It has been a long time coming (at least for me) but I finally get to say what I’ve been dying to for weeks: The Raider’s Companion is now available for purchase. As of right now you can find it on Amazon.com in both paperback and in Kindle form. I cannot begin to express the overwhelming relief I feel to finally know that the book is actually, truly, and certifiably done. The work, however, has just begun. In a lot of ways writing a book is easy. Marketing it is hard and it is not something that I can do solely on my own! I’ve relied on the community to get me this far so I don’t mind asking for one more favor!
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A kind friend and Epic Slant reader sent me an email tonight about a weird article coming in on the RSS from me. It would seem that some domain snoop bought my old domain: Ferrel.me and turned it into a blog to capitalize on my old subscribers. I apologize for this! I am not trying to sell you credit checks! In any event, if you subscribe to Epic Slant please check to be sure you’re using my updated feed of feeds2.feedburner.com/ferrel/SORG

I know I shouldn’t be but I am often surprised when Rift PvP players are unfamiliar with how a particular Warfront works. I see that a lot in Stockpile: The Black Garden. The concept is simple: grab orbs and turn them in for points. The first to 500 wins. There is more subtlety than that and I think it is time that everyone ends up on the same page. After brushing up a little on the strategy you too can be like Ferrel and yell obscenities at other people in Stockpile who don’t follow the proper procedures.

General Information

Stockpile is a special version of The Black Garden that uses small orbs instead of the fang. Players collect these orbs and run them to cleansing pillars to earn points. There are only two cleansing pillars up at a time and each usage of them pushes them closer to depletion. Each cleansing pillar may be used only a finite amount of times (I believe nine).

The Basics

To have any chance of success your team must collect orbs and return them to the cleansing pillars. I must point out that each player can carry three orbs at a time AND each use of the cleansing pillar (whether you have one or orb three) takes a single charge! Why does that matter? The cleansing pillars start out on even footing. One is north and one is south. There is no advantage for either team. The second and third round of pillars are set close to your team’s side. If you turn a single orb in on your side you’re burning a charge. That gives your opponent an advantage. The only time you should turn a single orb in is when it is for the win or when you’re at your opponent’s cleanser! Depleting their charges is good; depleting yours is also good… for your opponent.

It is a team sport

PvP is not a solo experience. Don’t treat it like one. If you grab three orbs and run by yourself towards a cleansing pillar be prepared to be killed. It is a great strategy to send two or three players to each cleansing pillar and kill members of the team that is stupid enough to only hold the middle. These kill teams will end your life, pick up your three orbs, and turn them in gleefully. Don’t make this mistake. Find some friends and collect orbs together. When you’re fat with orbs head to the cleansing pillar in a pack. You still might be killed and help the other team but this practice vastly reduces the possibility of that. You certainly won’t be killed by a single person lurking in the dark.

The Middle

The tone of Stockpile is often set by the first engagement in the middle of the map. The team that wins this first battle frequently assumes that they will win the match. This isn’t always the case. I will say it makes the most sense initially to go completely in force into the middle. By capturing the middle you ruin your opponents’ morale and have the chance to pick up as many orbs as you please. After the first engagement, however, it is dangerous to tunnel vision and focus only on the middle. If you win the middle, grab orbs as a group and go turn them in. If you lose, move on to plan B.

Plan B

In the event that you’re overwhelmed in the middle, abandon it. Sitting at your spawn point and dropping down a few players at a time guarantees a loss. Split your team up and head to the cleansers. You will find that the other team will initially stream in a few at a time. Pick them off, take their orbs, and turn them in. Eventually they’ll figure it out and come in force. This is when you hold them as long as you can while other elements of your team take the middle and grab orbs to run to the opposite cleanser. Rinse and repeat this process.

Healers and Marking

If you’re the leader and don’t want to mark healers, promote someone else to raid assistant or pass the lead. If you don’t you are personally responsible for reducing your team’s chance of winning. No, I’m not kidding. You can win without marking but you win more when you do. Get marks on healers ASAP and, if you’re not marking and you see a number run by, switch and fight that person! Nobody cares if you almost have a rogue dead. That healer is going to heal them anyway. Switch and kill numbers as a group and you’ll increase your odds of winning.

If all else fails

Sometimes the enemy will have too many healers. Sometimes your team won’t have read this blog post. Sometimes you’re just outgunned. If everything goes out the window just know that Stockpile is only to 500 and you can queue a new one again soon. Good luck everyone!

When I’m on the computer, sometimes I listen to music, but more often than not I have the television on to entertain me and my parrot. Usually the channel is set to the home channel (so I can look at houses I’ll never have) or the food channel (so I can look at food I’ll never have) and one show I find myself watching more and more of lately are the “this restaurant is a disaster but I’ll fix it” type of shows. It’s a strange love/hate relationship, but the more I watch them, the more I realize there are lessons I can take away from them that I can apply to my life, real and virtual.
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Assiduous – constant in application or effort; working diligently at a task; persevering; industrious

For those of you who know me, not like many of you do, I am not the most avid MMO player. Shocking, yes. I try; really I do, but until RIFT it never seemed to pan out for me. I am or was, as you probably could have guessed from the title, an altist/altaholic. Before I started playing RIFT I never really used a character for very long, my previous record being around 3 months. In fact it was usually much shorter than that. I’m sure many of you know someone just like me; someone mostly incapable of staying with the same character for any period of time. Continue reading →

I am a little surprised that Trion would patch today given that some of the major PvP changes are not quite done. That said, they do have a deadline to meet. The one year anniversary is coming up and the event that goes with that plus the planned weddings for Valentine’s Day must go on. I’m sure they can clean some of this up in a 1.7.x patch anyway. The notes are long as with any big patch and I’m looking forwards to a lot of these changes! As always I’ve highlighted changes that I’m excited about.

Welcome to RIFT 1.7: Carnival of the Ascended!
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It is time for another set of notes from PTS. I’m not sure if we’re getting closer or not! I’m also not sure if there is a big trick up Trion’s sleeve. 1.6 was huge so this is probably just going to be huge in the mechanics realm. I’m looking for some new content in 1.8! Beyond that, as before, nothing ground breaking here other than the acknowledgement that the PvP damage was too darn high on test. Trion, really, really, acknowledged that. Seriously, look at the notes!
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Trion is looking to make a serious move in the realm of PvP with patch 1.7. This appears to be the centerpiece of the patch and is currently causing quite the buzz on the public test server. I’ve had a chance to spend time with it and I will say that I like where Trion’s heart is. I think a lot of these changes are great for Rift but the current implementation isn’t exactly ready for prime time. Will this get pushed to live soon? With the game’s anniversary coming up soon I am leaning towards yes. Whether these changes are coming sooner or later it is time to strap yourself in and get ready for a whole new world of PvP!
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This isn’t so much of an article as a “Did you know this existed?” I’m familiar with Kickstarter of course! That is how I found great people to help get The Raider’s Companion off the ground. It has also turned into a place where I spend my money buying things that someone else thought of that I never knew I’d want. Things that would otherwise probably not make it to the commercial market. That said, did you know Lego does the same thing? Have you ever said, “Man I wish Lego made a…” I have. I can admit that. 30 years old and I still delight in looking at Lego sets and bricks. If you’re like me, you simply have to check out lego.cuusoo.com/

Evidently you can propose a project and if enough people sign off on it Lego will seriously consider turning it into a real set! Seriously, I know where I’ll be spending my web time for a while! Why not play some Lego Minecraft: lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/4038

I imagine there isn’t a huge market for Ferrel the Lego person but still, I can dream!