Hey everyone,

The Bonus Mission Pack promotion ends tomorrow, so now might be a good time to check to make sure that you've qualified for it. A.net has now made it possible to do just that. After you've logged in (at the character selection screen), hit the Edit Account button in the lower left corner. That brings up a window that has the option Manage Access Keys - hit that, and it will show you all the stuff that has been enabled on your account. Just buying EotN through the online store is enough to qualify, but it's best to be sure!

Some of us noobs over the Diablo team are having probs getting quality voice chat, ie, voice too low, too loud, static noise. Is that the norm with Vent, maybe the blame is on the server? I speculate us noob just don't know how to fine tune some settings and maybe there are options/features that we don't know about. Any tips would be appreciated.

AFAIK (from a few random comments on the net), Vent supposed to have better voice quality than TS, while TS is "better" in every other way. What's your opinion on that? Would there be any reasons not to change to TS, if TS is better for most people?


TIA

KoP

So, yeah, AB is working on its spike timing and I wrote this up on their forums and figured it's useful enough to post here as well.

When you're doing a caster spike such as blood/necrospike, it's important to get everyone casting at the same time, and to do that, they have to be attuned with the leader and his countdown. For that to happen, both the leader and the team need to do a few things:
- First: The leader needs to talk a lot so people can get used to his annunciation, accent, etc. This is important because when the leader counts down for a spike, you have to know at which point in what he's saying that you can use to activate the skills first. When you're not able to understand the way the leader says things, or if they change their pronunciations on you (for example: saying "hit this now" one time and "hit thiyus nayow" the next) then it will throw the team off and people will not be able to time themselves properly to cast when they're supposed to. It will be helpful for the leader to do nothing but speak his countdown several times (at least three) before going into a match while everyone is sitting in the hall and have people listen to the countdown and the timing of it.

- Second: The leader needs to be consistent in the timing and speed of countdowns. Generally, when I call a spike I'm going to count down from three, with each count coming about a second after the other. Basically, I'll be counting three seconds. It is very important for the spike caller to get into a set rythm like this because, like I said above, if the countdown isn't the same every time, people will have trouble getting their timing right. Consistency is key to timing. If I count down with "3... 2... 1" one time, I can't say "3... 2 1" or "3. 2. 1" the next time because people won't be able to keep up with me.

- Third: People need to know when to use their skills. I'm not a big fan of the "3 2 1 Spike!" countdown because the timing is awkward to arrange. If you do a countdown before you want to trigger the spike, then people will know it's coming, but it will still be an anticipatory spike, rather than a timed one. Personally, when I call a spike, I like to have people start using their skills during the middle of a word. After they've heard me pronounce the word several times and are used to the way I say it, the timing is a lot better than if they're trying to guess when I'm going to say the next word. When you have people cast on a word you can almost never get everyone timed together because people will be unsure of where in the word you want them to start casting or they may not have the same reaction time to hearing the start of the word. However, when you have them use the skills during a word, then they will not have to anticipate the word coming and should be able to have a more solid understanding of when you want the spike to start. Once people have heard you pronounce the word and know how it sounds and at which point during the word you want them to cast, almost all of the guesswork that would be associated with starting at the beginning of a word is gone. If I were calling a bloodspike, I would want people to cast when I got to the n of "one." When I pronounce "one" it sounds similar to "won." During the match I would make it more deliberate and say more of a "wonnah" placing added emphasis on the n sound.

Additionally, if you're doing a spike that has prerequisites, as Oppressive requires weakness for the added damage, then whoever is casting the weakness needs to know when they should be using that. You can't just arbitrarily cast weakness on someone and then call the spike a few seconds later, by then it will have been removed since the other team will have figured out that the weakness is the spike indicator. You want the condition to land a half-second or so before the Oppressives hit so it can't be removed in time to save someone from the added damage. Going on the same countdown as before, with the spike coming on the n of one, and Enfeebling Blood also having a 2s cast time, I would have Enfeebling cast at some point between the "two" and the "one" of the countdown. Where, exactly, doesn't matter, but the closer to the "one" without casting on the actual pulse of the word the better.

- Fourth: People need to adapt themselves and their timing to the leader. If the leader calls for a spike on the n of one and you are continually a fraction of a second faster or slower than the rest of the team, then you need to think of what you can do to improve your own timing. If you examine the word "one" you'll notice that there are about four different points of annunciation to the word. It starts with a w sound, then moves to uh, followed by n and finally an uh tail added when you stop the vocalization. If you're having troubles with being behind on the spike and you cast when you think you're hearing the n sound, then try casting on the uh next time and see if that improves your timing. If you're still behind, try the w sound. If that doesn't work, switch to mesmer primary and run 16 fast casting. We all know things like voice chat lag occur, so you may not be hearing the word until a split second or so after the leader actually says it, which can throw off timing considerably. In that case, you also need to adjust yourself to a point in the word where your timing is closer to what it should be.

- Fifth: There should only be one person calling spikes the entire match. People need to time themselves on one leader and only one leader. If someone else tries to take over for whatever reason then the timing will fall apart. Even if the leader is dead, they should still be picking targets and counting down. Again, you need that consistency to always be there or your team will suffer for it.

