Introducing Cas!

Posted on 2011 March 12 by Castorcato - (Nathan) — 2 Comments

Hello!

Hey there guys, I’m a good friend of Taugrim’s and he’s very kindly offered me a contribution spot on the website.

At first I was a little reluctant because for years now Taugrim has done a fine job on his lonesome, but over time he has persuaded me to try and help him out (particularly because Rift is such an information-demanding, overwhelming game!).

A bit about me.

What can I say, I’ve played online RPGs since ever. I’m a big gamer in general but, alas, the MMO genre has recently held me in its addictive grasp so much more so than console gaming lately.

Here’s a brief run-down of the MMOs/Online RPGs I’ve played;

Legend of Mir 2 – ‘Fuzion’ – Level 44 Warrior (no mean feat!)
Legend of Mir 3 – ‘Fuzion’ – Level 32 Warrior
Diablo II – ‘Shiana’ – Sorc
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning – ‘Malokash’ – Zealot ( *Sigh* memories http://www.whalliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=254992&highlight=Malokash )
– ‘Ulrinar’ Swordmaster
Allods Online – ‘Cheon’ – Scout
Aion – ‘Dardante’ – Chanter
Lord of the Rings Online – ‘Ulrinar’ – Runekeeper
World of Warcraft – ‘Castorcato’ – Fire Mage ( videos @ www.youtube.com/vgsensation / warcraftmovies.com )

Many more not worthy of mentioning.

What will I be doing at taugrim.com?

Providing information, posting videos and more. I hope to dialogue with you all a lot!

Currently playing…

Rift – ‘Cas’ – Cleric

Posted in Blog Musings, Cleric

Blizzard Wants to Sticky My Prot Pally PVP Guide

Posted on 2011 March 12 by Ed Park — 23 Comments

As you may know, five months ago I wrote the first draft of my Prot Pally PVP Guide with the 4.0 changes. Four months ago, I created a thread for my Guide on the new WoW us.battle.net Paladin forum right after it went live.

The thread generated a lot of rich dialogue, and players reported the thread for sticky and the 1st post in the thread was “Highly rated.” However, for many months my Guide thread was not stickied.

I speculated that the lack of sticky might be due to:

Blizzard did not want to overtly support Prot Pally PVP and therefore not stickying the thread was aligned with that intent, and/or
Blizzard did not like that I had links to my blog here for the Guide, even thought it’s pretty clear that the main intention behind the Guide is helping players not advertising – and I’ve learned from past experience that I can’t trust forum moderators to not delete my content so I post all my Guides here

Last night, I received the following email:

If I had received this email anytime from November until early February, I would have been thrilled.

However, given that I already de-subbed from WoW due to interest in Rift, the post from Blue about not being too concerned with Prot Pally PVP, and the fact that my free time is very limited, I haven’t decided what to do.

Don’t get me wrong – I recognize that very few threads get stickied on a WoW class forum.

I just find the timing of all this rather ironic :)

EDIT (2011/03/13): I went ahead and updated / scrubbed my Guide thread on the WoW Paladin forum, and it’s now stickied:

Posted in Paladin, PVP, RIFT, World of Warcraft

Rift Warrior PVP Video, Volume 3: Riftblade / Paladin @ 24

Posted on 2011 March 7 by Ed Park — 65 Comments

Here’s my 3rd Rift video:

This HD video is narrated footage of my level 24 Warrior in a Codex warfront (queued with 2 other players) in the 20-29 bracket in the MMORPG Rift.

Here is my spec:
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0cLhg.xRs0dsMMz.xMo

As I alluded to in the video, Rift supports an amazing degree of customization per class. For example, if you play the Cleric class, you can spec that character to be a cast-time healer, a HoT-based healer, a melee-AOE healer (a la Warhammer Warrior Priest), a melee DPS, or some combination of the above.

This is far more flexible compared to most recent titles (e.g. Allods, Aion, Warhammer, LOTRO, World of Warcraft) where you roll a particular class and have limited flexibility in terms of a particular role. E.g. WoW Paladin has 1 healing tree. If you want to play a HoT-based healer you have to re-roll as a Druid. In Rift you get to customize to the mechanics and playstyle you prefer.

It is simply bloody amazing :)

If you have questions/comments/feedback, post ’em!

EDIT (2011/03/09): a few notes I wanted to make. First off, I haven’t played Cleric really so I don’t know the mechanics. That being said, Jodah posted an awesome comment with his take on Cleric mechanics.

