However after spending some time searching for ways to get free Facebook credits, I ran into quite a few scams or survey sites that promise you credits after completing offers or purchasing things.  There were even outdated posts on games like Hello City to get free credits which doesn’t work any more.

Well recently I’ve been lucky enough to come across not one, but two, places to get free Facebook Credits, and this Friday (2/24/2012)  there’s a special event that can get you 160 Free Facebook Credits with NO PURCHASE NECESSARY.

One is 4Loot and is a search engine which you need to just use their search engine to rack up points (you can download tool bars/plugins etc. but I don’t recommend doing that).  You can probably earn enough to get 25 Facebook Credits in a month or so, which to me is alot of time.

The other way is via Shopkick, which is an app for iphone or droids that lets you get credits for doing nothing but walking INTO a store on their list.  These aren’t vague store that only exist in some states, but fairly well recognized places like Sports Authority, Old Navy, Macys, Wet Seal etc.

Now I mentioned that there’s an event this weekend, and here’s the gist of it.

1.  Download Shopkick to your phone here:

2.  Once you downloaded the app make sure to login to the app on your phone in the settings page.  Do this and you will receive an extra 50 kicks (worth 2 Facebook Credits)  from me for using my link above.

3.  Visit store with the green ‘walk in’ points listed to earn your free credits.  YMMV depending on where you live (ie: here on Maui I can only go to 4 of the listed store this friday).

This weekend (2/24/2012) there is a special Black Friday Sale weekend going on that will net you around 200-400 kicks per store that you just enter WITHOUT having to buy anything.

Below is a list of the 10 stores giving out 200 kicks each (valued at 8 Facebook Credits).

• American Eagle Outfitters
• Arden B.
• Best Buy
• Crate & Barrel
• Macy’s
• Old Navy
• Simon Sales
• Target
• Toys R Us
• Wet Seal

Within Shopkick itself there are bonuses that you can collect to receive 2x points per walk in making this week’s even net you around 4000 kicks (roughly 160 Facebook Credits).  After you’ve collected your kicks you can turn them in immediately for Facebook Credits.

And that’s it, no purchases needed, no surveys to be done, and you can earn more free Facebook Credits daily even after this promotion is over.

If you want to know more about saving money on via Shopkick bargains, someone already has a post describing those as well here or watch the video below.  The Shopkick FAQs are found here on their website.

No related posts.

Also as part of Lol’s Season 2 this year Riot Games has just included a new map scenario called Dominion in the open beta phase.  While i have to admit that I’m quite a fan boy of the Dota genre, this map is filled with some pretty fast paced action.  Check out the following Dominion trailer to get a little insight into the game.

[YouTube Link]

[YouTube Link]

The videos pretty much explain the map, but for those of you who didn’t watch them here’s the recap.  League of Legends – Dominion is a capture and hold type of game.  Teams start on opposite sides of a mirror map, and vie for 5 different contestable points.  Instead of the standard level 1 hero to begin with, a 5 man team will start at level 3 with about 1300 gold for gear.  Also with the new map there’s 2 new summoner skills, and a bunch of new items that come along specifically for the map, and balancing.

Currently there’s no need for farming or getting exp in this mode.  As soon as the game clock starts, your character starts receiving quite a bit gold, and exp per second so you never really fall behind in gear.  The way to points score the game can easily turn around if you’re team overextends etc.  Teams usually split up in two directions to take the two closest nodes, and sometimes a 3rd one if you have a fast moving character like Rammus to start with.  This will go on until of of the teams score (or take away) 500 points, which can be fairly fast at about 10 minutes or so for a 1 sided game. So far on opening day of open beta the game is pretty fun, however I feel like it will be very short lived.  The high pace map almost feels like there is little to no strategy at the moment when everyone just rushes nodes or defends nodes ala ‘Arathi Basin’ style.

For those of you who haven’t yet played the game, don’t worry, its completely free to play.  You just need to signup for an account here and download the program here.

No related posts.

Heres Aion’s official post about it on their site here, and for those of you who don’t want to click on that link here’s the copy/paste version:

Gearing up with Preorder and Collector’s Edition Items

September 18, 2009 10:43 AMThe benefits are many to be had if you have preordered Aion or are the owner of a rare and much coveted Limited Collector’s Edition. Notable among these is an array of in-game items you can give to your characters.

