Crab Toss – Skill Overview

Southsun Cove basically got “relaunched” and for a few weeks, we can enjoy the mini game “Crab Toss”. Unfortunately, this is just a temporary addition to the game. Either way, it’s there now for us to play. In order to enter, you speak with the NPC “Karlotta” on the small island north of “Sawtooth Bay” who will explain to you what the game is about. As seems to be typical for ArenaNet, this is just a very basic explanation with no way to see the skills you will get before entering the game arena. What I knew from others was that it’s a game where you need to carry a crab. That crab will be in the arena-like place you see next to Karlotta and it’s played against other human players. When you enter, you get tossed in an arena with other players randomly and it’s “free for all”. You can and need to steal the crab from whoever’s carrying it. The longer you carry the crab, the more points you achieve. After a certain amount of time, the player with the most points is chosen as the winner.

When I first entered, I just stood there doing nothing while reading the skill descriptions. Then I thought I was good to go… until I had a crab. I clicked something not knowing that my skills had changed and I tossed the crab to another player. Bah. It got really difficult once I saw the crates and the resulting extra items.

That was when I decided to take pictures of the different skills and read about them while sipping on a cup of coffee without playing the game, so I would not have to worry about reading, understanding, memorizing, and playing at the same time.

Regular skills

First, there are the four what I call “regular skills” that you have when the game begins and when you’re not carrying a crab or using an item found in the barrels and/or on the ground.

Skill number	Skill name	Skill description	Other information
1	Swipe	Swipe at a competitor, and steal whatever they are carrying.	Range: 150 Cast time: 1/2 second Cooldown: 4 seconds
2	Find Rock	Pick up a rock.	Range: 150 Cast time: 1/2 second Cooldown: 5 seconds
3	Dash	Dash at foes. Hold down to increase the length of the dash.	Evade: 3 1/4 seconds Cast time: 2 seconds Cooldown: 8 seconds
4	Punch	Punch a competitor, dazing them and causing them to drop the crab.	Range: 150 Cast time: 1/4 second Cooldown: 4 seconds

After using skill no. 2 “Find Rock”, you have a rock and can throw that one. The rock replaces “Swipe”. Skills 3 and 4 remain the same.

Skill number	Skill name	Skill description	Other information
1	Rock Toss	Toss a rock, dazing your target.	Range: 600 Cast time: 1/4 second

Skills when carrying the crab – Skills 3 and 4 are identical with the regular skills

The first two skills change when you can grab a crab. This is what confused me when I had first gotten the crab as I accidentally tossed it right to another player. Yeah, smart move. ;)

Skill number	Skill name	Skill description	Other information
1	Crab Crack	Smash a competitor with the crab’s hard shell, knocking them down.	Range: 150 Cast time: 1/2 second Cooldown: 2 seconds
2	Crab Toss	Toss the crab to another player.	Range: 1000 Cast time: 3/4 seconds Cooldown: 1 second

Skills from crate-items

At some point, crates will be thrown into the arena. The content will be random and I’m not sure I’ve found every item so far – so this part may be incomplete. For your convenience, I will edit it as soon as I find new items. :)

Southsun Punch – Skills 1 to 4 are identical to the regular skills.

Skill number	Skill name	Skill description	Other information
5	Drink Southsun Punch	Drink a refreshing bottle of Southsun Punch to restore your health and endurance	Cast time: 1 second Cooldown: 4 seconds

Plank – Skills 1 and 2 are different from the regular skills

Skill number	Skill name	Skill description	Other information
1	Plank Smash	Leap at a competitor, causing knockdown on impact. Breaks plank.	Range: 600 Cast time: 3/4 seconds Cooldown: 6 seconds
2	Swing Plank	Swing a plank at a competitor, causing a blowout on impact. Breaks plank.	Range: 150 Cast time: 3/4 seconds Cooldown: 4 seconds

Karka Egg – Skills 1 and 2 are different from the regular skills

Skill number	Skill name	Skill description	Other information
1	Throw Egg	Throw your egg at the target area, immobilizing any foe within the blast radius.	Range: 1000 Cast time: 1/2 second
2	Deploy Egg Trap	Deploy your egg like a trap. Immobilizes targets	Cast time: 1/2 second

Conch – Skills 1 – 4 are identical to the regular skills

Skill number	Skill name	Skill description	Other information
5	Blow Conch	Blow the conch, causing the competitors to flee in fear.	Range: 400 Cast time: 1/2 second Cooldown: 6 seconds

Fishing pole – replaces the first skill, no second skill. Skills 3 and 4 are identical to the regular skills.

