Forging Items in Puzzle Quest

Puzzle Quest employs a simple but fun and flexible method for crafting items. What a refreshing change of pace compared to crafting in MMOs. That's comparing apples and oranges, but it's still a welcome change.

To craft an item, you select three runes from your pool of available runes. The runes are divided into three categories. The first determines the base item and one of its effects. For example, last night I used Rune of Daggers, which gives me a weapon dealing bonus damage. The second rune is a modifier rune that, um, modifies the other two runes. I chose Rune of Dwarves, which gives +2 to the base rune and +50% to the next rune. The third rune adds a special effect to the item such as bonus mana at the start of battle or a chance to do some effect during battle. I selected a rune giving me bonus red mana at the start of battle because fire is my lowest mastery and slower to build up.

The system involves collecting various runes by searching for and defeating monsters across the world map. The more powerful runes are guarded by more powerful monsters, so you must be higher level to acquire them. I found that the rune keepers in the area I'm currently questing are challenging but not too high of a level. I'm level a level 21 druid, but expect this to hold true as I advance through the game. Almost every location on the map has a rune, so you end up with a big pool of varied runes. Another bonus to collecting runes is more experience points and money.

The runes have a crafting difficulty associated with them. The more powerful the rune, the more challenging the puzzle to craft the item. A low quality item may require scoring three "hammer and anvil" points while better items require six or more points. You score these "hammer and anvil" points by destroying a new type of icon added to a new forge puzzle game. This type of game has some special rules that I don't fully understand to be honest. I just kept plucking away at the puzzle until I got three of the icons in a row or destroyed them with a red skull combo.

Unfortunately my character has a limited number of equipment slots. I wish he had a few more, so I'd have a reason to forge more items. So my only gripe with the crafting system in Puzzle Quest is I want to do it more often. How many games can you say that about?

Puzzle Quest and LotRO Crafting

My son scored big points with me this weekend. The mailman dropped off the latest game from GameFly and it was Puzzle Quest for the Nintendo DS. Good boy.

If you haven't heard, Puzzle Quest is an addictive blend of RPG and puzzle genres. Just Google for "puzzle quest review" or "puzzle quest impression" and you'll find plenty of articles and commentary on the game. I'm playing a druid and having fun with his mix of direct damage, healing, and control spells. If a game appeals to ages 12 and 34, you have a good game. The only turn off is misclicking gems with the stylus. Frustrating to get penalized for a misclicked illegal moved only to have my enemy get a sweet four-gem combo.

This weekend after the kids were off to bed, I'd play Puzzle Quest for an hour or so. After that it was Lord of the Rings Online. Pluck is finishing up the last few quests in the Shire. Last night I was in the perfect PUG. Never thought I would put those to words in the same sentence. (Googling "perfect pug" fetches some odd results). I play a hunter, and I was joined with a guardian that knew how to tank and a minstrel that knew how to heal. We knocked out quite a few group quests. That was the best threesome since... well...

I also spent some time advancing Pluck's crafting skills. I took woodsman for him so he can make his own bows. Over the past week I've been collecting wood and hides and dropping them in the bank vault. Do you know how boring it is watching a progress bar repeat several hundred times? Luckily I have Puzzle Quest. So while Pluck processed a mountain of materials, I leveled my druid in Puzzle Quest.

Turbine lifted the crafting system from World of Warcraft, made some small improvements, and dropped it into LotRO. The only difference I see so far are mastery options and apprentice/journeyman/master levels. Nice but nothing to change the boring set it and forget it type of crafting.

Vacation in EQ2

Earlier this summer I decided to play MMO tourist, dropping in on various online games that offer free trials. On a whim... well less of a whim and more like a couple bloggers I read (Tobold and Bildo) mentioned they were giving the game another shot. That reminded me that I wanted to do it too.

So off to Sony Online Entertainment to download the game. Cool, an 85 MB download. I have it downloaded, installed, and activated in no time. The sad part is I only get a 7-day free trial, but that's time to do the newbie zone and try a few classes out. The saddest part is that after I log in, I have to download the patch or the rest of the game or whatever. So the files download and download for about 14 hours.

Great. First day of my 7-day free trial and I've spent it doing nothing in game. Smooth, Sony. When I do get into the game I'll roll a Fury. I like playing healers, but the idea of playing a DPS healer is even better. Wish me luck.

DAOC Journal 07-15-07

Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC) is an older MMORPG with a medieval fantasy theme. The game is set in a fictional Arthurian Britain. You select one of three realms (British, Viking, or Celtic) and a starting type of character. I picked Hibernia (the Celtic realm) and chose Nature as my path.

It took me an hour to get my bearings in the game and start moving my character through the story (and levels). The controls are standard MMO fair, so it was more learning how DAOC does inventory and skills.

At level 5 I picked Druid as my character class. I have access to healing and buffing spells. I have a minor heal and a big heal and a pile of buffs (strength, armor, shield, attack speed...etc.) No heals over time though. No alternate forms like cats or bears, but I do get a pet and some rooting and poisoning spells. I like playing pet classes and healers, so this should be a good fit for me.

The graphics are bad when you compare them to latest batch of MMOs, but that's not a fair comparison. Or is it? Mythic wants me to pay $15 a month to play, but so does Blizzard and Turbine and NCSoft. DAOC graphics are poor when you judge them against WOW, LOTRO, or COV/COH. I feel bad for knocking DAOC on graphics, but I must.

One of WOW’s strengths was its UI customization. I was a real add-on junkie. My UI was so tweaked that there was no remnant of the original UI left. Any other game I play has some big shoes to fill. So far I've found I can reposition all the different pieces of my UI in DAOC and change their transparency. I moved more things towards the bottom of the screen and put them at about 50% alpha. I'll have to check the online help and forums for more info on UI tweaking. DAOC doesn't loose any points on UI, I've seen worse (Neverwinter Nights, I'm looking at you).

DAOC lets me have multiple quests going at once (typical kill, collect, deliver). I usually have a few going at once, which feels right to me. I hate games that force me to do one quest at a time in a very linear mode. At the other extreme is having too many quests. Do I really need to have 20 quests? Um, no.

I want to check out the Realm vs. Realm gameplay, but doubt I'll get to it since I'm on a 14-day free trial and I'll be out of town about half that. Maybe I'll stick around for one month.

My first impressions of DAOC were favorable. I'm a little more pumped for Mythic's next MMO, Warhammer, after seeing what they've done with DAOC.