Haters be hatin' on zombabiez.

Zombies happen. It’s never pleasant when they do. They smell, they walk on the grass in spite of signs instructing the contrary, they jay-walk, they burst through walls and windows like the Kool-Aid Man, and they eat people. So it stands to reason that a game about zombies would be equally unpleasant in one way or another.

A trailer for Dead Island came out recently (http://youtu.be/lZqrG1bdGtg), and has garnered some negative attention. In it, a young girl dies at the hands of her father after she turns zombie and attacks him. However, the trailer is told in reverse and forwards at the same time, rewinding back from the moment of her death while playing forward from the beginning of the attack. The trailer ends with the father pulling away from his daughter, followed by footage of them arriving at the hotel prior to the outbreak.

The trailer is horribly depressing, and honestly, it’s terrific, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.” This trailer lends itself to that quote, showing the intensity and tragedy of this moment in time, instead of giving you a look at the larger carnage surrounding them.

But really, kill a little girl?

Yes really, she was a flipping zombie.

Firstly, killing child zombies (or getting killed by them) is absolutely not an original concept. Night of the Living Dead (1968), the quintessential zombie movie which pioneered the modern zombie genre, contains a scene where a young girl turns and murders her mother with a cement trowel. Pet Cemetery (1989) revolves almost completely around the concept of a child murderer needing to be stopped. Dawn of the Dead (2004) depicts a child zombie as the first one on screen, who proceeds to kill and turn the protagonists husband. Later in that same film, the protagonists kill a newborn zombie baby. Most recently, AMC’s The Walking Dead (2010) opened the first episode with the main character headshotting an 8 year old zombie girl in a dress carrying a teddy bear. I could go on and on, citing less and less mainstream films, but it becomes redundant.

Killing zombies isn’t new. Killing children isn’t new. Nor is killing zombie kids.

The difference here is that we’re talking about a video game, and that the scene in question is from the trailer. If this was a movie, people wouldn’t care as much. If this wasn’t from the trailer, but from a cutscene, people wouldn’t care as much. But being the worlds first glimpse into this, the thought is that somehow the game will simply repeat these events and glorify killing children. But really, both of those things miss the core point.

Zombies and the idea of a zombie apocalypse should always upset people.

With the exception of films like Fido (2006) (Hey look, another film where we kill zombie kids!), the zombie apocalypse represents one of the most final ends to our world possible short of nuclear holocaust or annihilation via meteor. It is a bleak, dismal world where you live under the constant threat of a gruesome and painful death. It is not a snow day with guns, it is a way of life. The trailer for Dead Island reminds us all of a thing we’ve chosen to forget in the current ‘zombie age’; zombies suck, death sucks, and this isn’t the only family that will implode once the grey meat comes knocking.

Honestly, they got off easy.

For example, in Resident Evil (1998/2002) the game, a scientist infects his daughter with a version of the T-Virus to purposefully mutate her into a monster. In later volumes of the graphic novel series The Walking Dead (2003), you meet characters that keep their zombified relatives as pets. Is anyone here really going to argue that a dad tossing his zombie daughter out of a third story window onto grass is really so horrific as to warrant a reprimand to the creators?

I want to thank the developers at Techland for unnerving us, upsetting us, and making our days gloomy with a mere three minutes and eight seconds of CG. Imagine what they can do with 40 hours of gameplay.

"'City of Heroes' character 'Twixt' becomes game's most hated outcast courtesy of Loyola professor"

Bullshit. I know I'm a little late to the party on this one, so be it:


Dear Professor David Myers,

Hi. You don't know me. We play on different servers. As such, I had no feelings for you one way or the other. So, I immediately take issue with this article that portrays you as some sort of infamous celebrity in the world of CoX. You're not.

Having seen a few dozen videos on YouTube of you getting killed in Siren's Call and Recluse's Victory, I take issue with the article portraying you as a good PvPer. You're not. Also, the article neglects to mention that you also posted on the forums of this game, purposely stirring up ill will. We call that trolling, dear Professor. The act of intentionally upsetting people to cause a negative reaction.