Skill number	Skill name	Skill description	Other information
1	Go Fish	Cast a line at your target, pulling it toward you.	Range: 1200 Cast time: 1 second Cooldown: 2 seconds

Anchor – replaces the first skill, no second skill. Skills 3 and 4 are identical to the regular skills.

Skill number	Skill name	Skill description	Other information
1	Anchor Fling	Throw your anchor high in the air. Knocks down your target when it returns to the ground.	Range: 5000 Cast time: 1/2 second

Last but not least, don’t forget to avoid the big veteran karkas. If they roll over you, you lose all your health and will be unable to play for a few seconds. When you’ve got a debuff from the karka hatchlings (the kind of debuff that doesn’t wear off after a few seconds – see screenshot below), dodge to remove it. When your life would reach 0, you get stunned for a few seconds before getting your life back to 1000 which enables you to continue playing.

Karka Hatchlings Debuff

There can also be more than one crab at the same time, apparently. So choose wisely which player to follow when that happens. Maybe a crab-carrier is right behind you and it’d be a waste to follow the other one instead.

Once the time has run out, the player with the most points wins. This opens a score board right in the middle of the screen. Don’t forget to close this and walk to the middle of the arena because there will be a chest waiting for you to open it! :o) So far, I have only gotten green and blue items from it, but who knows what else can be in there.

Mini Lion Cub – Miiiine!

I admit it, I’m weak! But doesn’t it look great with my warrior?

The mini lion cub is only available for a week (4 more days at the moment) and then another mini will be in the gem store for a week. I don’t like that concept, to be honest. I want to see everything at the same time and not one mini after the other. But I guess they’re counting on that: You can’t compare, so you’ll just buy everything. Besides, they’re time-limited sales. You may never be able to buy them again!

I thought the hippo was cute, then the lion came and I realized this is much cuter! I’m glad I didn’t buy the hippo. ;) So no, I do not just buy everything they offer just because it’s a time-limited mini.

There’s just one question now: When will we see adult lions in the game? :o)

The 10/10 project: Wurm Online (Day 7)

Game number 7 for the 10/10 Project was Wurm Online. Even though the game officially released on December 12, 2012, this is not a new game at all. According to its wiki article, development began back in 2003 and people could start playing it in 2006. Notch, the maker of Minecraft, was also one of the developers of Wurm Online.

I had tried out the game at some point last year, but that hardly counts as I had to quit after maybe 5 minutes or so due to simulation sickness caused by the game being in first person view. In the meantime, I have learned that I can deal with it better if I make sure that there’s enough light in front of the PC, but the biggest help is to put mouse sensitivity as low as possible. In Wurm Online, it’s not just a slider in the options, though. You need to open the console (via the F1 key) and then enter “sensitivity 2″. Well, you can use any number between 0 (nothing happens when you try to move the camera with your mouse, though) and 10. 1 was too slow for me, but 2 worked perfectly. With that done, playing was no issue at all.

Installing the game, on the other hand, was a bit of an issue. It somehow got uninstalled after installing it the first time. I have no idea what I did (and I usually do know that, even if I may come across as clueless sometimes ^^), but the installation folder was empty. Gone. So I reinstalled, but the game couldn’t be launched. Then I deleted the folder and used a different one to install the game again. That finally worked.

Was the game worth all the hassle and the risk of feeling sick again? Yes, yes it was! Wurm Online did not feel like a game, but more like an adventure and I loved every minute of it.

You start the game with a few basic items like a pickaxe and then you’re thrown into a foreign world – okay, not that fast. You start with a tutorial that teaches you the basics. Seeing how this game is a bit more complicated than your average MMO, the tutorial was rather long with lots of text to read. Most of the items in the game are crafted. The buildings are all built by players. You get basics like clay, cotton, water, but the rest is up to you and the rest of the players. You cannot just go somewhere and buy a pottery flask to carry water with you. First, you need to find clay, then you make a clay flask, then you need to find a stove, oven or campfire (which were made by other players or made by you) and turn the clay flask into a pottery flask. On top of that, you need to be careful where you go as there are hostile mobs around. The Wurm Online Wiki will be your best friend, especially in the very beginning.