- Sixth and finally: Practice, practice, practice. One of the skills in the bloodspike build is Blood Drinker. Try going to the Isle of the Nameless and working on the spike, but not with Oppressive. Have everyone time themselves to the leader and cast Blood Drinker all at the same time. You'll be able to notice instantly who's fast and who's slow by the bleeding condition that's caused by the skill, and you won't have to worry about spells not going off because Blood Drinker on its own is not enough to kill a target. People can even target different enemies if they want because the point isn't to kill, but to see about your timing on the bleeding. Everyone should begin bleeding at the same time the leader does. If not, then you need to adjust yourself so your timing is closer.

If you're having issues with hearing the leader or you're unsure about exactly when you're supposed to start casting, then speak up and let the leader know and you can work it out. You won't be able to make that kind of an adjustment during a match, so speak up during practice if you're unsure of any part of what the leader is doing.

We have just released v2.1 of our BtS Unaltered Gameplay (BUG) mod. We have also prepared a document seeking approval for this mod with RB games. Please find the approval request here.

http://www.freewebs.com/ruff_hi/BtS Unal...rocess.pdf

Anchor post for link to the post containing the current version of the Slacker Variant rules for Hellgate: London. Subject to revision.

Current rules -- VERSION 0.02:
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....ostcount=9

Comments are welcome!

So, yeah, apparently, if you have the Ursan Blessing from the Norns, you can easily rip through DoA using Ursan Strike to mop the floor with the enhanced margonites. Kinda cheesy, but could be fun to try at least once for those of us too lazy/uninterested in going through DoA the "normal" way.

Anyone interested in giving it a try?

Okay, who's up for some runs?

KoP was kind enough to hand off his supply of shards/ecto. Now I'll have to get only 109 ecto and 17 shards to make some obsidian armor! That shouldn't take long, right?

Seriously, I'd love to do some runs - I've only been in UW once, and FoW about 3 times. It's funner (is that a word?) with buddies!

I will have more gaming time than usual for the next week and a half or so, due to Hawk-hubby being out of town... I can probably be online almost any night.

Anyone interested? And when?

I have an idea for an Adventure and wanted to know what the RBCiv thought about it. I am very new to Realms Beyond, so I am not sure what the proper protocol is for something like this. I also looked at previous Epics and Adventures to see if anything like this had been done before, but it didn't appear so.

Horseaholic
Civilization: Byzantine
Unique Unit: Cataphract (Knight), comes with +2 strength but is not immune to first strike.
Unique Building: Hippodrome (Theatre), grants loads of extra happiness, +1 base, +1 more for having access to horses and +1 for every 5% spent on culture (instead of the Theatre's 10%).
Leader: Cyrus (Unrestricted Leaders)
Traits: Charismatic (-25% XP needed for unit promotions), Imperialistic (+100% Great General emergence)
Map: most likely Pangea, but will test this out
Difficulty: Monarch (will test this out to make sure it's not insanely easy or hard)
No Barbarians, No Huts, No Events, Aggressive AI
ALWAYS WAR (yes, I know we just did this in Epic 14, so we may want to wait a while for this game, assuming enough people are even interested).


Rule Variants

• You may only attack other units with Horse-based units (until Advanced Flight) and Artillery units. This rule is not in effect until you have built at least 2 Horse units or 2000 BC (whichever comes first).
  
• Once you research Advanced Flights, you may also attack with Gunships.
  
• Great Generals may only be used to turn units into Warlord units. No Military Academy, and no Super Specialists.
  
• You may only turn Horse-based units (until Advanced Flight) into Warlord units.
  
• Once you research Advanced Flights, you may also turn Gunships into Warlord units.
  
• You may not build West Point or the Pentagon.
  
• You may not upgrade any units except Warlord units.
  
• You may not enter enemy territory with a military unit prior to 1000 BC.
  
• You may not build any "metal horses": Tanks, Modern Armor. (I may remove jungles from the map and edit out water based oil to prevent all Oil-based units).

• Date of victory. Probably something like (400 - Turn Number) * 25. I will play a test game to try to balance this number.
  
• Total XP on all alive Warlord units combined at time of victory.
  
• +200 bonus for person with the highest XP on a single unit.
  
• +100 bonus for person with the second highest XP on a single unit.

Well, the official announcement is up, and this Thursday the towns get redecorated, with Mad King Thorn making his rounds on Halloween. There are no new redecorations for GW:EN, but you have to figure they'll put a quest or two in somewhere.

Anyways, the real reason I'm making this topic is because, with the major GW holiday rolling around, it's going to be time to change the cape soon. I can't remember what the exact changes were for the cape, so I went to the emblemer and started playing around with the colors. Black was easy. If anyone remembers what we used for orange, please do post it. In any case, here's what I wound up with:


See you around town.

I've noticed that there has been a lot of posting on the Hellgate forums about the addition of Elite and Hardcore modes splitting the player base. I'm trying to figure out how likely this is to be a problem in our community. We probably aren't going to have so many players out of the gate that we can afford to split our character base up if we want multiplayer action amongst the group of us, without resorting to just tagging along with AB or something similar.

Quote:Elite Mode

<snip -- relevant bit being Elite is a 'mode'>

Hardcore

Hardcore mode takes away the various resurrection options. For the gamer that wants the ultimate test, try playing an Elite Hardcore character!