Tag: Games

Bored in WoW: Things to do

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

Have you ever waiting for minutes on end in the dungeon queue? Reached Level 85 and not known what else to do? Gotten bored by playing mind-numbing quests one after the other?

If you have been playing World of Warcraft for as long as I have been playing, then I am sure that you would have gotten jaded a bit with the continuous onslaught of Dungeons, Raids, PVP and Quests.

I have seen perfectly fine guilds as well as guild leaders throw their arms in despair and just stop playing WoW after getting too bored to play the game. Well, if you can identify with what I am talking about, then read on further … if you are wondering what the hell I am talking about, there’s this super awesome game that you have to check-out. It’s called World of Warcraft!!

  1. Level up your professions – It might seem mundane at first, but the awesome kind of items you get at the higher levels is definitely worth it. Not only are you adding a few Achievements to your belt, but helping out your guild as well. Not to mention the kind of trade surplus you get at the Auction House (AH).
  2. Auctioneering – Speaking of the auctions, the AH is a good place to hunt good items and good trade deals. If you see a poorly priced item, buy it and promptly put it on the AH again. Pure profit!! In fact this point deserves a post or two!
  3. Miss Goody-two-shoes – Become a good-two-shoes in your guild and offer help to anyone who is stuck or lost at any level. There is joy in contribution :-). Keep a limit to offering a helping hand thought. Like help a n00b a day types :-)
  4. Achievements – Do your research, and go after weird Achievements. Or Achievements which talk of sheer determination like The Explorer, or Loremaster, etc.
  5. Guild Achievements – Try getting towards the Guild Achievements. Your Guild officers will herald you and everyone will be the happier.

I will add to this list, but putting together this list has given me an urge to play WoW!

Rise of Nations: Use of Heavy Cavalry

Prasad Ajinkya3 Comments
Heavy Cavalry

image A major part of all Alexander the Great’s battle strategy included cavalry. The light cavalry for quick raids (which I shall cover in a separate post) and the heavy cavalry (or his Companions as the vanguard unit).

In fact the fall of Alexander was largely attributed due to a mutiny amongst his vanguard troops.

Learn from history

A liberal use of heavy cavalry units right from the start of the game can really make a difference between a well fought battle and a whooping victory. Here’s how –

When I was playing a random map, I was given Mongols (but I mistook them for Lakota!! mea culpa!!). Fortunately, my strategy was unaffected by misinterpretation, I still was going to make Stables, and raid early with cavalry, and then focus on an army of heavy cavalry. The map style was Himalayas, so that helped!

  1. Start booming and race to Age II. Have a barracks ready and some defense troops.
  2. After Age II, go Mil2 and Sci2
  3. Build a Stable, and get a Despot
  4. Have 2 Heavy Cavs, and 2 Horse archers ready. This alongwith the Despot is your flash army.
  5. The flash army can move fast (doubly so if used forced march), ambush and patrol the enemy territory for taking out merchants, caravans and resource buildings
  6. It can also hold a sizeable army until you build defenses and/or send reinforcements
  7. Start building your main army slowly and steadily using the resources from raiding while your flash army keeps the enemy engaged. I prefer to build a separate artillery force (3 trebuchets and a supply wagon) and make an attack on one of the outposts
  8. A small bit of micro-management and you should get one of the computer’s cities
  9. The cool part about focusing on Heavy cavalry on a map like Himalayas is that wood and iron is abundant, so siege weapons come easily.
  10. Even if you fail at doing well early on the game, keep your heavy cavs alive and they turn into formidable tanks!

I myself am not that big into cavalry, but today while mistakenly taking the Mongols for Lakota, I realized just about how awesome they can be. I had roughly 4-5 HI, 2 bowmen, 6-7 Heavy cavs, a despot, 4 cannons and a supply wagon with some heavy archers to spare (Mongols, get them free for each stable, so did not keep a count, although I had 3 stables). Almost all of my food came from raiding and sacks.

World Champions!

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

It’s Diwali in Mumbai. I can hear to the fireworks still going on … as Dhoni and the Indian team is getting prepared for lifting the world cup.

Cricket is a religion in India, and you could see it today as many Indians in the stadium were praying during the last few tense moments. The entire nation had come to a stand still during the final match of the World Cup 2011.

I had to drop my parents off to the railway station, and the roads were as empty as they normally are at 2am in the morning. Traffic signals were not working, auto rickshaws were not there. Imagine no traffic near Andheri Station!!

A final note, I had been a critic of MS Dhoni, but I am happy to admit that I was wrong. Well played Mr. Cool!! Hats off!! And Thank You!!

A side note … where is Ms. Pandey?

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

I am a huge fan of Role Playing Games (RPGs). Especially those which are random in nature i.e the dungeons are generated in real-time and not from a pre-made style.

The first RPG I really loved was Diablo, but the first real random RPG I played was Nethack.

So when I came across the mention of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup on Questionable Content (it’s a comic strip), I could not resist myself. I just had to try out the game.

And whattay game!! A must see for all fans of any slash’ems. Of course I am not an elitist, and I prefer to play with a tile-set :-|

Fortune Online: Diablo2 style MMORPG

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After power leveling my first level 85 Dranei Hunter on World of Warcraft, I kind of realized that I need to slow down on the WoW front. Not only was it eating a significant amount of my free time, but I had gotten a bit jaded by it.

So after staying away from it for half a week, I tried to give this a whirl. FortuneOnline is a free MMORPG which has the look and feel of Diablo 2 … took me back to my days of engineering … bunking lectures so that I could stay back and slay Diablo/Baal or his uber-minions. I think that game is the only game I played to its fullest (for a full 6-7 years).

Pros:

  • Interesting power-ups and skill trees for different classes
  • It’s a browser based game – no pesky bulky client downloads
  • Platform dependant as long as you can install Adobe Flash
  • Diablo clone MMORPG (I can’t get enough of this)
  • Good controls and game controls are extremely responsive
  • Game is divided into different sections very nicely
  • It’s free

Cons:

  • Not many players online who seem to be active on the general chat
  • The consumable items do not work sometimes (I hope the developers sort this glitch out)
  • Game can get a bit repetitive after some time
  • The item drops in the game suggest presence of more classes that the player can have, however when I was in character creation, I did not see those classes (don’t know if there is a premium mode)
  • The plot is not riveting, or perhaps I am still too jaded for really engaging into the game plot.
  • The graphics are meh! … however, even Diablo was not that awesome (remember it was 1999), now our expectations have gone up

All in all, a good whirl and you can idle by a few boring hours with this game. I do hope that the Torchlight folks can turn out a better MMORPG

Kongregate: A collection of games

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

For those of you who do not have the bandwidth (internet or time) nor are hardcore gamers there are not many games (unless if you count the ones Facebook has to offer like Mafia Wars and Farmville).

Worry naught, Kongregate is here!!

The entire site is based like a game, and it is a collection of flash based games. RPG, Strategy, Multi-player, Adventure, you name it, you got it. Even for a hardcore gamer, I got addicted to quite a few games on this site.

A warning for office-goers though, you might get addicted to playing games!