A Request

Not from me.

No, the founder of Curse network, had some things to say about Aion. It’s not often you see open letters like this come from someone in a position like his. Curse as a site has grown tremendously since it’s humble beginnings with WoW.  It’s not long, so if you’re interested in the game, it’s definitely worth the read to see what he has to suggest to keep the game from being relegated to a “…300k subscriber game within 6 months, not the one-million+ subscriber game it should be.”

Set This Up

Yesterday for work, I had to drive for just over 300 miles. It sucked, but it did give me a lot of time for thinking, and other than my normal listening to talk radio, and physically feeling my blood pressure rise at the ridiculous crap that goes on in government, I had time to think about my other favorite hobby: gaming. I was thinking about my DoK and my SW and the gear they are currently in, what gear progression I was working towards on them, and the cost/benefit of those items.

Particularly I started thinking about sets, and set bonuses. I know it’s hard for some of the WoW generation to remember, but there was a time before set bonuses. WoW was the first “traditional” MMO to make use of them, it really was a ported copy of a concept from Diablo II. Hell, the entirety of WoW was little more than an elongated, more complex version of Diablo II (but that’s a different topic all-together). I remember when I first started playing EQ2, I hauled my CPU over to my friend’s place with a buddy, and the three of us jumped into the game together. We were shocked when we got gear with stat bonuses on them from early levels! Set bonuses were never even in that game till much, much later (Echoes of Faydwer I believe).

So, what has led to this seemingly new staple of modern MMOs? Why are set bonuses used?