Random Ogre Thoughts

So Uh...

2008-10-10T07:52:00.001-04:00

I actually moved over to HERE awhile back. Update links, feeds and donations...

Moving?

2008-09-05T11:23:00.004-04:00

Not to be mistaken with Mooing... but I'm considering moving over to WordPress here.

Why?

Well, I like the designs they have available by default. Yeah, if I got up off my ass and fiddled with the design here I could probably mock up something similar but I don't really have time to fiddle with sorting out the XML, styles and widgets. And that still doesn't change the fact that I also like the tools Wordpress has for managing the blog, posts, categories, etc. I also like the editing/writing tools better over at WordPress.

Hmmm.... the more I think about it, the more I think I'll re-located. I'll have to double check the EULA and stuff.

CoW in Open Beta

2008-09-05T08:40:00.001-04:00

You can find Casualties of WAR on Chrace for Order side and Crag Mere for Destruction side.

Servers are available now, though I'm not sure if it is just for people that were in the Preview Weekend.

I'll be online sometime tonight... /cry

You Know You're Excited For WAR When...

2008-08-29T10:22:00.001-04:00

1. You feel a nigh-uncontrollable urge to shout WAAAAAAGH! at people that are pestering you or angering you.

2. You see someone walking under a red EXIT sign and reach for a weapon.

3. You flip open a nearby notebook to see if there are any new entries.

4. You think of a scenario queue when standing in line to buy something.

5. You wake up your spouse because you're dreaming you're RVRing.

6. You see construction workers working on something and consider joining the public quest.

I'll let any readers out there with ideas fill in some more...

You Don't Mess With The...

2008-08-26T08:10:00.003-04:00

... wife's Facebook status.

Yesterday when I was settling in for my EQ2 play time, I noticed the wife was logged into my account on the computer and had left her Facebook page open. Those that know me, know I'm not a fan of Facebook (that's an understatement). Being the pest that I am*, I switched her status from "is on vacation for a week, yay!" to "is in rehab recovering from a serious drug addiction."

She saw it this morning and said I was fired. I suspect she will retaliate with logging into my MSN and changing the status message there to something about cross dressing or something.

*If you didn't know by now, I am a pest.. never tell me what bugs you because I'll do it... over and over... and over... and over again... then when you ask me to stop, I will... for five seconds.

Xuic is now level 13, closing on 14th fast. I got sidetrack harvesting while I was questing and harvested up about 20 'rares'. Yeah, I still have it**, but it sounds like they upped the rare drop rate as well... meh.

** I was notorious with my set play group during The Return to EQ2 Attempt 3 where I was constantly getting rares from harvesting while the others were less than successful. Of course, I did end up sharing as a means of getting them to forgive me from constantly sending them tells when ever I got a rare.

Who was telling me rares were rare? Phhfffbbt!

I had 9 bronze, 3 yarrow, 1 copper, 3 lapis lazulis and about 4 loams in one session which lasted maybe 3 hours and wasn't focused on harvesting. I was questing and running around Gorowyn trying to figure it out. Weird place, neat design, very unfriendly for people so I wasn't surprised it was empty.

I also joined Revelry and Honor, which might ring a few bells for people.

Gnomes is sneaky...

A Pat On the Back...

2008-08-26T08:01:00.004-04:00

... is really nice sometimes. Here's a snippet of an email from my boss at work.

We also need to decide if this is something that you will look after or (another guy) will. As much as I’d like to clone you and have five or six (Smaken Dahed)s on the team, that technology isn’t perfected yet and it’s unlikely we’d get budget for it even if it was.

Bracketed and bold text is a placeholder to protect the innocent or the guilty (in my case).

It's a compliment, though somewhat creepy... I couldn't imagine five or six more of me around.

At one point I was constantly getting praise and it sounded sort of fake after awhile, you know? I do know I'm awesome (you knew that was coming) but there is only so much praise and worship one person can take (before they reach divinity).

Get Off the Pot...

2008-08-25T15:25:00.004-04:00

...as in "Shit or get off the pot". Did you expect something classy? Wrong place for that.

The WAR Preview weekend gave me some insight to which class I'll play on release. At this point in time I'm torn between three of them. Current contenders are the Black Ork or the Chosen on Destruction side and the Battle Priest on Order's side.

The catch is, I might throw those picks out if a certain gaming buddy decides he's going to play WAR and go with a complimenting partner class. In short, I'm waiting for him to shit or get off the pot.

He seems to be leaning towards the Archmage at the moment. He liked the Sorceress and Chosen, but found them too limited or one-sided for his liking. The were effectively the inverse; one was solid and takes a beating in melee with no real ranged ability while the other does loads of damage from afar but next to none up close and can't take a whole lot of damage.

Fair enough.

The Archmage is middle of the road. He appears to get medium armor, can do a little melee damage, some ranged damage and heals. It's got a little more use and desirability.

With that in mind, I'll probably take a look at the Sword Master (High Elf Tank) and, maybe, the Dwarf Ironbreaker.

The other alternative is to keep on playing a Battle Priest so we can drive our enemies nuts with our nigh-invulnerability (healing ourselves and each other haha).

Hmm. There's a thought. That will teach me to think of what I'm writing while I'm writing it.

Now if only he'd decide whether he's playing or not.

Oh, if any random readers are playing EQ2 on Guk server, I'm on there playing around with a Gnome Necromancer named Xuic. Feel free to send me a tell if you're on and I'll likely wonder who the heck you are and why are you talking to me. :)

How's that for being inviting?

Xuic is only around level 8 or 9 and currently in Timorous Deep. I figured I might as well get some use out of the expansion and the credit they gave me... which might not have worked right because it says the next billing is on the 18th of September.

Grrr...

Postage and Bankers...

2008-08-25T09:54:00.004-04:00

We often heckle a certain gaming friend about the hours of bankers. It always seems like they're fewer of them available during lunch then other times of day. The reason we bug him is that the lunch hour tends to be when most employed people get a chance to do banking without interfering with their job. (Of course, I'm writing this during business hours... heh.. bad me) So if you go to the bank to do something requiring human contact, there is usually only one or two people at the wickets available for the 20-30 people in line.

He'll argue that bankers need to eat too and we'll always counter it with, "Yeah, so set up the lunch break schedule to have people off at 11am and 1pm for their lunch break." (I await a posting from Ken)

Now, Banks seem to have gotten a clue so they're open a little later - at least my branch is.

So what does this have to do with post? Well, it seems post offices aren't open very long during the week which makes it difficult to get to the one near my house which apparently has my Stargate: SG-1 Season 10 DVD collection.

I'm extra annoyed by this because the apparently delivered during the day* and the Postperson either forgot to put a pick-up slip or it got misplaced because I didn't see any sign of one.

I only discovered it was there when I went online and checked the tracking number. Argh..

*So this gets me ranting about day time deliveries of items that require someone to sign for them. Much like bankers taking their lunch break at lunch time when that's when most people try to do their banking, it just doesn't make sense to do parcel delivery that requires a signature when most people are going to be at work.

I think it is time that Canada Post stepped forward into this century and realized that most people aren't at home during the week day so they should offer later shifts for package delivery.

