About
Why This Blog Exists
This blog is a platform for me to share my guides, narrated videos, experience, and analysis for MMORPGs.
I’ve been an avid contributor to the community of several MMORPGs. I used to post my guides and videos on various forums, but sometimes they got buried or deleted (as was the case with LOTRO). So I finally decided to invest the time to start this blog.
I look forward to dialoguing with you here!
Cheers,
Taugrim
(you can contact me via my gmail.com account, same user name)
I’m Currently Playing
- World of Warcraft as Taugrim the Balance Druid (L80) and Taugrimm the Retribution Paladin (L80) onWildhammer
My History with MMORPGs
Here is the list of games I’ve played:
- 1998: Meridian59
- 2005 – May 2006: KnightOnline as Taugrim the Archer (L61) on Beramus
- May 2006 – Nov 2007: World of Warcraft as Maeglor the Feral Druid (L70) on Agamaggan
- Nov 2007 – Sep 2008: The Lord of the Rings Online as Taugrim the Captain (R6 L50) and Taugrem the Orc Reaver (R6) on Landroval
- Sep2008 – Sep 2009: Warhammer Online as Taugram the Swordmaster (RR65 L40) and Taugrim the Bright Wizard (RR41 L40) on Phoenix Throne
- Sep 2009 – Jan 2010: Aion as Taugrum the Chanter and Taugrim the Sorceror on Lumiel
- Feb – Mar 2010: Allods Online as Taugrim the Melee Healer on Tensess
- Mar – now: World of Warcraft as Taugrim the Balance Druid (L80) and Taugrimm the Retribution Paladin (L80) onWildhammer
My first guide was the Guide to Rogue-Archer for KnightOnline (KO), which is a free-to-play MMORPG. I wrote that guide to answer questions that kept coming up on the forums and to address the widely-held perception that Rogue-Archers sucked. Rogue-Archer suited me well: the class had excellent mobility, solid DPS, and enough spot-healing ability to bail people out of trouble.
KO was fun, but the game was very hackable, and I got tired of PVP’ing against players who cheated. So I switched over to World of Warcraft (WoW) with a few friends from KO during the summer of 2007, and we played on the server Agamaggan. WoW was the first game I ever played that had some serious class balance issues, and because of WoW’s design, gear balance issues. It was sometimes amusing, sometimes frustrating dialoguing with the community, as there was a lot of in-fighting between players of the same class of different specs and between players of different classes that filled the same role (tank, DPS, or healer). For 11 months in The Burning Crusade (TBC) expansion pack as a Feral tanking Druid. Eventually I got burned out of the gear grind, so I quit WoW cold turkey in November 2007.
I still wanted to play an MMORPG, I just didn’t want to deal with a grindfest. At the suggestion of a friend, who I’d been playing online with since KO, I tried The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO). In some aspects, LOTRO was the most enjoyable MMORPG I’ve played. The community was stellar, the game was immersive, and there were no issues of different classes playing the same role (e.g. main tank, main healer, etc), as there had been with WoW. While LOTRO’s PVE was quite good, I’m a PVP’r at heart, and the Moors PVP had a lot of issues. I initially only PVP’d as a Freep (with my Captain), but eventually I switched to playing a Creep (Orc Reaver) because Creepside needed more players on my server (Landroval) to balance things out.
While playing LOTRO, I wrote several class guides (2 for Captain, 1 for Orc Reaver, 1 for Uruk Blackarrow). One common issue I ran into was that a written guide only went so far in terms of explaining how to play a class. So I bought FRAPS to record footage and started posting PVP videos on YouTube. What I found lacking in most MMORPG videos is any kind of context; usually a video has music playing, and it can be difficult to tell what is going on. So I started narrating my videos, and the narrations generated a lot of positive feedback.
In late Spring of 2008, I started following Warhammer Online (WAR) with keen interest. WAR was incredibly attractive to me. The concept of leveling up via RVR (which is PVP) sounded awesome, and I was intrigued by the mechanics of classes such as the Warrior Priest, which uses melee abilities to generate “mana” (called Righteous Fury) for healing. When WAR launched in September 2008, I switched from LOTRO to WAR.
In WAR, I initially played a Bright Wizard to 40, made a lot of narrated BW videos, and wrote the Bright Wizard Class Mechanics Guide. Due to a shortage of Order tanks on my server, I rolled a Swordmaster as my main character in November and continued cranking out narrated videos and wrote a Swordmaster Class Mechanics Guide.
I played WAR until April 2009, at which point I de-subscribed because I was frustrated with the lack of server and mass PVP stability in Patch 1.2. In early July, I decided to check out WAR in Patch 1.3 on a free trial basis. The game’s stability had improved, so I re-subbed and played until mid September 2009, at which time I de-subbed because I wanted to try Aion, and WAR had gone from being fairly stable with the great Patch 1.3b to being very unstable and buggy in Patch 1.3.1.
In September 2009, the North America version of Aion launched. There was a lot of hoopla about the game in terms of its polish and PVP potential. My initial impression was that the game was grindy but I leveled a Chanter to 40, by which point the grindy nature of the game just killed my interest to continue leveling to 50 so I de-subbed in early February 2010.
