Elonian Nomad - 3rd Strike

When I tried to play a game of Warcraft 3 on battle.net last night, I ran into a snag when the game started downloading a patch.  I was expecting a bunch of bugfixes, but apparently there were some balance as well.

“BALANCE CHANGES” (copied from Blizzard’s Warcraft III Patch v1.22 at Support Site)

HUMAN
- Scout Tower repair rate changed from 12 to 20.
- Knight damage increased: Attack cooldown changed from 1.50 to 1.40 and base damage increased from 25 to 28 (Average damage is 34).

UNDEAD
- Increased Ziggurat base armor from 1 to 5.
- Reduced the build time of the Necropolis from 120 to 100.

NIGHT ELF
- Reduce the Orb of venom poison duration from 10 seconds to 8 seconds.
- Increase the experience gain from Dryads from Level 2 (40xp) to Level 3 (60 xp).

Looks like Humans got the good side of this patch.  Ziggutrats were just plain fragile, specially after Tier 1, so this is a welcome change for the Undead (I wouldn’t mind if they simply tied zig armor with the tech level, but the instant tougher armor might help UD defend against early rushes).  Nigh-Elf gets a nerf, and no changes for Orcs.  It would seem like the most significant changes would affect towering strategies.

BTW, I guess a new ladder season was launched ‘coz I jumped back to level 1.

Goto the Blizzard’s Warcraft III Patch v1.22 at Support Site for complete info on the patch.  You can get the patch automatically by connecting to battle.net or you can download the stand-alone patch at the Support Site (it wasn’t avaliable as of this writing should be avaliable shortly).

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Comic book artist/writer/creator/publisher Michael Turner passed away last Friday June 27th, 10:42 Pacific Daylight Time, at the Santa Monica Hospital in California due to complications from his long battle with bone cancer. He co-created Witchblade and was the creator of Fathom and Soulfire.

Personally, Micheal Turner had one of the most recognizable comic artistic styles, one look at “Superman/Batman” or his work in Supergirl and you know it’s him.

I was actually expecting him to come-up with more new stuff in the coming years, not knowing until now that he’s been battling with bone cancer for a long time.

Rest well, and thank you for the distict artistic style you have left for us.

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Privateer Press (of Warmachine and Hordes miniatures fame) made an announcement regarding a price increase.  Here’s an excerpt from their announcement:

… You’ll be seeing some amazing and innovative ways that we’re engineering the models in the future to decrease metal usage. While these measures have mitigated the increased price of metal and have allowed us to stave off adjusting prices for a while, these efforts are unable to completely neutralize rising costs. In order to continue the production of certain items, we must adjust their MSRP to reflect the material’s current price, which constitutes the largest portion of their manufacturing cost. …

They even have a chart that shows how the cost of tin has been rising the past few years.  Nobody likes rising prices, but the reality is, when your cost of production rises, there’s a limit to how you can control costs and still sell your goods for the same value.

Good thing I managed to buy a good stock of figs months ago.

Source: Privateer Press (posted June 20, 2008)

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Yet another D&D survey (What’s your inner D&D character?).  So, what am I now according to this?

After analyzing your answers with state-of-the-art medieval fantastic psychology profiling tools, Dungeon Mastering is confident that your inner D&D character is a Chaotic Good Elf Fighter!

This is the 2nd time I’ve been classed as a “Chaotic Good Fighter”, the only difference being that in this test I’m an Elf.

Hmmm… maybe it’s a sign…

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WotC has released the Game System License and System Reference Document for D&D 4E.  The documents (and any future revisions) can be found (and downloaded) in the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Game System License website.

Here’s a “layman’s version” from ENWorld.  There’s also an “unofficial GSL FAQ” in ENWorld, but it’s tough to link to (it was post on June19, 2008).

Source: GamingReport.com

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