Notice I said "offer". I say this because some people are home during the day, work from home, have shift work, are stay at home moms/dads or what ever. With the way information is passed around, it shouldn't be difficult to ask that your shipment, requiring a signature, comes in the evening (after 7pm) or day time when you ask for something to be delivered so that someone will be around to actually sign for the thing.

Analyze the service you're providing and change the way you provide it as the needs of the people you're providing it for change.

(The wife is off work this week so she's going to go get it. With my luck, they'll ask her for the delivery slip and not release the package to her. Argh...)

WAR: Good and Bad

2008-08-24T11:57:00.002-04:00

Okay, I played a fair bit of the Preview Weekend and messed around with most of the classes available. By no means is this a complete review since I haven't played a whole lot, but I did play enough to get several characters (and I mean several) out of the newbie areas and get a feel for where they were going. Did I get into the second tier of content? No, but I got close to it with several classes.

Here are a number of things I noted...

GOOD:
Public Quests - these are neat though I seem to always roll really low even when I finish in first place, which actually seems to be easier to do than I'd expect.

Models - the models are pretty good. The seem to have more polygons than WoW does and they suit the IP well.

Textures - model textures were pretty good. As were the armor texturing.

World Design - the world design was good, from what I experienced. I didn't get stuck anywhere I couldn't get out of and, believe me, I tried. The world also flows well into each area and the quests sort of push you in the necessary direction. You won't get lost or not know where to go with the way this game is designed.

Instance RVR - very neat. I like how they introduce this really early. I'm not sure if there are any balance issues or not, but the one shot I gave this Destruction (my side) absolutely creamed the Order side. I looked at the results and I was sitting pretty with 28 kills while the other side's best had just over 10. Most of my side had over 20.

Classes - I like how some of the class mechanics vary. A Black Orc plays differently from a Chosen but I did get the impression there were other classes which paired off easily.

Grouping - The Holy Trinity of a group is not required and getting into a group or adding people to a group is quite easy. I liked being able to do the Empire PQ with just me (a Battle Priest) and three Bright Wizards (it was hectic for healing but fun!).

Combat - solo combat had about the right pace, though grouping seemed to make things go faster. Champion level creatures were a good pace for killing.

BAD:
Models - a couple of the models with cloth had clipping and overlapping issues. I believe long hair also was an issue.

Character Variance - it wasn't easy to tell one character from another. A big part of this is due to lack of customization in the character creation. The other part that really doesn't help is gear. It seems the gear upgrades are less obvious. The initial jump has something, but after that, it seems most armor in that 'tier' looks the same. *I'd be forgiving about this since it means less work for player PCs to render so it suits the PVP/RVR/PQs for performance. Dye seems to be one way of separating your character, but most of the colors aren't all that impressive and they seem to have the same availability for each race. I strongly suggest they create color palettes for each race with some of the overlapping ones being the more expensive (hey, make people pay to conform to guild colors). Costs are also tiered so certain colors are more expensive - I get this concept, but I don't like it, especially when you're already so limited.

Performance - bad. I'm pretty disappointed with the performance of the game given the system I have. It is more than capable of running VG at the higher settings and EQ2 at the Extreme Quality setting. WoW... well, full blown. Some of this can be attributed to the large number of people on screen at most times - it's a zoo, really. I also noticed some degradation overtime so I suspect a resource leak somewhere. I also experienced a crash.

Bugs - there were a number of bugs. One involved the quest helper markers (icons over the NPCs heads) getting stuck in a mode which was annoying. Another had to do with a PQ in the Greenskin area where you're supposed to collect barrels - I picked up one and couldn't seem to pick up others. One involved creatures running away from you after you engage them then they come back - I don't know if it is intentional or not, but it was annoying because it's not like they were low on health or anything.

Textures - world textures seem a little weak. The ground and rocks seem a little bland in most of the areas I saw. Some were well suited to the area but others were just too common. Where are the shaders?

World Design - while a lot of people like that quests and the world ushers you into one direction while I like choice. Give me two or more paths to take. Heck, each class has three mastery paths, why not make quest lines for each one that emphasize that path?

Classes - I noticed the Disciple of Khaine and Battle Priest had identical gameplay which was somewhat disappointing. The Bright Wizard and Sorceress seem that way as well. I believe the Engineer and Magus are very similar as well. I think these are the only few pairings like that, but I'd have to see more.

Responsiveness - not so good. Somewhat understandable when over crowded, but when you're playing at 6am and there are very few people around, things (inventory, NPCs, abilities...) should react a little better.

PVE - there didn't seem to be a lot of PVE stuff early on. While that isn't entirely a true statement, that is a feeling you'll get because the PVE content you're doing is tied to some of the RVR elements you'll face. In other words, if you're an ork you'll be fighting a lot of dwarves and if you're a dwarf, you'll be fighting a lot of orks/goblins. It's almost like playing a FPS with computer controlled bots... same sort of gameplay, only it is easier because the bots aren't too bright.

In short, it is a decent game and I will end up playing it on release, though I suspect it won't hold my interesting for much more than a month or two. You never know, maybe the community ties will make it more enjoyable.

I have to agree with the nay-sayers in that it really isn't a "super-awesome, omg drop what you're playing now and play it instead" type game, but it is decent.

One Thing That Would Make Me Happy...

2008-08-20T14:08:00.004-04:00

... is if EverQuest 2 did away with the tiers of crafted goods. Namely the armor, weapons and jewelry. Keep the food, furniture, bags, potions, skills/spells and the last two professions they added.

Really, that's what irks me about that game. I loathe the fact that you can craft or buy crafted gear that is better than most drops.

It drives me absolutely nuts.

If it is something my character can wear (armor, weapon or jewelry) then I want it to be a reward that comes from the Adventuring Sphere. The Crafting Sphere should reward you with crafty stuff, not adventuring stuff.

Yes I'm complaining about EQ2 because I was fiddling with it last night. I got thinking about what really bugs me about the game. The above is one of the things I came up with. The other thing was that they need more large and non-linear dungeons throughout all the level tiers (yeah, I heard of the expansion coming up).

Back to my bitching about crafting...

I find it funny because Vanguard appeared to understand this with the Diplomacy Sphere. Diplomacy rewards were generally aimed at the Diplomacy Sphere; more cards, clothing or status items that helped out and so forth. But they blew it with the Crafting Sphere. Oh they got the whole creating furniture, mount gear, housing, boats and other items right, but then they dipped into the Adventuring Sphere's pool.

Worst thing you can do in my opinion. It reduces the value of quested or dropped goods.

Future MMO developers out there... listen to me. Don't do it... don't you dare... I'll be forced to track you down and hoof you in the berries.

Are We...

2008-08-20T08:46:00.005-04:00

... too caught up in our own self importance to properly label things simply because we think we're awesome enough to hold back the mythical MMO game title of "next generation"?

I'm not saying what is or isn't next generation as far as MMOs go. I'm just saying we seem to have increased the size of the measuring stick for MMOs being "next generation" than we have in all other game types.. or real life for that matter.