To assign them to your characters, please follow these instructions.

NOTE: You will need to follow these steps for each new character you create in order for it to receive the items. You will not be able to do this right now, but the feature will be enabled shortly.

1. Log into NCsoft Account Management.
2. Click the Game Accounts link.
3. Choose your Aion game account listed on the Game Accounts page.
4. Click the Apply In-Game Items link in the Actions section.
5. Select the server your preferred character is on and click the Next button.
6. Select the character you wish to receive the items and click the Next button.
7. You will then see a list of all the items or item packs that may be applied to that character. Click the checkbox next to the item pack(s) you wish to apply to that character and then click the Next button.
8. Review the confirmation page and then click the Apply the Items/Item Packs to this Character button.

You will then get a message saying that the items/item packs were successfully given to that character. You should have these items when you log into the game – simply pay a visit to your in-game mail box.

It sounds like its going to be a real pain in the butt if you like to create lots of little alts to play.  I’m not sure why they didn’t implement an in game command or something.  Oh well, hope this bit of news help you guys out.  Have fun in Aion.

Also for those of you who haven’t decided if you are going to pick up the Collector’s Edition yet, here’s what you get:

• Black Cloud Wings
• Black Cloud Earring
• Dye: Rich Purple (10)
• [Title Card] ‘Settler of Aion™’
• [Emotion Card] ‘Aion™ Boogie’
• [Emotion Card] ‘Hip Hop’

No related posts.

I’m not sure why, but after my friends and I get burnt out from MMORPGs we end up playing DotA.  I mean its got a pretty big following, with its own song, and I’m pretty sure that the map is the only reason why Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne is still one of the top selling games year after year.

This batch includes two new heroes, and quite a bit of new items.  All the changes can be found in the changelog here at GetDota.com.  I’m off to play a few games with my friends before bed so I’ll see you all later.

Oh and if any of you still need the map still I’ve put up the file DotA Allstars v6.60.w3x here.  Though I have a feeling that by the time I finish making this post, Icefrog will probably release version 6.60a or 6.61 shortly afterwards.

No related posts.

I’m not a big fan of developer drama, but this recent separation of Icefrog, and Dota-Allstars had basically the effect of hitting a beehive with a stick.  I personally hadn’t heard of League of Legends until now, even though its been announced from quite a while back by many people.  Anyways lets take a quick look at this game that’s soon to be in beta.  Here’s their official gameplay trailer on the site:

[YouTube Link]

And another teaser trailer of League of Legends which IMHO is pretty well made.

[YouTube Link]

A few things definitely comes to mind when watching the trailer for me, and they include the words like vibrant, and colorful to say the least.  After playing games like Warhammer Online in which the color palette is pretty dull to dreary, this seems like moving from Siberia to playing in Vegas or Ginza.

Check out some of these ‘colorful’ screenshots for League of Legends:

The game faqs are posted here on their site, and what’s interesting about it seems to be that its trying to merge the session based games (like dota), with an ongoing experience gaining system, something that normally gets used in mmorpgs.  Most recently seen in games like Demigod with their favor point system. (which by the way I’ve been playing quite a bit recently, but have not yet posted about).

They are building quite a few heroes (or champions as they call it), and hope to have ‘dozens’ of them by release.  You can check out a sample of them on their champion’s page here.  They got posted a few other goodies like League of Legends wallpapers, and concept art which is worth checking out.  All in all looks to be a good start, though I don’t agree with them posting about it all over the dota forums, and ticking off Icefrog in the process(if that was the really the reason behind the departure).  Either way I’m glad there’s another game that I’d be interested in playing as I’ve been searching for a decent online game to play.

No related posts.

Seriously though why do some people have to share every single detail of their life on Twitter. I think the guys over at Penny Arcade described it best in their twitter comic:

Too Much Information

Soo true, but anyways I’m looking for some people to follow on there so if you’re a twit, err I mean if you tweat lemme know who you are so I can follow you. Likewise if you want, you can follow me on twitter. Maybe give me a nudge to update my blog more often and what not.