Also a poster named Conwolv summarized the flexibility of the Rift spec system very elegantly in a comment below:

I just love the fact that not only can you build your own spec, but it’s really alright to do so (unlike wow where you’re severely punished for doing so by not being optimal). Really makes the game amazingly fun to play. It’s not just the illusion of choice, but actual choice in the way you play.

Posted in Cleric, PVP, RIFT, Video, Warrior

Rift Warrior PVP Video, Volume 2: Riftblade / Paladin @ 21

Posted on 2011 March 5 by Ed Park — 18 Comments

Here’s my 2nd Rift video:

This HD video is narrated footage of my level 21 Warrior in a Codex warfront (queued solo) in the 20-29 bracket in the MMORPG Rift.

Here is my spec:
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0c_Lh..xMszdsz0z.xoo

P.S. I wanted to get this video out sooner, but I had to address the frame rate issue for the game. You can read about what I tried and what worked for ATI graphics card here:
https://taugrim.com/2011/03/03/boosting-frame-rate-in-rift-ati/

Here are the macros that I have found useful so far:

Gap Closer

#show riftwalk
cast bull rush
cast riftwalk

Spam Attack

#show retaliation
cast retaliation
cast aggressive block
cast frost strike
cast flamespear

FB/FS

#show fiery burst
cast Fiery Burst
cast Flamespear

AOE Snare

#show Earth Burst
cast Earth Burst
cast flamespear

For the above macros, note that I have created a macro for each ability (e.g. Rift Surge, Fiery Burst, Earth Burst) that spends Attack Points, so that I can make sure to control when that valuable resource is spent.

If you have questions/comments/feedback, post ’em!

Posted in PVP, RIFT, Video, Warrior

Boosting Frame Rate in Rift for ATI

Posted on 2011 March 3 by Ed Park — 8 Comments

Earlier this week I was getting 20 FPS on Rift’s Medium graphics setting. A few days ago that dropped to about 10-12 FPS, which is very sluggish in Rifts and PVP.

After finding a fix, I’m up to 30 FPS on Medium graphics setting and 25 FPS on High. Since it took me a while how to sort it out, I figured I’d post the information.

Here are my Alienware laptop specs:

6 GB RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730: 1 GB RAM
Intel CORE i7 Q740 CPU (quad-core) @ 1.73 GHz
Windows 7
x64-based PC
Extended display: laptop (1600 x 900) and monitor (1600 x 900)

Here are the things I tried, and the results:

1. Turned off extended display so that I was only displaying on 1 screen

This didn’t help.

I also went through the usual suspects: background jobs on my computer, other apps running, checking for disk fragmentation, etc.

2. Installed new ATI software

This provided a better Catalyst Control Center UI but didn’t seem to help, as the drivers were the same version.

EDIT (2011/03/10): note that updating CCC does not update your video card driver. That is a separate install.

3. Applied ATI settings in Rift’s Client Performance Troubleshooting Guide

This didn’t help.

4. Used the D3D9 DLLs

I tried using both the pre-generated and self-generated DLL files. This didn’t help. I ended up removing the DLL file.

5. Dabbled with overclocking software

I tried using MSI Afterburner. This didn’t help, as most of the settings were already at max or unlockable.

6. Installed the latest Catalyst Application Profile

Voila!

This instantly boosted frame rate on Medium from 10 to 30 FPS – a hugely noticeable difference. I tried the 11.2 CAP2 file on AMD’s web site, and it either didn’t work or it didn’t work with the older version of Catalyst Control Center that was factory installed.

So I basically had to uninstall the factory-installed Catalyst Control Center, install the latest Catalyst Control Center (using default directory settings), and then install 11.2 CAP3.

I’m psyched because I want a solid frame rate when recording PVP videos, 30 on Medium or 25 on High is good enough for quality footage.

EDIT (2011/03/10): three days ago I started getting crappy FPS again, down in the neighborhood of 10-12, and the UI felt very laggy. So I installed the latest ATI video card driver from Dell (for some devices, especially laptops, you get the driver from your manufacturer not AMD) and updated my BIOS, and the frame rate issues are gone. I hope it stays that way! Frame rate has been my only frustration with Rift.

EDIT (2011/04/02): this week I started getting low FPS again. I tried various things to no avail, and I started to think it was a video card issue. I gave Alienware customer support a call, and they pinpointed the cause of the issue – a really simple cause. On my Alienware laptop there is a bar of touch-activated icons just above the Function keys, and one of the icons is for “Stealth”, or reduced-energy-consumption, mode. This mode is intended to conserve battery life at the cost of performance. It was enabled. /facepalm. After disabling it I’m having solid FPS on High. I am started to wonder whether the CAP actually did anything or not.