Let's look at the definition of "generation"

gen·er·a·tion
Pronunciation:
\ˌje-nə-ˈrā-shən\
Function:
noun
Date:
14th century

1 a: a body of living beings constituting a single step in the line of descent from an ancestor b: a group of individuals born and living contemporaneously c: a group of individuals having contemporaneously a status (as that of students in a school) which each one holds only for a limited period d: a type or class of objects usually developed from an earlier type "first of the…new generation of powerful supersonic fighters — Kenneth Koyen"

2 a: the action or process of producing offspring : procreation b: the process of coming or bringing into being c: origination by a generating process : production; especially : formation of a geometric figure by motion of another

3: the average span of time between the birth of parents and that of their offspring

Do I need to define "next"?

We'll use 1:d for what applies to MMOs since, out of all the MMOs, only AoC is supposed to have procreation in it.

a type or class of objects usually developed from an earlier type

It's really that simple. Why do we have to make it so complicated and make the phrase "next generation" seem like some sort of holy artifact that no MMO developer can achieve?

I think we're wrong and it doesn't take a lot of neurons firing to see that most of what is coming out is next generation simply because it literally is the next generation. I suppose, technically speaking, that means when a game is released it stops being "next gen" and the ones that aren't yet release become "next gen". And then the ones after that...

If we were to measure the next generation of humans like people measure MMO generations, well, we'd all be the "caveman generation" because we look similar enough, act similar enough, have similar requirements and ultimately have the same insides. Sure we walk upright and have figured out more things than Human 1.0 did, but we're still humans.

I think people are mistaking "next gen" with "not in the MMO genre anymore". As long as you're looking at something that falls under the MMO genre you're going to find similarities with other games in that genre because... well, that's why they're in that genre. Duh.

Why is being "next gen" so important? And why does it require our stamp of approval to be considered "next gen"?

Stop getting so caught up in that damn phrase.

It's next gen simply because it has most of what was in the previous generation but has also added a few things. You don't need to reinvent the genre to be true "next gen" because that means it's a new genre, not a next generation of an existing genre.

So do you like the game or not? And why?

I'm off to work on my next child, I'm aiming for it to have two heads and four arms because then it will definitely be "next gen".

It Figures...

2008-08-18T20:13:00.003-04:00

Just as I get convinced I won't ever go back to EQ2, the 90 day credit and announcement of an expansion get me curious again.

It's not just any expansion, it's the one that has several of my favorite EQ1 dungeons in it; Befallen, Guk, Najena and what sounds like Sebilis.

That got me thinking... EQ2 would have been a lot harder to walk away from if it included EoF, RoK and this upcoming expansion from the get go.

Ah well... maybe I'll make use of the credit between now WAR.

Okay, who am I kidding? I'd need a completely new starting area with suitable progression through new content that I haven't done before. i.e. not original release, Neriak or EoF stuff... RoK tops out at 20 then I think gets back into higher level things after that. I'd spend the 20-50(ish) levels in content I've done a ton before.

It is tempting to install and try with the new video card. I don't expect any visual difference, just better performance. Meh.

SOE Customer Support Results Are In...

2008-08-15T07:42:00.004-04:00

... and I'm impressed. They needed a little prodding, but the end result is:

I just completed the process to refund the $14.99. You should see the funds restored within 5-10 business days. In addition I have noted the account to be frozen with 90 days of game play for when you want to come back.

Not too long ago, I realized the attempt to cancel my EQ2 account four months ago failed. I discovered this because my credit card was being billed. Their app failed and I failed to check up on it - that's irony, I'm a tester who trusts other company's software.

The result from the front line was that they can't perform a refund unless it's discovered right away but he did confirm the account was canceled at that time (I had canceled it on the weekend after discovering I was still signed up). However, he gave me an address I could contact to explain my situation. So I did. After a couple of responses, the above is the net result.

At first they were going to refund me one month. I responded saying I appreciated it but I'm still out three of the four months and asked if I could get credited for that time. The above quote is the result.

SOE Customer Support comes through for me again.

Now I doubt I'll ever play EQ2 again, but the fact that the money wasn't simply lost for nothing makes me feel better. I have three months banked.

I'm still hesitant to use SOE's online portal for signing up or canceling subscriptions but I have heard it's being made available through their new launcher.

End result is that I'm happy. Thank you SOE CS.

Acronyms: TBD, WFM, JFC...

2008-08-12T10:24:00.003-04:00

Guess which one I'm thinking of using?

TBD = To Be Discussed/Determined
WFM = Works For Me

Testers hate the WFM one because it usually comes from a developer unable to reproduce a bug. There are a number of reasons for this; the steps to reproduce the bug are unclear, the issue doesn't occur in a DEV environment (i.e. the DEV was too lazy to try it in a production environment), the DEV didn't actually follow the steps/skimmed the bug description or they really can't reproduce the issue (i.e. the tester screwed up somehow; old build, unclean environment, etc.).

The short of it all, whether right or wrong, it means the DEV has taken the lazy route and just returned the bug rather than attempting to follow up. My response is, and I only have to say this once per DEV, "Awesome, pack up your system, we'll ship it to the customer."

That usually gets a chuckle and we proceed to sort out what the issue was.

However, that's not the acronym I was going to use, I was going to use JFC.

Do I need to explain what it stands for? Given the context of the text above, yeah, this is going to be a work related rant.

I go to lengths to not say who I work for because I want to be able to rant and foam at the mouth somewhat anonymously. It's also unfair to label the whole company with the same brush that I'm using for painting my rant because we're big... really big... and not every product is handled the same way. Some readers know where I work, please, refrain from mentioning it or you'll ruin this as an outlet for me.

With that said... we've had a lull this past month. This is the first time in about six years that we've had a little bit of a lull. I work on a product that gets shipped to a large partner and within two other products for the company I work for so we can be really busy. We just released with two of the products and the partner isn't making any in depth demands.

This is both a time to breathe and improve on what we have. One of the areas we're working on improving is automation. We were previously using a home grown tool that was using some APIs built right into the product by DEVs. They've been slack on maintaining and improving these APIs so we've hit a wall. With that in mind, we're stepping away from that tool and means of automation and going with something else.

We're using an automation tool that allows us to create centralized application map and reuse it in a manner that lets us just make changes to that map and not break any scripts that were created using it.

Pretty easy and the whole team gets involved which is good because previously there were only one or two of us working on the automation... on top of our other testing duties.

Anyway, being the most senior and familiar with the automation tool, I'm sorting running it and I've got everyone on the team (who isn't on vacation) actually making use of it and working on automating their old test areas that are suitable to automation.

The DEVs are looking to utilize some code developed in our tools group for their GUI. There is a lot of underlying code that is supposed to help for their unit tests, localization, stability, etc. Downside is that the automation tool we're using can't see all of the objects (it couldn't see everything before, but I'm awesome and I create code that makes it happen anyway) unless we switch it into a newer mode.

The newer mode might require rebuilding what we've been working on in the last couple of weeks. It's big scary gray area because this new mode is... well... new.

Bonus is that I'm going to be talking with the developers of this tool on Thursday so I can quiz them about this stuff and get a better feel for this 'new' mode.