I'm sorry that you became a social outcast on the Freedom server by TPing into Drones. We both know it was more than that, but that's not the issue here. Droning people isn't particularly skillful, but at the same time, it's entirely the fault of the people being Droned. With how large the zones are, you have to be fantastically close to the enemy's base to ever risk it happening, and decent players rarely fall victim to it. So, in my opinion, anyone you ever Droned had it coming, cause they were base hugging.

I've received plenty of nasty tells from other players in my time. Most of them while PvPing. I've never Droned another player. I've killed people within their own bases. I've hidden inside their hospitals and killed them when they respawned. I've hidden atop high ledges and swooped down on them without warning, killing them in mid-air. I've hounded Heroes and Villains alike within multiple zones and inside the Arena. I've stalked players that gathered launch codes or meteor shards, and robbed them of their hard won treasures just when they were sure they would reap the rewards of their efforts.

But I've never Droned.

I've even gone so far as to lure the "robotic firing squad" away from an enemy base, with the help of my SGs sniper unit, to leave an entire Villain base undefended, so that my group could swoop in an occupy the whole base, preventing any players from entering on that side. Safely at least.

So, when I read this article, about how you are universally hated and reviled, when the worst thing you've done is Drone some players, or break up some Fight Club in SC, it makes me want to laugh. You're not grieifing anyone. You never did anything that good or bad. The real crime here was the trash talk and mockery that you lent to this conflict, that the article neglects to mention.

I guess the crux of my issue is this: There is nothing inherently wrong with Droning. The Devs, from day 1, have established that nothing save from trapping someone within the geometry of a map is griefing. So, when you TP someone into a Police Drone or Arbiter Drone, you're not breaking any rules. Once someone tells you they have a problem with that action, the dynamic changes. If you TP someone, knowing it will upset them, you are 100% responsible for their reaction. I'm not justifying how they act, most of them sound like very immature people, but you still knowing act in such a manner to cause that reaction from them.

For instance, when in Warburg, I ganked many, MANY other Heroes. It was even the subject of discussion on the Justice forum (that's my server). People talked about whether it was right or wrong for me, roleplaying a biped Police Drone, to kill other Heroes. So, at that point, I changed how I addressed other Heroes in Warburg. I would still attack and kill any player I could, regardless of faction. However, if any Hero ever asked me to leave them be, I would after the first kill. I took responsibility for the consequences of my action, regardless of whether or not what I was doing was wrong. Why? Because that's how all adults should act, online or offline.

Also, I should point out that my SG, the Paragon PD, was the subject of much hate and griefing, simply by existing. We were a top 10 SG for several years, with hundreds of players. Our mere presence spawned rival SGs (Anti-Drones, Rouge Isles PD, etc), our players were subject to constant griefing and harassment, and some (including me) were even kicked from teams for being who we were. On more than one occasion, I've had whole zones of players turn against me just for my name and uniform. Feel free to read my blog, Professor David Myers. I've fought massive battles against both Heroes and Villains simultaneously, outnumbered as bad as 4 to 1.

And not because I intentionally upset players as part of a study on small group dynamics or how the anonymity of the internet emboldens people. Just because I was me.

So, I hope you book is a success. I hope it's more honest and truthful than that article.


-Police Drone TH, lvl 50 Assault Rifle/Energy Manipulation/Munitions Mastery Blaster, Justice Server, Circa Issue 3, proud owner of the 400 Rep PvP badge, and server FFA Arena Champion for 7 Issues.


PS- Zone PvP wasn't introduced until Fall of 2005 with the release of Issue 6: "Along Came a Spider", not Spring of 2004 like the article would have people believe. Issue 6 is also when City of Villains was released. PvP didn't exist until Spring of 2005, and that was limited to the Arenas. The social environment that fostered peaceful interaction between Heroes and Villains existed for a year and a half before zone PvP was a factor, and 90% of the Villains that were created with the advent of CoV were initially Heroes. Again, something the article failed to mention. Furthermore, from Fall of 2005 till Spring of 2006, the PvP zones were the only place where Heroes and Villains could meet face to face, making the only zone where social interaction was possible between the two factions. Pocket D, Cimerora, and the Rikti War Zone didn't exist at that point.