If you have any tips or suggestions on using twitter let me know about it too, as I useful tools.

No related posts.

New recruits will need to use the link in their invitation email to create their Recruit-A-Friend free ten (10) day trial.

It looks like now instead of 7 days, the free trial person will be able to play for 10 days, so three extra days for them.

Players may recruit new players or invite back former players that have been gone for more than sixty (60) days.

Also if I read this right if you have a friend who previously played this game before, and they haven’t played for more than 60 days then you can invite them back to play for a short while.  I wonder if they will put a limit on this or will I be able to constantly reinvite someone every 2 months?

In-Game rewards will be applied retroactively for all previous recruits.

Now this is a nice one, so which means if any of the people I recruited become paying players (pay for 1 month subcription after the first month).  I get to reap the benefits of the rewards.  Wait did I say rewards?  Yup heres whats in it for me, the recruiter, if I sign up a bunch of people to the game:

Free Game Time – For every recruit that becomes a paying subscriber, your account will be credited with 30 days of game time.

This already is a nice benefit, one free month for me.

Loyal Pet – Recruit two subscribers, and your King will present you with a loyal pet from his own kennels to join you on your journeys. *Begins March 5^th, 2009

Warhammer is finally introducing pets?  Sweet, and it looks like if I bring some recruits in I’ll get these pets first hand.  Now if only the recruits I signed up stay on longer than a month or two =).  Check out the size of these things though.  They aren’t the little wussy mini pets you get in World of Warcraft mind you.  They are the same size as those White Lion pets.  Check these two out for example:

Recruit a Friend Order Pet

This one looks like a giant bloodhound that could probably one shot an unlucky goblin player with a sit command. Geez what did they feed this thing.

Recruit a Friend Chaos Pet

And this mangy looking thing here is bigger than a dwarf, I think they fed him too one too many squigs. Now those are some Huge puppies!  I definitely want one of these.

Now if that’s not enough to get people to invite more players to the game check these in game items out:

The Rod of Service
This gift from Karl Franz himself grants a 5% bonus to group experience and renown. In addition, it grants the wielder the power of Apprenticeship, allowing him to temporarily raise a realm-mate’s level to within two of his own.

The Collar of Servitude
This gift from Tchar’zanek himself grants a 5% bonus to group experience and renown. In addition, it grants the wielder the power of Indenture, allowing him to temporarily raise a realm-mate’s level to within two of his own.

Looks like Warhammer Online will have an apprenticeship program as well.  Though I have to agree with Syp, and Rog about this feature being standardized for all players.  It shouldn’t be an item just for people who have recruited people into the game.  Even though this game does have a ‘bolster’ feature in rvr lakes, it would be pretty fun to get people up into T4 right out of the gate with this item.  I remember the fun my guildmates, and I, had in Age of Conan when we brought out level 20 players to the level 80 zones.  However from experience it is really nice to be able to bring people out to experience the end game right away without them having to grind out the low levels alone.

I for one am glad they are bringing in this type of feature into the game.  It keeps the friends who don’t have as much play time, able to play with you in the upper tiers.

Anyways now I need your help to get me some paying recruits.  If you haven’t played Warhammer Online in over 60 days (would be 12/31 as of this post date).  Let me reinvite you back in time for the Slayer/Choppa release.  The Bitter Rivals events starts March 3rd to be able to play the Slayer/Choppa classes a week early.  If you haven’t tried the game out yet, I should have a few recruit a friend e-mails left so leave a comment here, and I will try to get you one as soon as I am able to.

Also if you haven’t picked up a copy of the game you can pick one up from this link below:

No related posts.

To whom it may concern over at Mythic,

As current subscriber of Warhammer Online, an avid player, a big fan, a earnest mmorpger, and someone who really wants this game to succeed.  Please, for the love and future success of this game, merge the servers asap.  Judging from the server population ratios, that mythic posted a few weeks earlier regarding populations, I don’t think you took the numbers of active T4 Order/Destro during the server primetime.