The JFC acronym comes into play here because DEV is sending me mixed messages. One lead is telling me they're going to make some more use of it. The other lead is telling me they're going to revert the code they put it so far and won't use it this upcoming release. The manager is saying it's too much work so it's not likely to go in.

I'm getting mixed messages and they're not likely to decide until next week. That means I'm going to find out what they're going to do after I'm done getting everything working (really, the application map/framework is just about ready to go) and after I have the ear of the guys who made the automation tool.

So JFC... why can't they have decided and stuck with one decision? And why the hell can't three guys who sit within five feet of each other not be on the same page with whether it is in or not?

Whew... I feel better.

The bottom line is, our automation cannot factor into the decision of whether or not they use this. If it is better for the product that they move to this core code then it's better that they do this move and I'll make necessary adjustments.

It's just really frustrating to have busted my ass the last few weeks getting this all together, ramping up people on the team with how to use the tool (and in some cases, write code!) only to have to rework it.

On the bright side, the team has become more familiar with the test tool and the test tool should be able to handle the new changes to the product, it will just be a matter of recreating the application map... which was the bulk of my work for the last two weeks. I'm also fortunate to have a manager that isn't clueless and understands all this.

Rant off.

WAR and WH40k Dawn of War - Soulstorm...

2008-08-11T09:15:00.003-04:00

... we came, we saw, we kicked it's ass!

I picked it up not too long ago and sunk a little time into it on this weekend. I when I left off sometime last weekend, I only had the Chaos faction left to crush (I was playing as Space Marines) and they were entrenched quite well on their planet. They owned all of the territories but one which had a way gate to teleport off that planet.

I admit I was disappointed because they had crushed the Dark Eldar, which is a new race for that expansion, so I didn't get a chance to face off with them more than once (the land I took was from them).

I took a couple of the territories, including the former location of the Dark Eldar base, then proceeded to attack the Chaos base as their army was away - which made it easier because their Champion and his Honor Guard were not present. That makes a difference since they would have started with even more units available. Now, I had the rest of the system under my control so I was able to buy up all my Honor Guard and also build a complete forward base (bonus ability from one of the factions I crushed).

It was definitely fun and their base was protected by five shrines that created a cloud of chaotic energy which would damage any non-Chaos types who entered it. It was different which was good.

I do admit, the ending was simple - a monologue of how awesome the Space Marines were, and how a Monastery Fortress was built there. There was no real video at the end or hint at DoW2 which is supposed to be out sometime in the upcoming fall months (unlike Dark Crusade, which had a hint of Soulstorm). Instead they played the opener for the original DoW game (which was pretty cool) while they ran the credits.

I've got a save game of the Sisters of Battle starting off. I might fire up the Orcs or Chaos to see what the ending spiel is for them. I'm also going to poke around and check out the maps that got added in some skirmishes.

Maybe I'm a spoiled gamer, I tend to want bits and pieces of many games brought together in one (see previous MMO rantings). In this case, I do sort of miss the story campaign in the original and Winter Assault, but I also like the option of choosing where to attack next and the opportunity to play as any of the available races. I also like upgrading the Commander units with Wargear. Next step would be allowing you to pick which Commander unit you want to play as. heh

I don't ask too much do I?

Dawn of War 2 looks like it will have several improvements but I do worry about the supposed drop in resource gathering. I'll see how it plays out I guess.

I'm eagerly awaiting Friday when I can plug in the WAR codes I have and start downloading the client for the open beta. I'll likely play a tank in this one since it seems few people want to play one.

Sticking with my previous method for beta testing without spoiling my game experience, I'll likely play Chaos - likely a Champion, though I might look at the Marauder. I might also try some of the other race/classes like High Elves and Dark Elves.

I'm leaning towards a Black Orc, Dwarf Ironbreaker or Battle Priest so I'll avoid those racial areas and classes during the Open Beta so they'll be fresh on release. I'm still uncertain as to what I'll play for sure. I am leaning towards Black Orc simply because it would suit a 'Smaken Dahed' and I keep hearing positive things about that starting area. Supposedly, it's whacky and goofy which is always fun.

Is it Friday yet?

ROT: Dwarf Jumping

2008-08-08T09:03:00.003-04:00

I was reading through some of the discussions on the Casualties guild site and had something pop in my head.

The talk was about PVP and how collision detection will be enabled, allowing you to block or protect the squishy types from being picked out first. Now I was thinking of playing a Dwarf Ironbreaker which is a tank so I figured my job in PVP would literally be playing a speed bump. That got me thinking - are enemies going to be able to jump over my dwarven studliness?

That would really suck.

Another thought about the classes they pulled and balancing between the two factions (Order and Destruction). I'm guessing at some of the primary classifications because I'm not in beta and I'm working off the little information that has been released.

ORDER
Dwarves: Tank, Healer, DPS/Support (Engineer?)
Empire: DPS/Support (Bright Wizard? Sounds more DPS), Healer, DPS
High Elves: Tank/DPS, Support/DPS, DPS, DPS

So Order sort of has two tanks, two healers, three support and three to five DPS types.

DESTRUCTION
Greenskins: Tank, Healer, DPS
Chaos: Tank, DPS/Support, Support, Tank
Dark Elves: DPS, Healer(or Support?), DPS

So Destruction seems to have a three tanks, one healer (maybe two?), one support (or maybe two?) and about four DPS classes.

Maybe I mislabeled a class or two, but I wonder if these would be more even if the classes that were removed were still in?

If you consider it carefully, this sort of layout makes some sense. Destruction wouldn't really have a lot of focus on healing but how will that impact play?

But how does that impact the Chaos starting area which I think goes against the Empire (from what I'm reading in the Gamespy articles, it sounds like each faction is paired off against another)? Chaos doesn't appear to have a Healer while Empire doesn't appear to have a tank?

I'm looking forward to beta to see how these are answered... and to know whether people will be jumping over my dwarfness.

UPDATE: Okay, so it seems I was a little off with my categories. What can I say? I'm not in beta.

I had the Archmage down as Support/DPS when it also seems to be able to heal some. I'm probably off on several of the others too.

Theft?

2008-08-07T18:56:00.003-04:00

I just popped into the local (new) GameStop store and asked about the WAR pre-order. The guy looked it up (they had no advertising about it yet) and said, "Yup, we have it. Do you want to pre-order the Collector's Edition?"

Now, I'm excited about playing a new MMO, but not that excited. I give him a good old Canadian, "Nopers."

He tells me it's a five dollar deposit so I hand over the five dollars and answer the questions for contact information. He says it will be in on September 25th - which is a little later than I thought. No worries, I pre-ordered so I should get an Open Beta key.

The guy is done and wishes me a good night. I stare at him for a moment and ask, "Isn't there supposed to be some sort of pre-order box or something?"

He snaps the pointy finger at me and says, "Right, let me look."

He pulls out a stack of cards and flips one over. "Open beta, head start program and bonus items?"

"Yup."

He hands one over. I thank him and wander off to find the wife before she starts spending money... lots of money. I remember the look in her eyes when she said, "There's a sale at Laura's..."