But let’s get right into my adventure. Here I was, just freshly finished with the tutorial. I decided to join a non-PvP server. Hey, I have trouble understanding the basics of the game, the last thing I need is having to deal with hostile players on top of that! Independence it was, then. It sounded like a nice enough name for a server. Apparently, you can travel to other servers and play on there, but I haven’t tried that out.

Guides for starting out in Wurm Online said that I should try to find an empty space where I could settle. Let me spoiler you already: I did not find anything. ;) Independence was built on by other players as far as I could see. So I tried to just find a corner where I could start crafting or do something. Food and water aren’t needed to survive per se as you won’t die without them, but it’ll still give you serious disadvantages if you’re starving or getting really thirsty. Food wasn’t the problem, since you can always forage or botanize grass. This resulted in several kinds of berries that I could eat. I decided to stay close to the water to drink whenever I got thirsty. Since a pottery flask allows you to store water, I tried to make one. The first step, as mentioned above, is to find clay, which I did, lucky me! ;) Then I needed wood for a campfire or find an oven I could use, but the trees all belonged to other players and I wasn’t allowed to use any of the ovens I saw. If something belongs to you, you can choose whether others can use it or not and it seemed like nobody allowed strangers to use their stuff.

For the most part, there were no mobs around. So I felt safe – until I ran right into some wolves. I kept on running, hoping to get away from them which I eventually did – only to run right into an old angry troll. The result was a few wounds, nothing big. I tried to figure out how to heal myself, though. While doing that, I also remembered that the tutorial said something about water and that most animals/enemies won’t follow you into the water. I guess I should have tried that instead of running from the wolves right into the troll. After asking for advice on Google+, I was told that I should try to treat the wounds as they would get worse over time if they’re bad enough. I had been told about that in the tutorial as well, but of course, I had forgotten about that. After checking, I could confirm that one of my wounds was a lot worse than it was in the beginning and had turned into a severe one. At that point, I only tried to find a cure as I knew it wouldn’t heal and it kept taking away life from me. Again, the Wiki is your best friend in a situation like this and it told me what I needed for some healing covers. I finally found some items I needed by foraging grass. Unfortunately, the first try failed. I managed to use healing covers on one wound when I tried again, but as I wrote, the second one had gotten severe already. The others were at medium, one light wound had healed. I decided that staying in the open hostile world was too dangerous and I had read somewhere that there are usually resources near the starting area where you spawn after the tutorial. I figured this would be the safest place for now. Besides, healing covers are nice, but the ones I had weren’t strong enough to heal the wound and it meant that without treatment, I would die soon.

Finding your way around in Wurm Online isn’t too easy either. There are no maps in this game! I had a compass which didn’t help me much as I hadn’t been paying attention to it earlier. I looked for online maps and found one. The maps you find online are all maintained by players, by the way. I knew the general direction I had to walk to then to get back to the starter area, so off I went. I did not run into the first pack of wolves anymore, but instead, I found another one. Hurrah. With less life thanks to the wounds, I did not want to risk running into them. I remembered that water was probably safe and decided to swim around them. You can swim, but only for a limited amount of time. The longer you swim, the lower your stamina (which equals your “life”) gets. If your stamina is at 0 and you’re still in the water, you will drown. Unfortunately, the more wounds you have, the lower your stamina. I misjudged the amount of stamina it would take to swim by and the result was that I chose death by drowning over death by wolves – and over death by my severe wound. It was a slow, rather embarrassing end. Luckily, I was revived at the starting area. Unfortunately, I had lost quite a few of my starting items (including the compass) that are or were still in my body. I tried to find the location of my body on the online map, but the place that I had memorized was not mentioned there. I only know vaguely where I died. Oh well, c’est la vie. ;) That’s when I decided to ignore it and start fresh.

My second attempt had me going the other way trying to find some resources and I avoided all wolves and trolls this time. There was a starter village or whatever it is, which is player-made as well, I assume, but at least, there was a public mine and there was even an oven that you’re allowed to use. A lot more welcoming! Sadly, I did not have the clay with me anymore and I couldn’t find any. Ironic, isn’t it? And there was still the issue of not being able to find an empty space to call my own and settle. That’s when I decided to end my trip to Wurm Online.