Um, what should I call you?

One of the things that I've always found fascinating about playing MMOs, or any game with online multiplayer, is how people choose to interpret the names of others. That is, how a persons name, or the name of their avatar/character/toon is changed/shortened/altered to make it more convenient in conversation.

Now, character names break down into five rough categories:

1. Actual names
2. Long multisyllabic names
3. Statements as names
4. Plays on words
5. Other
6. Actual names are easy enough to work out. Guild Wars requires you to have a first and last name for any of your characters, so usually you simply need use a player "first" name. I have a Warrior named Roland Dresden, a Paragon named Rook Enassi, a Mesmer named Freya Dresden, etc. Whenever I played them, people simply addressed me by my character's first name.

Longer names pose a small problem. When I played WoW briefly (Up to level 33), I had a Troll Warrior named Alavatus. While not a huge name, it is four syllables, and in general, people addressed me as "Ala" or "Al". Then, you have other names I've used like Kammorremae, which people shortened to "Kamm". I know people like Quatermain, or Abraxxus, who's names are shortened to "Quat" and "Brax" respectively.

Statements as names is where is gets weird. If you hook up with a mage named "Fase Pwner", what do you call him? "Fase"? "Pwner"? Generally, people will just use the first part, and call you "Fase", but every once in a while you get someone who recognizes "Fase" as the adjective, and "Pwner" noun it describes, and then everything goes to hell cause the whole team except the smart ass healer is calling you "Fase", while he is calling you "Pwner". Ass.

Plays on words sometimes overlap with Statements as names. For example, my Defender is named Combative Medic. My old friend Patrick had a Defender named Apathetic Empath. I have no idea what people called Patrick (other than asshole, cause he was one, not that I'm not), but people refer to me as "Medic" or "Med". Why they shorten it to "Med" is beyond me...

Finally you have Other. And honestly, most names these days are Other. My sisters-in-law ran characters named "Super Funky Peach", "Snuggle Bunnies", "Gorgeous Tsurugi", "Panda Mei", etc. My most recent Guild Leader in GW had characters like "The Devil Himself" and "The Devil Herself", while a friend of mine from CoH has toons like "Molten Slowa", "Insane Slowa", or "SWAT Drone SL-OW".

And frankly, that's the best way to go; having a common theme amongst your names that allows people to use the same moniker for all of your characters. These was an asshole from my old guild who had the name "Cangzhen" as a preface to all his character, with their. profession following it (Cangzhen Monk, Cangzhen Warrior, etc). Of course, that naming convention can defeat the point of some MMOs, like City of Heroes or Champions Online, where the point is to create a truly unique avatar that represents precisely the type of character you want to play.

RMTs

Real Money Traders (RMTs) hurt games. So do the players who buy from them. They cause inflation, they harm drop rates, they generate underskilled players. In extreme circumstances, they hack and steal players accounts.

Don't be a dillhole, don't buy in game cash (or gear, or runes, or powerleveling, etc).

"We don't team with your kind here."

With the release of Issue 16, Defenders were given access to the Assault Rifle secondary set. My heart leaped with joy when I found out I could finally roll up an Empathy/Assault Rifle Defender, so first chance I got, I did.




At the time, I had been trying to find a way to turn this picture into an outfit, as a way to lure a friend of mine into playing CoH again. In the process, I fell in love with the idea of playing a medic from a Warhammer 40K or Starcraft scenario, so I rolled up Combative Medic (and I changed the outfit, along with color scheme).

Combative Medic is now level 26, blasting and buffing his merry way through all manner of task force, AV battle, and general tomfoolery. I'm still trying to find my inner Defender, but having a Council Assault Rifle to blast my way to said inner Defender with helps.



So, yesterday, after having some trouble finding a team, I end up grouped with two Controllers, whom we will call Icey Pants 1 and Icey Pants 2. Both were Ice Control/Cold Domination 'Trollers from the same SG. Upon joining them, the leader (Icey Pants 1) laments how few people are within our level range, and how none will join. I comment that I have a friend who will join us, to which the leader reacts favorably. After a few minutes of plowing through Sky Raiders at +1, I mention that my friend is now ready, with his Tanker.