As I wandering through the mall, I flip the card over and look at it.

"Thank you for pre-ordering the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Collector's Edition."

The guy gave me a CE card not a regular pre-order card.

/rawr

Casualties...

2008-08-06T15:34:00.001-04:00

Just throwing this link out there for people interested in WAR and blogging. It seems some of the MMO Bloggers are uniting for WAR under one banner... Casualties.

Take a look if you're interested or even remotely curious and don't know about it already.

SOE Billing and Account Support

2008-08-05T17:50:00.003-04:00

The guy was actually from this continent but unable to do anything. They have a no refund policy unless you call on the day of the charge. He did give me the address of someone to talk to so I've fired off an email.

We'll see what comes of that.

I'm a little surprised that they don't have a better back end system that ties the account into log in uses and so on. No reason that information shouldn't be available to the front lines but I guess the guy who answered didn't have an option to really do anything about that. If they were to check their login server logs they'd discover my account had been logged into EQ2 exactly zero (0) times.

I also mentioned I was using Apple's Safari web browser at the time and now it appears to be unsupported with their site (so is FireFox 3 by the way and I can't seem to log in with IE 7...).

Ah well. I might have to put SOE right up there next to Turbine on the "Don't Touch Their Product" shelf until the fix their account site. I'm doing a good job of not equating their billing site to a black hole... you can sign up but never cancel out!

To be fair, I did successfully cancel EQ2 on the weekend. I didn't get a cancellation message for that either, but the guy did say it was cancelled.

Warhammer...

2008-08-05T08:09:00.003-04:00

On Friday I picked up Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm. Damn, I love that game. This expansion opens up the Dark Elder and the Sisters of Battle and it also has a campaign where you are fighting to control a system where a warp storm as shown up.

The system was originally held by the Imperial Guard, but they soon lost control to the Eldar, Orks, Tau, Necrons (which surfaced when the warp storm appeared), Dark Eldar, Chaos and then the Sisters of Battle. Oh, and the Blood Ravens as well. As usual, there to clean up the mess left by the Imperial Guard since they misuse their Ogres...

I started a campaign using the Blood Ravens (Space Marines) since I really love their offense/defense nature. One thing that is painful with that race is that their spotters are pretty vulnerable. It would appear that the flying unit this expansion added (all races get them), is also a spotter unit (can see hidden or invisible things).

Long story short, I've annihilated most of the factions with only Chaos left remaining and a few Eldar provinces that need cleaning up but their main base was conquered. I was a little disappointed to see that Chaos had taken out the Dark Eldar so I'll have to create another campaign to see what attacking them will be like. No big deal since I want to see how the Blood Ravens defend their base as well.

By the way, the Eldar were some of the toughest to defend against because they're tricky buggers. They actually took out some builds of my base because it was an unsecured front and they started hitting it when the other directions of attack were not succeeding. I do admit, it is not the kind of place I would have set up a base normally since it has about five or six directions you can be attacked from. I probably should have set up a second base as a back up but I was getting lazy.

SPOILER: The trick to them is to get some fliers going and scour the area looking for their hidden Webway Gates, they hide a lot of them around where you base is (even a few in your starting area). Other races have spotter units more readily available to them, use them immediately to clear out the couple of gates in your base or you'll get harassed until you do.

I also tried out two skirmish matches against the computer so I could see what the Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle were like. Pretty neat.

The Dark Eldar are suitably evil and sadistic. They have another resource which I didn't get into using much and what seems like some overall powers that you can trigger right from the HUD rather than from having a unit selected. These are powered by that new resource which has to be harvested from enemies you kill.

The Sisters of Battle have something similar, though it doesn't display new abilities on the HUD. It's called 'Faith'. It increases when you add Holy Banners to their listening posts (used to collect another resource which all factions need to acquire). Their voice comments are pretty neat, very religiously zealot-like, which is what they're supposed to be. They seem to have options for bolters, flamers and plasma weapons (I think). Most of their weaponry seems to be based on fire, you know, the Biblical cleanser. I'm going to have to try the game with this faction at some point.

All very cool. It sort of makes me sad that they're not continuing this line of game. They are making a Dawn of War 2 - due out at the end of September, I believe - but it sounds like it is going to be less focused on resource gathering and more about getting right into the action. I'll reserve judgment but I have to admit, I liked the play of the original DoW so changing it is a little scary. I like building bases, setting up defenses and watching my enemies struggle through them all.

This also gets me thinking about playing Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. I do not have an active subscription (that I know of) to any MMOs out there. WoW just expired yesterday and AoC will expire around the 24th. I was debating whether to sub to VG for a little bit, but I'm not feeling up to it at the moment. I'll see what happens when I call SOE about my subscription issues.

I'm debating which class or race to play. They don't have any Ogres available, damn them. The Ork class is possible but I'm not sure I want to play Greenskins. I'm leaning more towards Chaos or Empire. For Empire, the Battle Priest is really tempting while on the Chaos side, the Chosen or Marauder sound interesting.

Who knows, maybe I'll break out of my usual class selections and go with a Bright Wizard or Witch Hunter...

I'm basing my picks on really limited knowledge. I should see if I can dig up more information.

I'll be sure to keep my ear to the ground and see where the locals end up and aim for that server.

Or I might end up on a RP server since that can be fun though I'm quickly discovering that a lot of RP servers end up filled with people that don't have a clue about RP, bitch about not enough RPing going on or try to start things up but never follow through (thank you WoW). RP and PVP don't seem to go hand in hand very well since a lot of the PVP types just want to pwn stuff and corpse hump, while RPers want a little more meaning and a slower pace. Also it's sort of hard to type some sort of RP suitable response when you've got some higher level, maxed gear dude wailing away at you...

Hmmm... maybe I'll see if I can find a home where some of the bloggers end up.

What the Heck?`

2008-08-02T12:45:00.003-04:00

I'm guilty of not checking my credit card statement. The wife spoils me and takes care of it. If she sees anything usually she asks since I'm pretty good with my card.

Anyway, she asks me about the card getting charged interest for the previous month because she had paid the balance right off and handed me the statement. I looked over the charges and noticed one from SOE.

Hence my WTH which was more of a WTF?

I cancelled my last SOE subscription back in March sometime when I switched over to WoW. I did it online with their account management tool. It got switched to 'Pending' which is supposed to mean it will run out the rest of the month I paid for then enter a canceled state.

I checked this morning and the damn thing said Active while the, for some reason, SWG said Pending.

Figures I'd find it now on the weekend when contact cannot be made:

Available Monday through Friday from 10:00am - 7:00pm PST, except holidays, at 1-858-537-0898.

Grrr...

Moorgard Has a Point...

2008-08-01T08:11:00.004-04:00

I just read this over at Moorgard's blog. It's about gaming, essentially and out growing content or a type of game.

I think this really describes a lot of what I've been feeling about certain games and why I'm having a hard time nailing one down and sticking with it. It also explains why I re-subscribe and then quickly cancel.

Ever come across a kid show you use to watch and linger on that channel briefly? Or if you have kids, take some time to watch a show (you used to watch when you were young) with them?

