Another Free UT3 Black Weekend

Epic and Steam are at it again, offering a free weekend of play for Unreal Tournament 3 Black.

Play Unreal Tournament 3 FREE this weekend! Visit the UT3 game page to start pre-loading and be ready to play as soon as it starts Thursday at 1:00PM PDT (8:00PM GMT).

For anyone interested, start the pre-load now, its a fairly large download.

DDO: My 28 pt, Newbie Class Build Choices!

I have decided on two Class Builds I want to try in DDO. I've pulled both from this great thread on the DDO forums. In the end, I didn't want to be tied down to a melee character. I wanted some flavor and decided I will play two toons: one melee and one spellcaster. I decided to avoid multi-classing and stuck with two pure builds.

Melee: The Backstab Fighter (Halfling Fighter)

Backstab Fighter
Level 20 Chaotic Good Halfling Male
(20 Fighter)
Hit Points: 322
Spell Points: 0
BAB: 20\20\25\30\30
Fortitude: 16
Reflex: 16
Will: 11

Starting Base Stats
Abilities (Level 1)
=======================
Strength 16
Dexterity 16
Constitution 14
Intelligence 8
Wisdom 8
Charisma 8

Spellcaster: The Generalist (Human Sorcerer)

Generalist
Level 16 True Neutral Human Male
(16 Sorcerer)
Hit Points: 170
Spell Points: 1610
BAB: 8\8\13
Fortitude: 8
Reflex: 4
Will: 9

Starting Base Stats
Abilities (Level 1)
=======================
Strength 10
Dexterity 8
Constitution 16
Intelligence 8
Wisdom 8
Charisma 18

Now all I need to do is figure out a unique name that is NOT taken already! All of my standbys are taken. Damn newbs!

DDO: Class recommendation for a new player?

With the discussion around DDO character builds still swirling, I figured I would ask for input from the general audience about what character I should play? I don't want to waste any time messing with building one myself, so I am sort of looking for a complete 28-point build.

I am a D&D veteran and can understand most of the slang. My current preference in play-style hovers more towards melee classes. I don't need to be top DPS, but DPS is still important. I'd rather have more utility than just outputting DPS. I would like to try avoid Cleric builds, but I am open to anything currently.

Comment away!

Dungeons and Dragons Online's Pay Wall: 32 Point Builds

Update: Here are the new-player builds, which are attainable with 28 base stat points.

A character planner tool is available here.

Read below for my bitching:

I have been playing the Free-to-Play (F2P) version of Dungeons and Dragons online for an hour this morning and I've come across a potential deal breaker: 32 point builds. As with any game I venture into, I look for guides and general information on the forums.

For DDO, I came across a great Character Builds forum, but could not figure out HOW to make any of the builds actually listed. All of them included four extra stat points that I did not seem to have access to in the character creator.

Long story short, players have to play with a throw away character, grind to 1750 Favor, and then re-roll a character that then gets 32 (instead of 28) base stat points to allocate. At first, I thought this was a limitation of the F2P model, but I quickly found out its a "feature". Yes, there is a "feature" in DDO that makes a player's first character something they will have to stop playing in order to re-roll a character with sufficient end-game stat points.

To add insult to this injury, Turbine's potential solution is to add the 32 points as a purchasable item in their cash shop.

At this time you still have to earn enough favor to unlock a 32 point build, however we are definitely discussing adding them in the store in the future.

Looking at the forums, this would be a huge hit with players. However, this absolutely disgusts me. Buying races and classes is fine, but paying for what SHOULD BE basic class building features is a game-killer.

However, the wound wasn't deep enough as Turbine pours salt in by forcing players to buy adventure packs to unlock enough quests which will allow a player to achieve enough favor to get the 32 base stat points. Guess what, DDO has a pay wall.

This may be a day one deal breaker for me. I don't want to waste my time on a character that is instantly perceived as weaker than the other players around him. I don't care what the counter-argument is. Bob gets 32. I get 28. That's four points I'm not getting for a character I am going to have to stop using once I've unlocked the next four points.

With all of this said, maybe I am over-reacting, as I've not invested enough time into figuring out the system and what is involved. There is still a bad taste in my mouth and I'm wasting time researching instead of playing.

Here's a tip for Turbine: F2P games fail because they become too fucking confusing.

Steal of a Deal: BioWare offers Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for $10 (Steam or Direct2Drive)

Great scoop over at Massively:

BioWare announced at PAX 2009 that they're handing out $10 doses of nostalgia by offering KOTOR downloads for PC through both Direct2Drive and Steam.

Getting back to the MMO angle, there's another 25% off of that for Star Wars: The Old Republic community members who download the game from Direct2Drive.

I'm already downloading.