Raid

Ultimate Guide to Gacha Games: Origins, Evolution, and Monetization

July 6, 2024 Guides

Gacha games are a significant and influential gaming model that has enthralled modern mobile gamers. They resonate both with popular culture and gamers which has created a wave of mobile-first titles focused on random chance more than gameplay. The impact spreads beyond the games themselves, fueling gacha like elements in many of today’s modern live service games. Ever wondered where this came from and how it spread so far and wide? We’re going into detail on each of these elements and more with our ultimate guide to gacha games. Everything from what they are to where they came from to where they spread to. Join us as we take this adventure through random chance, waifus and pity rolls. What are Gacha Games? The gumball vending machines that were filled with capsules containing various micro-toys (of various rarity) are the original inspiration for gacha games. Gashepon (capsule-toy) is the basis of…

Tim Cain’s Video on WildStar is True but Misleading

July 15, 2023 Editorials

Tim Cain is known as part of the legendary trio behind Fallout 1 & 2. He also worked at Troika and programmed Vampire: The Masquerade and one of my favorite games Arcanum. He recently released a video lambasting Carbine and NCSoft while disclosing some deep interpersonal issues at Carbine. Tim’s video is authentic and his recount is accurate by all means. I covered WildStar heavily from 2011 onward and the stories back then were well known. Carbine was a toxic and unhealthy workplace which had the potential to release the best MMO of the golden age but instead failed with 9 years of development time and a further four post-launch to win back everyone ala Final Fantasy XIV. The video is very misleading in some ways. It argues that there was a lack of unified vision. That’s true, but it was also completely the fact that everyone at Carbine was…

How to Safely Play / Hide Hogwarts Legacy

February 7, 2023 Guides

Hogwarts Legacy, by Avalanche Software, is one of the more fun RPG games of the year but there is a strong stigma around the game. Within that stigma, there are a specific group of militant extremists who believe anyone who purchases the game deserves some kind of retaliation. Sites have popped up, which we will not promote, encouraging communities to search for streamers and users who are playing the game in order to harass them. The issue is that much of the rhetoric is subjective; objectively the game was developed by a diverse team at Avalanche and WB. Playing the game is a choice that each person decides on their own what it means to them and the ability to make that choice is critical to self-autonomy. If you feel you should boycott the game then you should do so; if you do not feel it morally objectionable to play…

20 Top Tips for Idle Skilling

October 9, 2024 Guides

Here’s twenty hot tips for Idle Skilling to kick start your adventure or break through barriers in this free to play incremental idle game. Move through a world of abstract pixel art quickly and get those sweet Idleon rewards fast. We’ve got five tips for each of the four categories: getting started, first ascensions, first rebirth and making it to the end game. They did remove the character from the main world in Idleon, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t get the reward. Getting Started You’ll want to get some gems ASAP. If you want to go fast you’ll have to pay to play. Sad truth here, but if you throw the starting gem pack at the game you’re going to zoom through the start very quickly with just double AP, the infinity forge and a few other quality of life upgrades like advanced skillers. Avoid long waits, reap…

WoW: Shadowlands Renown Catch-Up System Explained

April 12, 2021 Guides

So you’ve just started the new expansion (WoW: Shadowlands) and everyone else has months of Renown and you’ve just hit max level. Maybe you’ve taken a break for awhile and your friends haven’t caught up with you yet. It was super frustrating for me too, at the start of the expansion because it felt like I had to do everything to catch my renown up each week and it was pretty fatiguing. Except the good news is that you don’t have to do every renown quest every week if you don’t want to and if you start later in the expansion, you’ll still be able to farm your way to everyone’s current level. It’s very simple: How to Catch Up To catch your renown up just do anything in the game that rewards you something. Covenant Callings, Battlegrounds, Dungeons, world bosses (once per week), various weekly quests, etc. Most of…

How To Prepare for the Raid Finder in World of Warcraft in 2022

January 1, 2022 Guides

This is a rather short guide, because I have a lot of anxiety when I have a new character I want to run through raid finder and there is a lot of toxic people who instead of going, oh you’re just trying to get some gear, instead go “LOL NOOB” and many other more horrible things and that sucks. So let’s talk about preparing, so you can at least avoid any embarrassment when you load into the raid finder. The first thing to do is understand you’re going to suck if you don’t have gear and that’s totally fine and nothing anyone says matters, as long as you’re DPS or you’re a few months into an expansion and picked healer. If you roll as a tank into raid finder in the minimum required gear, you’re going to have a horrible time. We’ll talk about tanking in a bit. Next you’re…

Community is the Reward in an MMO and We’ve Forgotten That

January 10, 2020 Editorials

The year was circa 2002. Ragnarok Online was getting long in the tooth and I was invited into a mystical world that existed only until 2005, which was Dark Age of Camelot. The entire game itself was I would argue harder than Dark Souls. Soloing anything was next to near impossible and leveling required a group and lots of patience. FFXI, while not my cup of tea, was in many ways similar and players have similar opinions. The point of the game, the success, came from community. Building community with like minded players who wanted to sit and chat and play a video game together was your reward. It wasn’t power. It wasn’t fame. It wasn’t prize money. It was friendship, something we’ve long long lost in online gaming. To level, you would have to have a stereotypical archetype group of a tank, healer and DPS. The tank could only…

How to Build a Combat-Ready Bard in D&D 5E

October 29, 2023 Guides

Want to play a bard? Check out our guide down below.

Best Professions in World of Warcraft Classic – A Professions Tier List of Sorts

August 26, 2019 Guides

Picking a profession can be hard in World of Warcraft: Classic because you lose any recipes you learn if you unlearn a profession meaning it’s more or less a permanent choice. You’ll want to start early as well with some of them, like the gathering professions, which compliment leveling while others you may want to wait on leveling at a later time. We’ve ranked the best professions for everyone, the best to make money with and then what we consider professions you may want to think about before you choose them below. While subjective, I disagree that class based professions is a thing. Just because you’re a warrior doesn’t mean you can’t pick herbs and make potions. Take what compliments your playstyle over what others tell you at the end of the day. A Tier – Best Professions for Everyone Alchemy: Flasks for raids are important and making them is…

It’s Okay to Play World of Warcraft Classic as a Casual

August 26, 2019 Editorials

World of Warcraft Vanilla took a tumultuous time in my life and united a variety of characters who provided a wonderful outlet and escape from reality in a time when that made sense. It also was a less miserable option, not a superior one. Raiding felt like a job and arranging your life to meet the raid times can be hard if you have anything else to do in the world. There wasn’t Netflix or easier entertainment options available like today and everything back then required a lot of money to do. It’s not 2005 or 2006 anymore and we don’t have to look at something like WoW: Classic as a chore or something we need to race to level 60 in to get the best raid guilds. Most WoW players back in the day were casuals, making up most of the players and is why the game evolved into…