbers for Cata are going to be huge. I just hope it all makes sense and doesn’t become a crazy race to see who can get the biggest numbers. Already, in most top guilds, its getting out of hand. Most good players in ICC are pumping out a steady 25k dps. Its just….dumb really. NO SKILL INVOLVED!
The talent trees have all been reworked. Players now have a 31 point talent tree with 41 points to spend. Cool addition, but bogus. On most of my toons i got to dabble into the other trees after spending the for 31 in one tree(this is necessary because the other trees are inaccessible till 31 points are spent in one tree) however, on my prot warrior i had to spend all 41 points in the prot tree to get the necessary talents needed to tank. Kinda BS, but whatever.
New talent trees can be accessed here :
http://wowtal.com/#k

Reforging: 40% of any one secondary stat on an item can be allocated to add a new secondary stat to the item.
– This is a fantastic addition to wow. Visit a reforger in all the major cities, talk to them, place an item with a ilvl 200 score or better and you can add stats of more desire to play style. Example was with my Shaman. I put in my shoulders and converted 40% of my crit into haste. Doing this w/ most of my stuff, im at almost 1k haste now. Awesome :) haaaa

Another new feature is the raid lock-out system. Icecrown Citadel and Ruby Sanctum now use it. This system provides the opportunity for a character to defeat each raid zone’s encounters once a week. A character may now complete the encounters during the week with different raids of either 10 or 25 players. THIS IS CRAP! one can only once per week. A 10 or a 25 man. once you do one, you can’t do the other. IT IS THE WORST IDEA EVER! The idea is that if you raid a 10man and down 5/12 boss’s in ICC, then you can join a 25man group that has done the first 5 and finish out icc. It is my opinion that this will be thrown away. People are revolting! I think it is terrible!

Sooooo this is getting long, and I’m tired of ranting and raving lol more about the patch is soon to come, so until then..

Cheers, Jalmari

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Azgalor&cn=Jalmari

Shout Out: Reddit vs. D2JSP Grudge Match

I have a series of videos for you guys this Feature Friday. Recently Reddit and D2JSP had a little grudge match a few nights ago.  Even though there aren’t any big name players in the matches, the games ended up being quite awesome. My favorite caster Psystarcraft was on the Reddit team and just stomped the entire D2JSP team, causing a little controversy in the D2JSP community. Check out the games below. GG

Psy vs Myke

Psy vs Minigun

Psy vs Fayth

Psy vs Kiom

Psy vs Rick

Other Tags: StarCraft II, SC2, PsyStarcraft

Shout Out: Team Pandemic

This Top Team Tuesday I wanted to talk about a team that has a long history of eSports gaming, has been iconic in it’s formation of the industry, but unfortunately didn’t survive the test of time and has shut down as of this year. Team Pandemic grew from a LAN team in Arkansas and went on to create a formidable professional team that competed in a variety of games. It wasn’t too long ago that I was personally watching them play in some intense Team Fortress 2 matches and I remember their name being included in all kinds of online and WCG-esque tourneys. It’s a shame they’ve gone, but their impact should not be forgotten.

Their website now sits with a saddening press release explaining their demise, but Google searches reveal that their website is still functioning in the background. Obviously it’s not being updated, but you can still view the old roster, news items, and whatnot.

It’s not exactly clear if this is the last we’ll hear of Pandemic. Their press release hints vaguely that the organization still plans on being involved with the industry, but maybe in a new form. Someday, if we’re lucky, maybe the team will be revived and Pandemic’s cry will be heard in StarCraft 3, Counter-Strike: Space Edition, and Team Fortress 7! Maybe…

Other Tags: TF2

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