I started playing the F2P game Allods Online in February 2010 but by the end of March decided to stop playing AO due to concerns about the game. In the meanwhile, I’d heard that there were several changes to WoW in Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) that removed a lot of the grind that I’d detested back in TBC. So I decided to give WoW another try. This time around, I chose Balance as my main spec for my Druid and eventually decided to level a Paladin to play as Retribution and Protribution.
hi buddy longtime no see; you may not remember me but im a good friend of arc and robin adonis of kol. i recently quit the game and went to wow looking for you guys but i guess im on the wrong server (tanaris). anyways your doing really great on your followups i just have 1 question. i am a lvl 80 mage now on wow;and am having trouble with my specs in pvp i was wondering if you can email me some advise on mageing pvp. my specs are arcane and frost cause of the casting time. dont get me wrong i do kill also lol. also i have all the correct armor for the pvps but its like im useless still. the armor is the hateful gladiator armor. i dont want to quit the game cause its a fun game to me and DirtNapCentral. remember that clan from kol ran by Dirtnap4U formally the train runners. well the whole clan is now on wow as is arc and we are all lvl 80s but im the only basic mage inneed of advise; so if you can give me some id appreciate it
) ty
ulessyes
2009 July 20 at 11:45
It’s been 20 months since I played WoW, and I never played an endgame mage, so I’m not the right person to ask.
Please say hi to ARC and Robin for me, and thanks for dropping by!
taugrim
2009 July 20 at 13:05
ok buddy thanks alot , and i will probably see you on aion when it comes out it looks really good from what i saw. and im tryin to get the DC clan to follow me there. so i’ll still be named as sqwiggy, let me know of any follow ups on the game ty
ulessyes
2009 July 23 at 11:26
Hey Taugrim. Hope you remember me (the mighty Magus ;D), we had some good fights in WAR. I’m playing LOTRO now on Landroval and I noticed some old post of yours. Couldn’t believe it was the same person but low and behold it was.
Anyway, just wanted to say heya and if you ever decide to drop back into LOTRO gimme me a shout. My name there is Zhanthir.
Peace.
Malaghaas
2009 September 23 at 07:55
(belated reply, heh)
Hi Malaghaas!
Of course I remember you. We had some fun fights – you were a skilled Magus
Funny that you saw some of my old posts on the LOTRO forums. I was very heavily involved with the LOTRO community on the Captain forum and on the Landroval server forum, back when I played LOTRO from November 2007 to September 2008.
I doubt I’ll play LOTRO again.
That game has a terrific community and some aspects of the game are really well done. I just got tired of the limitations of the PVP system, especially the ridiculous amount of CC.
If you get this response, let me know which Freep and Creep classes you play, I’m curious.
Cheers,
Tau
taugrim
2009 December 16 at 14:13
Hi,
My name is David Lui, and I am a Marketing Coordinator for F2PMMO, a new publisher of online games and unique services. We are excited to announce our new game portal, F2PMMO.com, which will launch at least two high-quality MMORPGs per month for the global free-to-play market. Our first addition, Heroes of Gaia, launched on December 7th. We have noticed that your blog features highlights and articles about other popular games and would be delighted if you would consider publishing an article about our game or/and our services. We will also provide you with bids for our unique reward system. I appreciate your consideration in this matter, and please don’t hesitate to contact me for further questions.
–
Kind Regards,
David Lui
Marketing Coordinator
HiLvl, Inc.
1982-B Zanker Road. San Jose
California, USA, 95112.
Tel: (510) 381-9990
Skype: dlui620
Internet: http://www.hilvl.com
Confidentiality Warning: This e-mail contains information intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above. If the reader of this e-mail is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, any dissemination, publication or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify us by return e-mail. Thank you.
David Lui
2009 December 16 at 00:56
We will also provide you with bids for our unique reward system.
What exactly do you mean by that?
Are you talking about compensating me with reward items for writing about your game(s)?
Or are you talking about providing me with rewards that I could share with readers of this blog? E.g. use this reward code and get a free +1 sword for your new character in a game. I’ve seen other blogs sponsor game rewards that way.
I want to maintain clear disclosure so that readers of this blog understand if and when I have any potential conflicts of interest when writing about games.
Cheers,
Tau
taugrim
2009 December 16 at 04:30
Hey Taugrim!
I just started playing Allods and i’ve been trying different classes and builds to see which one was my preference, and it turned out your healer spec was. Now ok, ‘Thanks’ i hear you say – but what brought back a lot of memories was your name! I doubt you remember me that much, but waaay back in the day, when we played KO, we met through my dad – ARC. I don’t know if you guys keep in touch anymore, its been so long, but im sure he’d love to hear from you. I remember your guides being of endless help to the both of us,(and no doubt everyone who read them!) so i’m really glad to see your still a gamer.
My dad plays WoW now too, i think he has a lvl 80 Paladin and Rogue, and numerous other characters, although for the life of me i can’t remember on which server. It’d be great to hear from you – keep up the good work!
P.S KO has been as good as run into the gutter in my opinion, the cheating is if anything, worse than before, and there is no real endgame. I just wish it didn’t have the best PvP system i’ve played (even if it was because of the combo ‘fluke’ haha)
Jimmy
2010 May 2 at 11:11
Of course I remember you and your dad. Every now and again ARC and I email each other. I still keep in touch with Mahdi (Kerchek), you may remember him.
Tell your Dad I said hello!
I recently transferred my 80 Druid from Agamaggan (US) Alliance to Wildhammer (US) Horde.
taugrim
2010 May 2 at 15:34
hey taugrim love your site keep up the god work , i jus got in this beta seams like a game up your ally
http://www.bloodlinechampions.com/
its only pvp think wow backgrounds but high quality textures like torch light and allods really fun check it out sign and try to get into the beta
charlie
2010 August 7 at 15:35