Remarkably similar. Excellent stuff.

With that in mind, last night I downloaded Vanguard:SoH again. I mean I got the installer, ran the patcher and left it go all night... I'm legit. This morning I took a moment to log in, I noticed last night when I logged in to start the patcher that it worked. I'll have to figure out how much longer it will be active.

I ran the resource optimization thing, then popped into the game as my lowbie Cleric that has never left the newbie area but is reserving my old EQ1 Cleric's name on Xeth (Fabinusar, I am the original from Stromm). I ran around a little and clobbered some nearby creature - I don't even remember what it was.

Moorgard's post has me really considering whether I should bother subscribing or not. Looking back, my main issues where with the lack of challenging content (bugs don't count), quick advancement, bugs, instability, ridiculous nature of some of their quests and the fact that crafted rares were so much better than loot drops - for the most part.

Just thinking about the rewards from crafting, I feel my long forgotten hatred for crafting seething up inside again. What worsens it is that the game had numerous bugs/exploits that people used to acquire, supposed, rares so now they're not so rare. It sort of raises the bar of what people are able to do if they always have rare armor (think of the old EQ1 servers and how everyone was twinked out there).

I'm also not opposed to factioning, but I am opposed to farming being the only way to acquire some of the best gear in the game. Give me a long and complicated quest or give me a named deep down in the bowels of some nasty dungeon - and I really do mean DEEP down - that has some worthwhile drops.

They now have a raid area and tweaked a lot of things, but still... lurking about my old guild's site I see that the raid area seems to require farming some books?

I'm iffy about this one and I think it will be like that kid show where I linger momentarily, remember how the show went and then move on.

I guess I might still take a look.

Funny Story...

2008-07-30T09:02:00.005-04:00

I cancelled WoW, though that's not the funny story. I'll end up fiddling with Age of Conan until the month runs out then, unless things suddenly get awesome, I'll cancel that one too.'

Death of a gamer? Hope not.

The funny story... the wife and I were asking my oldest son what he'd like to do in the fall/winter for a sports activity. We threw out some ideas and when we said, "Karate" he responded with, "No." I asked why he didn't want to learn that and he said, "I already know karate."

Gotta love kids. It looks like he'll be doing indoor soccer, though we might still put in him a trial session or two of karate or possibly Kendo. He has played soccer before and he was a little brute. Pretty good on the ball and he'd charge into the gaggle of kids and come out with the ball. Of course, the game changes when you actually play it as you understand it better that swarm of kids chasing the ball around the pitch will stop.

I'm looking forward to it.

UPDATE: Because, you know, it's important to you people I've never met and, likely, never will meet. :)

WoW subscription expires August 4th.
AoC subscription expires August 25th.

I'm tempted to try VG again, at least to get Damascis (my Peace Affinity Cleric) to 50 and see how I feel about playing that game. I'll have to go looking for the installer somewhere because I don't believe I have it. I bought it by Direct2Drive, though never downloaded it because I had it on my machine already from beta so I just used the key. I'm sure I can get the downloader easily, SOE is good about that sort of thing.

We'll see...

Back to the "Level" Mechanic...

2008-07-29T08:31:00.006-04:00

I posted about this awhile ago (Level is a Bad Word) but the more I think about it and yap about it (see Darren's comments section), the more I think it should be done.

Someone has to design a MMO (much like Cameron is saying here) that changes the genre and advances it further. I'm going to go about my regular random thinking and bounce all over the place... enjoy.

Drop the level mechanic. Someone's hardiness should be determined on some health attribute and it should only increase when that does. It shouldn't be a big number crunching thing. Armor and innate character skill should play a part but they should be about on par (dodge/parry types are as viable as plate wearing types). Age of Conan really made this point to me when I was playing last night and noticed about 20 arrows sticking out of my guy. It got me thinking of Lord of the Rings and Boromir's death. Boromir was awesome and died after about 3-5 arrows... my guy is still alive and running away at a speed which makes olympic athletes jealous. Combat shouldn't be trivial and it should be lethal.

Drop the automatic gaining of spells and skills on attaining a level. Drop the ability to buy all your skills and spells from NPCs - ALL spells, make a few things available for sale, but not all things and make people look for them so don't have them all on one NPC (oh shit, is that 'meaningful travel', Scott?). Doing so will reward explorers and questers because this is how you will find people to train you in these abilities and offer rewards other than coin or gear.

Don't level tier the gear. Make appearance matter as much as the type of armor.

Allow people to focus on aspects of their class rather than force them to one means of playing it. Heck, you might even do away with class but place some restrictions on abilities that can be learned (i.e. you can't have studied at a Church to learn healing then study with a sect of Necromancers - or maybe let it happen but if you do, you lose the other abilities). Allow people to choose what type of fighter they want to be; durable brute? Agile and quick? Finesse and skill?

Characters should have one profession, maybe a slight dabbling in another. By this, I mean you'd have an adventurer character who doesn't do the mundane tasks of a tradesman or crafter. He's not a miner or a blacksmith, though having worked with armor and weapons, he might take the time to learn the minor aspect of that trade for maintenance purposes.

By the way, part of dropping the level aspect is you remove that age old mechanic where the higher level mob goes immediately for the lower level guy. This lets you lead some crafters or harvesters into areas. It should also allow social players to have social characters that can advance without killing things. Imagine an economy where you have adventurers escorting harvesters into tough areas and protecting them for a pay. The harvesters sell the goods to the crafters and the crafters turn out product to sell to the harvesters and adventurers.

Personally, I think VG, EQ2 and other games that have multiple spheres on one character made a mistake in doing that because it becomes too convenient to have one character that does it all. i.e. Harvesters don't need to worry about creatures if they're also a level 80 Bruiser. Crafters don't need to rely on others (or even create another character) to be able to craft.

I'd also do away with auction houses, really... I'd keep mail and package delivery systems though it would require people to do the deliveries. A mail hub would take packages and hire out people to do the deliveries. Of course, if you knew a good explorer you could go right to them.

This would also allow you to set up deals with people and have harvesters and crafters interacting more. I think this is something houses should be used for; allow people to set up shop in them. Give houses more meaning that just status for the player and a coin dump for the game.

Okay, back to character advancement.

All characters, regardless of type, would learn from others - NPCs. They'd have to convince the NPC to teach them some how or earn their trust. This means questing or harvesting or crafting or some task. You would have to seek out these people. Some will have a degree of progression to them, one trainer might suggest you move on to another to continue your studies while others would remain hidden or difficult to reach.

One thing I did like in VG was learning skills from things you fight... I'd like this to be available too. It'd depend on what you're looking for, but it gives Killers something of their own.

By the way, charging alone into a camp of 20 goblins should be just as lethal for someone who has been playing a long time as it was when they first started. Okay, not instant death, but they should still remain a serious threat and they should be able to overwhelm you. I'd want combat to be active. Players would have to move about using cover or dodging out of the way of attacks.