And so it starts.

Icey Pants 2: Oi vey.

Icey Pants 1: No tankers, no scrappers.

Combative Medic: As a policy?

Icey Pants 1: SG rule. We don't allow them.

::After a few moments of politely testing the waters of the issue (while
still performing my job admirably), I address it directly::

Combative Medic: So do you also exclude Brutes, Stalkers, Blappers, and
Kheldians?

Icey Pants 1: No, just tankers.

Icey Pants 2: And tankery storm defenders,

Combative Medic: Why?

Icey Pants 2: We deal with enough of it on PUGs, so we don't allow it when
our SG runs a team.

Icey Pants 1: Chasing a tank around as it runs blindly into spawns get old
fast.

Combative Medic: Why not ask them not to, and boot them if they refuse?

Icey Pants 1: Have you ever asked a tank to listen to you?

The rest of the conversation is more of the same, but you get the gist. Rather then exclude all melee or melee capable classes, they simply exclude the two ATs most suited to deal with the damage they will inevitably take (I love my blapper to pieces, but anything less than perfection when I play him at +4 results in bloody violent death for moi). And this exclusion isn't truly against the ATs, simpley how some people chose to play them. But rather than having 30 seconds of patience with a player to see if they will play nice with others, they discriminate against a large portion of the player population, then lament that there aren't enough people around to join their team.

In the end my response to them was this: I will give almost any player and any AT a chance. Unless my team absolutely does not need, or will be hurt by the presence of a particular AT (a team with 6 blasters doesn't need a 7th), there is no reason not to include another player. If said player causes issues via their play style, I speak with them. If they adapt to the needs of the team, they can stay. If they refuse, I politely ask them to leave, and failing at that, I simply boot them myself. Conversely, when I play my Tanker, or any other AT for that matter, I almost always defer to the judgement of the team leader. If he has a problem with something I'm doing, I'll stop. Sometimes this means I end up doing stupid shit cause the leader sucks, but other times it means that I help the team running better by accepting the fact that my way isn't always the best way. Maybe I should be corner pulling on a Nemesis map, or maybe I should be on the opposite side of the AV from the team to protect them from melee cones (these are things I already do, btw, but that many Tanker neglect).

However, at no point can I ever expect another player to accommodate to my wishes if I refuse to do it in turn. Icey Pants 1 & 2 refuse to play with 40% of the available ATs, based on what they perceive as an issue with the classes, when in truth it's an issue with play style (one that can be found in every AT, Red or Blue side). I have no time for people who discriminate, but at the same time, to their credit, Icey Pants 1 & 2 were very polite, and answered all of my questions. So, rather than leave in a huff, I finished the mission with them, politely excused myself, and went off to team with my Tanker bud who had been left out.


This applies equally to all classes, ATs, professions, in any game, MMO or otherwise.

Level Cap=/=Fun Cap

I don't play World of Warcraft, for many reasons. Almost all of them are personal preference; as much as I don't like WoW, I can't say that it's bad. Far too often, people mistake their own opinion as fact, and I want to go ahead and put that out there before I go on.

Now, there is one thing that Blizzard has done, that I hate, and it's the repeated increase of the level cap in WoW. Also, by proxy, how this practice has lead to droves of people carrying over a faulty logic to other MMOs that, in increasing the level cap, one can make a game more fun.

Firstly, why I dislike increasing the level cap in an established, persistent online game. It tends to invalidate the work and effort of a player. If I've spent the last two months raiding with my guild, to complete my Tier # armor, I'd feel pretty shitty when the developer of the game decides that everything my character owns (and that I thought was good) is now worthless junk, because there are ten more levels for me to grind out, and each one has gear more powerful than the last.

Now, increasing the level cap certainly isn't bad for newer players, or ones who haven't dedicated depressingly large amounts of time to pimping out a character. It sucks for the hardcore players. Of course, they are also hardcore enough to suck it up and grind out those ten new levels, and work up to the newest Tier of gear. I sit somewhere in between casual and hardcore, where I care enough and play just enough to be well equipped, but I haven't religiously cleared the same instance dozens of times to earn a particular set of gear (this doesn't exactly translate into CoH and GW, but close enough).