On our server of Azazel for the past few months, we have been running an average med/med server.  In the more recent days Low destro/Med order or Low/Low.  The bulk of destro plays actively plays in lower tiers.  We’re pretty much the opposite of the most lopsided Monolith server as we have more Order than Destro.  In the recent weeks Order has pushed to The Inevitable City multiple times.  Combine that with our mass exodus of disgruntled Destruction players leaving the game/server our server has basically become a ghost server.

The number of people re-rolling to successful servers like Dark Crag is climbing.  Our server doesn’t need new characters, rather we need an option to either move to a more populated server or, have a few (not just 1 or 2) servers merged together to become an upper tier Medium population server.   According to the census mods that we’ve been using we’ve only had about at most 400ish people online at a time.  With only about 100-150 Order players on.  Destro tier 4 is about half of that currently active after them re-rolling or unsubscribing the game.  The successful servers such as Dark Crag have active primetime populations of 2,000 players per faction when using the same tools to check census populations.

Mark has mentioned this before as mentioned here:

A quick post and then I have to head out. This latest round of transfers is, in most cases, not an attempt to move low pop servers but rather an attempt to build higher pop servers from med/med pop servers. What we’re hoping will happen is that with these moves the oRvR opportunities on those servers will be even better and more plentiful than they currently have on those servers. The servers that people we are asking people to move from have the lowest population of their type.

As I’ve said before, we recognize the importance of oRvR to our game and this is just one of the steps we are taking to try to encourage more people to partake in it.

However in a more recent post by a WHA staff, who is hopefully wrong about it, they mentioned that paid transfers won’t be coming till late 2009.  If the later is true then I’m not sure how many players will be sticking around till then.  Order side has probably lost a good 25-33% of the player base this past month on our server alone, and Destro numbers are even worse off.  (they haven’t left the game mind you, they moved to a more active server).

There are plenty more on the server who love the game, but don’t want to lose all that they have invested into their characters and guilds.  So the only solution for us is to stick it out until our populations become low/low so we can move to a better server.  Or that Mythic realizes they made WAY too many servers still, and merges about 3 low pop servers together.

The people who play the game love it, and many people have come back to it.  However they don’t like 3 major things right now with it, and if they can get fixed.  You’ll have a gold mine.  The current free transfer system isn’t working anymore, and I’m not the only one who thinks WAR has problems with underpopulated servers.

1. Fix population imbalances – While the herald mentioned that populations aren’t imbalanced, if you break them down into Tiers and time that the factions are active you’ll notice quite a big difference.  Mythic needs to take a deeper look at this if they want their players to be happier on some servers.  IE: Merge Azazel (order dominated) with Monolith(destro dominated).
2. Too much crowd control abilities in Tier 4 – Reduce them, fix them, or flat out remove them, but DO something about it soon.  For a game that promoted itself as one without having much crowd control.  The end game is nothing but that.  Its aoe stun/disorient/root/knock down/knock back/silence galore.  Immunities need to be applied sooner, grouped together (ie have knockback/knockdown on same timer), remove the aoe aspect of them, or have them not all able to be chained one after another.  Testing on the test servers need to be on a larger scale for them to realize, hey when we introduce lag to something that is already somewhat broken, it makes it 10x worse.
3. Low Population servers – This game I think will go the distance.  It has its niche, its market, its playerbase.  However, it needs to take a look at how many people are leaving due to the not enough activity on the lower population servers.  Every day, someone else in the guild or alliance stops logging in to our server, or the game entirely.  People we recruit a friend we tell them to go roll on more active servers because they won’t have fun on ours.  Waiting an hour during primetime for a scenario to pop with NO open RvR just isn’t fun.

No related posts.

Since it was a new encounter for us, and thinking that we were going to be need wards for it I took out my Runepriest Minimoses for the event.  I’ve been neglecting the the toon for quite a bit since I’ve been focusing on my engineer alot.  So it took me a little while to get used to my hot keys again.

Anyways, this here is a screenshot of order banging on The Inevitable Cities’s gates.  Only about a warband or so of Order was there at this time (I think the rest of Order was still out in the fortress they just took over).  Regardless, this lack of Destruction to defend would be the same trend for most of the night.  Someone counted up the populations here in the WHA forums, and it seems like Destruction just didn’t want to call up their friends to defend that night.