I realized something the other night while playing AoC, WoW and Oblivion... the creatures in Oblivion seemed more active. The casters would heal themselves, duck out of sight, dodge spells and summon up things to attack you. The non-casters seemed to have some personality to them. Some swung weapons at you, others pounced, some did a variety of both. This is sorely lacking in MMOs. Compare how a rat or wolf attacks you in Oblivion to how a rat or wolf attacks you in EQ2/VG/WoW. The rat doesn't walk up to you and make a little bite animation, it pounces at you from a short distance away - you have the chance to duck aside. This is much more engaging and I don't think it requires a lot of AI processing.

It's funny, but I think that is why my oldest son prefers Oblivion over other games I play. Okay, back to advancement...

The more you did something, the better you'd get at it, but within a reasonable limit. Some of it would be the player learning while other aspects would be built in like increased effectiveness of parrying or blocking. This is something that should be active as well. It should also be something you can learn or train.

Oops, I'm getting back into combat... but what about controlling each hand with the mouse? Dual wielding would handle left and right handed weapons with left and right button clicks. Stick and board would attack with right and defend with left. Freehand might punch or grab or something. Now, you could modify this with a CTRL or SHIFT key. Dual wielding, CTRL-right makes your right hand weapon defend and CTRL-left click makes your left hand defend. If you had stick and board, the CTRL-right would make your weapon hand parry while CTRL-left would make you shield bash. CTRL would reverse the purpose of the item held - defensive item (shield) becomes offensive while offensive items (weapons) become defensive.

The effectiveness of the attacks and defense could be impacted by what you've trained. I'd like people to be able to place trained abilities in these slots. Give the player choice between having a simple parry in the CTRL-right click slot or a parry-riposte if they've learned it. Perhaps allow it to double parry, or defend the front and back. This makes people change up what they've learned to suite what lies ahead.

UPDATE 1... stealing a few seconds to add to this.

Consider a caster, any type. Advancing to other spells in the higher circles of power could involve questing as well. The quests could be aimed at a bunch of things such as where to get spell components and ensuring the casters is suitably experienced enough to use these spells. By that I mean understand the mechanics of spell casting and resource management well enough to cast these newer spells.

Spell casting will be tricky since they could be very powerful. Remember the example of someone charging into the a camp of 20 goblins getting clobbered no matter how much training they've had? Spellcasting sort of screws this up since most of the spell effects as you 'advance' through spell circles get more powerful and usually have a range and area effect. I'd have to think about this some more since the only thing I can think of at the moment is to limit casters to single target spells, at least when it comes to damaging opponents. I'm not sure that's entirely wrong.

UPDATE 2...

I guess the root of this whole post is that I'm not happy with the lack of interaction in MMOs and likely unhappy with the current MMOs I'm playing. Oblivion MMO... only not with Oblivion's means of advancement because that game's advancement was out of whack (i.e. you could become godlike and the mobs would stop advancing in difficulty at a certain point).

Sorry Lloyd!

2008-07-28T14:14:00.002-04:00

This is something that really gets one of the guys, Lloyd, at my weekly D&D session going - people that don't write efficient code and get away with it because systems in use are powerful enough that you don't notice it. In my case a super computer wouldn't have helped because they delays introduced were time specific. It was a boneheaded thing to do and I blame being about to go on vacation or deathly tired for doing it... most likely both.

What did I do?

Well, there is a part of the daily build test where I perform a series of tests against 102 pieces of data. I do this in two different areas (204 times now) but the line of code I was calling gets called twice per test (408 times). Now, some of this data can trigger extra windows popping up that need to be handled so I have to put in checks for these windows - I give it a generous two seconds for this to pop up. Instead of checking for these six cases (the delays would only have been added 24 times) I was checking everything time it was called so I was adding overhead 384 times when it wasn't needed.

Big deal?

Well, I was doing two different checks which had two second pauses each so the delay was more like four seconds. This means a total of 1536 seconds were wasted or over 25 minutes. My minor little gaff was adding 25 minutes to the turn around time for people on my team to get the recent daily build of the product and start testing.

It's fixed now by checking for those specific data items (I actually separated it so it's easy to update which ones to check for). There are other fixes that have to be made to speed it up even more but it's sketchy because they are in place due to timing issues (i.e. the script executes faster than the application can keep up).

Sort of a duh moment to go along with my previous meh.

Just Meh...

2008-07-28T13:26:00.002-04:00

For some reason I just can't get into Age of Conan. It probably doesn't help that there is one single starting area and running through the starting island is mostly the same (I had this issue with EQ2 until they added some other starting zones). I say 'mostly' because some of the quest do change depending on the class archetype you play. Some quests differ as a tank, rogue, healer or caster.

This time I played as a caster. The cool thing is that they all tie into each other. As a caster I spied on this sorceress and fed information to the Resistance who then passes that on to rogue types to switch some scroll. It's pretty neat.

However, it's still the same deal.

I fiddled with a Guardian for a bit, got it up to about level 12 and then tried a Necromancer. The Necromancer was neat. I had four undead pets on the go at level 10 and there is some way to get some other temporary pets too, but I haven't figured out how that works. I thought it was the equivalent of a fatality for other classes where you chain the enemy up and cut out their soul to make it an undead minion of yours (temporarily). I've also seen another floating skull pet appear for a bit. Either way, the pets don't seem to do a lot of damage and they don't seem to generate a lot of threat either. In fact, if I send a pet and do nothing else the mob I sent the pets on comes at me and ignores the pet most of the time.

The spell effects are sort of neat, I have to give them that. There is one that freezes the moisture in the air and sends the ice shards hurtling at your target at deadly speed. The accompanying meaty thumping sounds are pretty cool too.

Still, something just doesn't suit me.

Oh, I re-subbed to check out how it played with the new video card. I was playing on High settings without a hitch - high 30s in FPS. I turned on some AA and it dropped to the lower 30s. On Medium, I was getting over 60 FPS.

Still, meh...

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2

2008-07-25T14:51:00.001-04:00

I can't believe I missed this news... where the heck was I?

Go take a look at the screenshots and trailers... pretty sweet.

HD 3870

2008-07-25T14:13:00.004-04:00

What? Huh?

Okay, ATI HD3870 video card. Clearer now?

I bought it, used, off a friend who had just recently bought an ATI HD4870. My previous card was still decent for what I've been playing; it was an ATI x1950.

That brings me to what I've been playing. Amazingly enough, I think I'm at an all time low for games on my hard drive. Well, okay, "my" games on the hard drive. I have NWN2, WoW and Oblivion on my PC. That is it.

It's sad when your five year old son has more games on your PC then you do.

Really, those were the only games I was playing. Okay, so WoW was the only game I was actually playing. I had NWN2 on there because I feel guilty about buying the expansion and only having played it for maybe a half hour one time. I have Oblivion on my PC because every now an then my oldest son will ask to play, "Squish Goblins" and I bought the Shivering Isles expansion but haven't completed it yet.

So I had those three games to use to check out the improvements of the new video card. Here is the verdict:

WoW looked the same as it did with my other card. I had everything set to max and turned on with both cards and the game played just fine. One thing I did notice was when I switched to windowed mode with the older card, I would get some lag and delays in busy areas. With the new card, I don't have this issue at all.