This brings me to the crux of my rant; I'm tired of hearing people suggest upping the level cap as the best way to make a game better. Wrong, bad, fail. Firstly, not all games revolve around high level play. Secondly, not all games have an endgame the involves endless grinding for loot. For example, City of Heroes is more about the (admittedly downplayed) story of a world recovering from a massive invasion, and your role as a fledgling hero trying to save it. You start as a scrub fighting riots and taking down low level drug dealers, to traveling between dimensions, defeating evil super-powered despots and liberating entire worlds from tyranny. The scope of such an evolution is hard to appreciate if you blast past low level play to get to high levels, and it's completely lost when you replace one plateau of power with another one.

Guild Wars is another great example. While Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall vary greatly in their PvE application, it's undeniable that the endgame in Guild Wars is PvP. Lots of PvP. Coordinated, uncoordinated, pro, scrub, hardcore, softcore PvP. Wanna do small scale? Arena. Large scale? Alliance Battle. Ultra cut-throat internationally competitive? Guild vs Guild or Hall of Heroes. Increasing the level cap offers absolutely no benefit here.

What can make a game better? What can extend it's life? Additional content, not at the expense of the effort players have already invested in the game. City of Heroes publishes a new issue of the game every three to four months, adding more content each time (including but not limited to: New Powers, New ATs, Inventions, New Zones, Power Customization, New Villain Groups, etc). Guild Wars released an expansion meant almost exclusively for max level players. Additionally, they added (early on) the ability to play all the low level areas as elite lvl 20+ zones.

Invention Origin enhancements: The mandatory option.

You ever found a really sweet free to play game online? Maybe it was a simple 2D flash game, or a really badass 3D freeshare FPS, but either way, it was way more fun than it should have been.

So you play this really sweet, free-to-play game for a few weeks, at which point you find out, "Hey, there is a whole 'nother level here I've yet to touch!" But then you find out that level comes with a $15 price tag to it, or that you can buy in game money (which takes forever to earn), or that in order to access a certain realm, where all the good items are, you need to purchase a subscription?

Yeah, IOs are like that.

They don't cost money (real money, at least), but the principle is the same. You don't NEED them to play. Quite the contrary; most players have been dominating in City of Heroes/Villains for years without them. However, the gulf of power between a Hero without IOs and a Hero with them is staggering. Furthermore, you can see exactly which bonuses a player possesses by looking at their powers tab. If you click on a Scrapper and find out he has 3 Ultimate Recharge Bonuses, you know that this Scrapper is filthy rich, as he probably has billions of influence worth of IOs slotted into his powers (::cough::Karou Non' Drak::cough::). Using this, people are able to pick characters which are seemingly more powerful, or at least wealthy, based on how many IO bonuses they have (Within SGs, this practice is nearly unheard of. In PUGs, in can be, at times, rampant.).

Now, I have no problem with IOs. They add a new level of depth to the game, and allow a person to make their unique Hero (or Villain) even more unique. However, I think it's a tad misleading to say that IOs are completely optional. By that same logic, all gear is completely optional. You don't need it, it just helps.

And I think we can all disagree with that (barring Vow of Poverty).

Call of Geneva

I recently read an article where a kid is made to read the Geneva Convention, and adhere to it when playing first person shooters (specifically Call of Duty).

Firstly, I want to applaud his parents in taking an original and unorthodoxed approach to proactive parenting, in the realm of violent video games. Too many parents take a hands off approach to this, and hold the game developers, not themselves, accountable for what their kids play. Kudos.

That being said, other than being a nice historical footnote in the kids daily gaming regiment, the Geneva Convention applies almost solely to the treatment of PoWs and civilians. I fail to see how, if at all, this will impact their sons gaming experience (maybe I simply haven't played the same iteration of Call of Duty that their son plays, and that one allows him to abuse civilians and PoWs). Now, if the article had discussed the boy playing Civilization or Fable, I'd see a direct correlation between the parental concern and the response.