All in all, I haven’t been able to build anything in the game apart from a clay flask and healing covers. I did manage to raise a few of my skills like botanizing and foraging, but nothing else. And yet, I’ve had a lot of fun! I don’t know what the game is like when you’re playing for a longer time, but the hours that I did spend in the game were great and I enjoyed it. I always felt terribly lost, the Wurm Online Wiki was open all the time and used heavily. Still, it was a welcome change to the usual MMOs and I actually like digging into something like that. Not being able to just buy everything at vendors but having to rely on the player economy and crafting is something that I really love and I always hope that the “more mainstream” MMOs adopt this feature as well.

The 10/10 project: Age of Wushu (Day 6)

The 6th game for the 10/10 project was Age of Wushu. This game released on April 10, 2013, with its US publisher Snail Games. It’s been released in China last year. European publish gPotato will probably follow later this year, in case you are waiting for a German or French version – or for a lower ping. The game is called Age of Wulin in the European version.

The gold spam was quite annoying…

Just like Dark of Age Camelot, Age of Wushu also gave me a bit of trouble when it came to my mouse. It simply refused to accept the mouse clicks for the camera view/rotation. I could move while  using the arrow keys to let me change the camera view to look left and right (and move left and right), but that was still too inconvenient, especially as my right hand is on WASD and can’t switch to the arrow keys easily. ;) After having problems with my mouse before, I came prepared this time and had a symmetric mouse ready. This setup worked perfectly.

The customization options for my character were disappointing. I am not talking about how all the settings always make your character look Asian, no matter what you do. This game is set in China, so what do you expect? I did see people complain about that, though, so I thought I should mention that this is not the case here. But there were just very few hair styles, no body options, etc. If you’re into heavy customization and if you really want to look different from the other characters, be prepared that Age of Wushu does not give you this possibility. At least not in the character creation menu. It may be possible by adding costumes.

Age of Wushu is an open pvp game. This means that you can attack and kill every other player in the game. Before you set foot into the game world, you are warned about that fact and need to click on OK to enter the game. So no complaining afterwards, you were warned! I personally do not like open world PvP at all, but I still wanted to have a look at the game. For the whole time I’ve been in the game (a few hours on three different days), I haven’t been attacked once. The system they set up seems to be a good one that discourages mindlessly ganking others… or maybe attacking others just wasn’t possible in the extreme newbie area.

What I absolutely loved about the game were the graphics. The scenery around you is very pretty. I started out in a town (I’m not sure if every character starts in the same place, as you choose a background story in the beginning and this may change where you start). For the first few hours in the game, I have only killed 4 animals to get food for a quest. Other than that, it was combat practice (this is a martial arts game and you start as a beginner) and getting the game explained.

You can gain experience while being offline.

When you go offline, lots of things can happen. As is usual for games nowadays, there is a wiki about the game and it explains what happens when you go offline. This includes your character working as an NPC and when you log on again, you receive the money the character has earned in the meantime. There are also disadvantages: For example, your character that appears as an NPC when you’re offline can be kidnapped by other players. Anything you would have earned normally while being offline gets lost for you. No money for jobs your character did, for example. This is both exciting and annoying for me. While it certainly makes the world feel more alive and immersive (possibly with the exception of characters with horrible names), I also don’t like having something taken away from me without me being able to do anything against it, apart from being online 24/7 which probably wouldn’t work too well either. ;)

What I liked was when I walked into an NPC, they turned around and told me off for being rude. That’s a nice little touch there.

Joining the Wudang

The combat system is something I have not been able to look at too closely in the time I spent in the game. Most of my time was spent reading, looking around, trying to figure out where I am and what I’m doing. You start with your character that doesn’t have a certain class. There are eight schools in the game and it doesn’t take long until the tutorial asks you to join one. I joined Wudang. I chose this school because in the description, it said something about defensive skills and the ability to survive. What I wondered was whether that means that all Wudang characters are basically more “tanky” characters than those of other schools and if that meant that I basically choose a “class” by choosing a school. At this point, the game and its tutorial don’t do a good job in explaining it.

Your character does not have a level per se. Instead, you level up your skills by cultivating and here, team practice is apparently the best way to go. You do that with other players. I haven’t done it myself, so I don’t know what it’s like, but I watched a friend and it didn’t seem difficult to do. Just seemed a bit boring while he was waiting for everybody to be ready and start. Using internal cultivation is only good for as long as you are logged in as it gets paused when you log off, unless you are VIP by buying a monthly sub in which case internal cultivation continues after logging off. Internal cultivation starts out fast, but it goes up to several hours for each skill pretty fast. If it only works while you’re logged in, it’s just not too efficient.