And here’s another shot of us in one of the instanced PQ zones right smack in the center of it all.  Most of the night we spent farming for gear, but I only got my Invader Vestments piece out of it.  Which since I’ve been on my engineer quite a bit, I doubt I’ll be able to wear for a while.  The instance we got zoned into had some destro in it at first, and then they just up and left.  Since it was new to us we didn’t really mind as we went exploring places etc.  I went off to the south of the city and destroyed all of Destruction’s weekly top renown statues.

To my dismay though, that was pretty much the only thing we were able to go in and destroy.  The rest of the zone was just npcs, and this whole event was basically a giant PQ farm fest for invader gear.  The PQ was definitely anticlimatic.  I mean you’re sieging this capitol city, and you’re blowing up crates?  Great.  Then the PQ hero mob comes out, and its not even hard.  (granted we had no opposition)  Anywho, atleast it was fast so we could redo the PQ over and over again.  Especially since the same PQ drops 4 pieces of the Invader set (Helm/Chest/Shoulders/Belt).

Once our group got enough gear though we figured out how to change instances, and joined into an instance that had 48 or so destro.  Apparently that one was a little more coordinated than the 12 people we brought in so we promptly got run over.  That PQ though is a little harder to accomplish when capturing and holding 2 bfos is part of the PQ.  They need those type of PQ in the open RvR zones.

The only scenario running was one called The Undercroft, which basically takes place in the south part of the city by the statues.  Its a capture and hold type with about 7 bfos.  Its a pretty massive scenario since it was a full warband vs warband scenario.  Only problem was that due to Order’s numbers we got mixed up with quite a few pugs, vs the Destro warband group which was a little more coordinated.  Due to them winning the scenarios I think was what caused us to not be able to capture the city and pillage it.

Anyways after that night I think Destruction on our server became a little demoralized.  Our Med/Med population dropped to a Med/Low population, and destruction wasn’t around much the day after.  I wonder if Mythic will transfer our server to a low Order/High Destruction population so that we can enjoy a little more PvP.  As it stands now, a one sided server isn’t so much fun.  They have the people, but for some reason they just don’t show up/help or coordinate I guess.

I was expecting more from the city siege event.  IMHO even clearing Lost Vale seemed like a better achievment than the PQ grindfest we encountered.  Hopefully more people show up to defend the city next time so we can have a little more fun.  I was expecting more of a Battle of Praag type of scenario where both sides try to push the opposing side out.  I was also expecting to be able to do more than just 1 PQ for the initial city siege.  (I know there’s more PQs that open up if we were successful in capturing the city) However after capturing 2 fortresses you would expect something better than just 1 PQ.  Hopefully Mythic adds more end game content, because after tonight there was quite a few people who no longer want to resubscribe.

No related posts.

Now what’s in it for me?  If you try the 7 day Warhammer Online trial from me, and decide to buy the game I get a month free, and I can refer more people to the game.  Here’s the details from the herald post:

Recruit-A-Friend To Join the Armies of WAR

The Realm War continues to rage and the armies of Order and Destruction are always on the lookout for new recruits. Do you know a brave warrior that could bolster the ranks? You could earn 30 days of free game time when you recruit family and friends to join the battle in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning!

Here’s how it works:

• When you become a paying subscriber to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, you’ll receive 3 recruitment notices to share with friends or family. For each month you continue to subscribe, you’ll receive another recruitment notice (for a maximum of 6 at any time).
• Send a recruitment email to a friend or family member from the Account Center. This will allow your recruit to create a trial account for seven days of free play. Unused referrals expire after 30 days and will revert back to your pool of available referrals.
• When your recruit becomes a paying subscriber to WAR, you will receive a credit for 30 days of free game time. Stay tuned for more exciting recruitment rewards in the future!

Log into the Account Center for more details and begin recruiting today!

If you’re planning on picking up the game regardless of trial you can pick up a copy from Amazon.com here.  Either way, hope to see you all in game, and I’m currently on Azazel as Order either on my Runepriest – Minimoses or my Engineer – Xight.  I recommend going to a high or med pop server, as the low pop servers are not a good example of how good this game can be.

No related posts.