In my opinion, this idea is ultimately a failure, because it does not impress any change in the childs "behavior" towards this video game. Perhaps if their son pick up Turok for the PS2, they'll be pleased to see that he doesn't execute the surrendering bi-ped dinotroopers. Huzzah.

My suggestion; if you're child is entering the realm of online multiplayer first person shooters, focus on his behavior, not gameplay. Place rules on how he talks to others (some of the most vile trash-talking I've ever heard came from 13 year olds). Forbid him from having insulting or vulgar sprays (images a player can paint temporarily onto a surface in game), forbid him from teabagging, corpse humping, or firing his weapon into other dead players.

Other than that, the best parenting option, when it comes to first person shooters, is to not let your kids play them.

Know your role.

I'm currently very excited about my lowbie warrior, Roland Dresden. He's the one I posted about before, wearing E-platemail. Anyways, as a result, I've been playing him more than Saru, even though buying his armor made me broke again.


Roland is level 16 at the moment. His armor and weapons are max, fully runed and fitted with insignia, and using both normal and elite warrior tomes, I've taught him a few powerful skills he would have been otherwise unable to learn for quite some time. So, quite obviously, when he team with with people his level, and runs quests and missions at his own level, he kicks huge amounts of ass, and dominates his foes.


So, a few days ago, I ran a mid-level mission, D'Alessio Seaboard. Ended up on a team with a lvl 20 Monk (the leader), plus his two heroes (lvl20 splinter barrage, lvl20 minion mancer), a lvl 12 Monk, and a lvl 14 Necro (I'm lvl 15 during this mission). As soon as I accept the invite to the team, the leader asks me to ping my build. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. He's being aware of how his teammates work, but he's also trying to make people alter their builds. I thought about griping at the him, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. I ping the build (basically the same thing I run FoW with), and the leader finds it acceptable. Meanwhile the low lvl necro pings his build, and it's abysmal. I mean, I usually don't tell people what to run, but why the hell does a necro run a build with Rain of Fire, Phoenix, and Conjure Flame, with 0 ranks in Fire Magic. To my surprise, the leader tells him the build is fine.

So, we enter the mission, and I immediately start to like the leader less, cause not only does he start ordering me around, he's calling me "war". It's not like "Roland" is hard to type. Even worse, when he's ordering me around, he ends up saying stupid things that aren't helpful, like "stop moving". How can I tank, or even fight, if I can't move to follow a target or engage a new one?

This particular mission has almost exclusively undead foes, among them, Skeleton Sorcerers. They tend to spam blinding flash, rendering me useless. After fighting several battle where the monk fails to remove it from me, I start to ping it to remind him. He responds with, "don't have rest con". Dude. You're going to tell me how to play, and double check my build, but you're not going to bring any condition removal? What the fuck? Guess what, you're splinter barrage ranger is useless too when she's blinded! Apparently, I run monk heroes more competently than you play your own monk.

We keep going, and once we reach the 90% mark, the leader starts to talk to me directly:

Asshole: Do you know what to do?
Me: Um, pretend I don't.
Asshole: Run ahead of the minions.

DUDE, SHOVE IT! I'm sorry the NPCs minions are dying. Minions were a shitty choice to run against undead, since you can't exploit undead corpses. Even if you could, I'm out DPSing the whole damn minion army, Flesh Golem included. So don't tell the lvl 15 Warrior (with Elite Platemail, wielding a Deldrimor Sword and Deldrimor Shield) what to run, don't tell him how to tank, and don't tell him how to play. I could have soloed that whole damn mission, if only I had had condition removal (Mending Touch, Antidote Signet).

So, we complete the mission, get the bonus, skip the cutscene, and hit the next town. The leader asks who's going and who's staying. At this point, I very politely, and with proper grammar and spelling, decline to join them in the next mission. He promptly kicks me from the team.

...

I don't know who beat you as a child, or raised you in such a manner that you consider any of your behavior socially acceptable, but you're a tool, plain and simple. You lack the common sense to adjust skills based on the foes you'll be fighting (notice how I swapped out Sever Artery and Gash for the mission, since we were fighting undead, while you kept the MM), you run a prot monk but don't include a single skill for condition removal (as much as I like getting bonded by a monk, it's kinda pointless against lvl 14 foes in NM), yet try to order the team around like you know shit.