I did get to fight a bit in the tutorial quests as there were teachers that showed me certain moves. The game features active blocking, for example. Another fun thing is that you get flying skills. The combat felt alright. But again, I was a bit confused about where and how to choose which skills I want to have/use.

Being “confused” is probably the feeling I’ve had for most of my playtime. Age of Wushu is not a horrible game at all. On the contrary! There are some really good features. If you like the kidnapping system or not, it’s at least something that you don’t see in every other game out there. But I could tell pretty fast that this game is not for me. I play games to relax and have fun. Being constantly vigilant because another player could be out there to attack me is not what I call fun. I knew about that before I gave it a try, so I’m not complaining here. By trying out the game, I simply confirmed that I still do not like open pvp like that. ;) On top of that, I have the feeling that I would have to invest too much time into the game. Time that I would rather spend on several other games instead.

I did, however, tell bookahnerk’s cousin about the game who has 9 accounts by now, so he can see everything, try out all the crafting professions, and so on. The game only allows you to have one character (per server, I think?). His cousin digged into the game, read all he could find about it and he’s been telling us about the game and how great it is. He loves open pvp and for him, this game is perfect. Oddly enough, what he loves isn’t even that it has open pvp (he still loves that fact, of course), but everything around the game. The features like farming in the game, that your character needs to eat and drink and that the food is made by players exclusively, the combat system and so on.

GW2: Customize with dyes

Dyes: Spring Tide, Indigo, Tungsten

One thing that I’m really disappointed with is the limited visual customization of your characters. For example, I bought Flummi a Tiger Charr Backpack. The problem was that I still only had a rare back item. So I spent 5 gold and 5 guild commendations and bought the Guild Assassin Backpack to put the look of the charr backpack on. I liked the look of that one as well, but the charr one was so much cuter. Then April 1 came and with it, the Super Backpack Cover. My problem is that I really love the look of that one as well! But in order to have that look, I would either have to transmute it over the charr (not going to happen!) or buy a second Guild Assassin Backpack… I’m going to do the latter probably. Then I would also want to have the actual look of the Guild Assassin Backpack.

I just don’t think it’s a great design if it means that in order to have more than one look at a time, I have to buy the stats for an item over and over again. I really wish I could move the wardrobe system from Lotro over to Guild Wars 2. This one gives you several slots and you can put items in there that you want to have for their looks. Then in your character panel, you have several cosmetic outfit slots that you can use to put the look of those items in. In the screenshot on the right, you can see the Hauberk of the Mithril Guard. That character isn’t wearing a helmet and the shoes aren’t shown because hobbits don’t wear shoes, after all. ;) With a simple click, you can switch between different looks. You can even enable and disable individual items which can also be seen in the screenshot. Look at the little eyes at the lower right corner of each icon. If the eye is closed, this item’s look is disabled.

The wardrobe slots and the cosmetic outfit slots can be bought in the Turbine shop (including expansions of those slots). So as far as monetization is concerned, it can be used for that as well.

I just like being able to switch whenever I feel like it and Lotro gives me this choice.

Dyes: Butter, Spring Ice, Brick

But I’m trying to make the best out of the current situation. I won’t stop saying that I really greatly dislike the current system, but I’ll try to live with it. Instead of switching between different looks (except for the two backpacks for Flummi), I switch between dyes. Once a dye is unlocked for a character, this character can use it as often as you want.

On the other hand, dyes are unlocked per character and with a lot of alts like I have, this is going to be expensive. That’s why I decided to specialize my characters for now until I can, maybe, buy all dyes for all characters. My sylvari ranger left the dream around noon and she loves vibrant bright colours. My sylvari thief loves the night, so he gets all blue dyes. Unfortunately, there aren’t even that many cool blue dyes as far as I could see. My male asura elementalist feels very sophisticated, so white-ish colours it is. He likes pairing that with green hues because he thinks he looks radiant in them. I try to focus on natural metallic dyes (and red) with my asura warrior, but that’s mostly because I don’t think the other colours look too good on her armour. Last but not least, my charr warrior likes pastels as that fits best with her light fur.

Dyes: Pastel Peach, Stone, Pastel Mint

Dyes: Country Teal, Gray, Afternoon

Dyes: Chalkboard, Wrath, Blue Ice

Dyes: Spitfire, Honeysuckle, Orangespring

Dyes: Midnight Green, Lime Ice, Olive Ice