Fantasy Armor, where style murders functionality

Armor in RPGs is usually the defining part of any characters design. It defines many aspects of a character, be it a potential for strength or speed, limits to mobility or reach, or the ability to complement a fighting style. No one expects a hulking giant of a warrior clad in steel plates from head-to-toe to start tumbling into melee with a rapier, parrying and lunging.

For the longest time, the only set of armor I had for Sarutobi was the 1.5k Templar armor (pictured left, undyed, full set costing 7.5k+materials), dyed silver. I crafted it so long ago that when I got it, it was still called "Knight's Armor", and the silver was closer to white than it is now.

I loved this armor so much for two reasons. Firstly, it was functional. It protects nearly everything I'd want it too, rather than leaving my mid-drift, cleavage, thighs, etc exposed to attack (ok, this leaves the tatas a bit exposed, but not nearly as much as most).

The second reason I liked it was because it was symmetrical. Not a huge deal really, but sometimes it really bothers me how they have their armor sets designed. The art department that worked on Guild Wars deserves plenty of kudos for creating a beautiful game, but seriously, why can't I get armor with two pauldrons? Is it really too much to ask for equal protection of both shoulders?

I crafted this set so long ago, at the time, no elite version of the "Knight's" armor existed. Because of that, I never felt like my character was lacking or inferior, because I was perfectly happy with what I had. However, after I spent a few weeks farming FoW and selling Obsidian Shards on the player market, I noticed that I was getting lowballed by most people who were buying shards. Generally, market price is gauged off what NPCs offer. If the NPC Rare Materials Merchant is selling shards for 3.5k, but buying at 2.5k, the market settles at 3k flat, thus letting the seller turn a profit, and the buyer saves cash in the process.

However, when trying to sell shards, people would lower their offers too me after a face to face meet. Over time, I concluded that since I was wearing cheap armor, people assumed I was poor, so they could still make a buy off me since I'd be too broke to turn them down. After a while, I got fed up and "upgraded".


While it wasn't available for some time, the elite version of "Knight's" armor (now called Templar) came out about two years after launch. Elite Templar, like almost every other set of armor with 'elite' attached to it's name costs 15k per piece. So, I dropped 75k+materials on the new set of armor, which functioned identically to my old set. Not content with that, I went and dyed it black (Black dye is the most expensive, costing 6k-8k, depending). So, that was another 35k or so. And, like I expected, I stopped getting lowballed by every buyer I met. I don't know if it was worth the 100k+ I spent, but at least I don't get 'lolmad' at them anymore.

But now Sarutobi's boobs are exposed. Same with her thighs. And, wait, now she only has one pauldron.

DAMN YOU ARENA.NET! WHY DOST THOU HATE ME SO?!

Sure, my elbows are covered now, cool beans. But now I can't even walk through a bush without getting scratched up. How is that considered effective armor? All I'm doing is encouraging my foes to target my weak spots.

And where is it written that exposing cleavage makes armor more effective in a melee situation? If anything, it ensures that not only will I die faster, but my corpse is liable to be violated. Joy. The worst part is that other than that, the armor is actually really neat. The detail is great, I like the texturing, and it keeps the style of the 1.5k version while being something relatively original unto itself (I really like the gauntlets and the greaves, I felt those were the weaker aspects of the 1.5k version. The helmet is weaksauce though).

However, as you can see from my post about farming FoW, I found an elite set of armor that suits me fine for the most part, Elite Kurzick armor. It makes Saru look a little thinner than I'd like, but more than makes up for that by being the medieval gothic version of Storm Trooper armor. Currently I have it dyed silver, and I'm toying with changing that too white (silver has a distinct blue-ish hue to it, despite making the surface shiny).

I'm considering getting a new set of armor. I'm seriously considering Ancient Armor, and I always talk about getting Obsidian Armor, but I don't know how serious I am about that. Obsidian Armor just seems like such a headache to craft, and I don't like dealing with the FoW PUGs that seem to abound in lieu of actual teams.

I'm open to suggestions.