By the way, I have two LCD monitors plugged into the video card and I stretch the desktop across both of them... makes surfing for porn while playing WoW easier; WoW on one screen, porn on the other.

For NWN2 I turned up several of the settings, most to max except for some of the shadow settings which I moved to about midway. Game performed fine. No lagged or slide showing at all. The downside was that, much like WoW, it also didn't look all that different.

I fired up Oblivion, went into the options and tweaked all the settings, setting most to maximum. I loaded up the 'fireball guy' (as my son calls him) and immediately noticed the difference. Wow... was it clear and crisp and detailed.

I'm going to have to re-install Call of Duty 4 and UT3 later and give them another run.

Any other decent games out there that I might appreciate? I'm trying to avoid shooters because I consume them too fast and don't really get involved in the online aspect of them...

Maybe I will take another look at Age of Conan, just to see how much of an impact the card can have. Maybe...

iPod Touch

2008-07-22T19:49:00.004-04:00

First day back to work and man was it crazy. Overloaded with email that accumulated over three weeks and on top of that I discovered my manager put me as the main contact point for the testing side of the product - he just left for three weeks of vacation too.

I'm already getting some pretty odd emails. One was an email informing me that there were a number of bugs logged in a particular area. Um... okay. They're logged, flagged as being important to a group so they'll get looked at. Curious, I took a peek and saw that it was a bug one of our guys logged a little while ago while a feature was getting a usability facelift. I won't get into detail, but lets just say it differed very slightly from what was in the spec... but hey, we knew about it and it seems the big cheeses decided it was not worth fixing for the last release (which wasn't that long ago).

I wasn't sure how to answer that. Do I state the obvious? "Yes, it was a recently changed area and that difference from the spec was noted... we'll look at it for your version of our component." I went with the, "Okay, thanks!" response.

Anyway, two gems in the list of emails I sifted through.

1. I was to move to a window seat. Ideally I would have had one when we moved to the new building because I had one before, but someone complained about the size of the cubes and complained he needed more space. Squeaky wheel gets the grease. The other seat went to the current team lead who moved into management. May he rest in peace. Not a big life changer but seeing the outside world by just looking over my shoulder is nice.

2. As a gift for our last release we were all given iPod Touch devices (8gb version).

I picked mine up and waited until I got home to fiddle around with it. It's currently charging but I had it on for a bit. My two little ogres gravitated towards it in no time.

Apple really got the usability down for these devices. I was stunned as I watched my two year old navigate around the various apps and step back the home view and into another app, write some letters and move on to the clock and other things.

VERY SIMPLE AND FUNCTIONAL.

It's not a thing of beauty because it's a neat gadget, it's a thing of beauty because it's bloody well ingenious.

Mission Completion and Arena Gear Rant...

2008-07-22T11:03:00.005-04:00

Okay, so mission one was completed - mostly. I managed to get to Exalted faction with the Mag'har and I bought up the Axe I was looking for. I also got enough researcher tokens to get the 18 slot bag. The part I didn't complete yet is the pet leveling. I got my cat to 69th, though he's close to 70. The scorpid is still level 65 and the wind serpent is still level 67. Oh well, I'll level them as I work on other things I'm sure.

Mission two hasn't been worked on yet. I haven't gone and done any instances because I'm waiting on some guild people to do them with me. I've never done them so I'm not sure what to expect. I was hoping for a bit of a tour... I'm also not sure where some of the instances are - just some of them.

Mission three has been underway as well, though I'm getting annoyed with questing in Shadowmoon area.

Why?

Well, it seems there is a bug (at least I think it is a bug) where you get stuck in combat mode. Normally not a problem because my mana regen with Aspect of the Viper is good enough to keep going and I've got tons of bandages. The problem is that I cannot mount up to move around fast and I also cannot feed my pet. To get out of combat I have to hearth out or leave the zone and feign death to clear it. Really shitty...

If anyone out there reading this and knows about this, please let me know if there is some sort of work around or something.

I also decided I'd take up Leatherworking so I've got that up to about 260 or so. I'm blocked by Rugged Leather so I'll have to go farm some of that.

I didn't realize it, but there is some really good high end Leatherworking gear which is better than what I was looking to buy. The stuff I was going to buy was good, but there is epic, creator only gear that is pretty sweet. I'll aim for that which will require a lot of farming, but I'm up for it.

I also am nearing the amount needed for a flying mount. I can't wait for that one, even though I'll only be able to use it in the Outlands.

Arena awarded gear should only be usable in the arena.

I can stomach facing off against people in raid gear or who have been level 70 for a couple of years now so they've got the best PVE gear available, but it seems like everyone has Arena gear and they use it for World PVP. It should be Arena PVP only and the World PVP rewards should be used for World PVP.

It's not too bad when you're facing off against one or two, but when you're facing 3:1 odds and they all have full Arena gear it is just stupidly sick. I had a Warrior charge/stun me and kill me before the stun wore off. Okay, maybe he had a crit or something, but still... It's not like I'm 10 levels lower than he was, we're both 70 and I've got mostly blues.

It just isn't good enough when the opponent is in full purple.

Really, it is going to be pretty discouraging to new people.

I guess I'll just have to beg and plead with someone to let a Hunter onto their Arena team... I hear we suck bad in PVP. Of course, I'll likely get that gear just in time for WotLK expansion to come out and drop me back to the bottom of the totem pole.

Ah well.

The red-haired giant was visiting today and talked some AoC to me. Seems they nerfed Assassins by changing stealth or something. He was saying a level 79 friend walked away from his Assassin because he can't even sneak up on mobs 4 levels lower than he was without them seeing him 20 paces away.

Sort of sad.

I do admit, I'm a little tempted to pick it up again and go with an Acquillionian Guardian or something more meaty. I think my main issues were the feel of the Assassin class was lost on leaving the Isle of Tortage. I think I also didn't really like the theme of the desert race area. I might give it another try... I'm not sure though. I'm really iffy. Maybe a Dark Templar...

Meh...

Missions 1, 2 and 3

2008-07-19T21:05:00.005-04:00

It appears I need to get some factioning going. If you played Vanguard back before the patched the Vol Tuniel area faction grind, you sort of know what this feels like. The main difference is that you don't need a group to kill the creatures to raise your faction.

1) I'm currently working in Nagrand; I want the Halaani Bag - 18 slot, for 8 Researcher Tokens. I have 4. I'm also working on the Mag'har faction. I'm just short of Revered, but I need to push it into Exalted so I can get Hellscream's Will - a nice big fat two handed axe.

While doing this, I'm leveling up my pets. I have Humar the Pridelord as my DPS pet(66th level), a Scorpid from the Bone Fields for PVP (he's 65th) and lastly a Wind Serpent for an alternate PVP pet (he's 67th). I'll likely dispose of the Wind Serpent for training purposes when WotLK comes out and the levels increase.

2) I'll also be working on Cenarion Expidition - which means having my LFG on specifying Coilfang. If I get an invite, I'll drop what I'm doing and head there. I might also try to get some guild groups going, but that will depend on what is available.

Cenarion Expidition faction gets me a number of things; best arrows available and an awesome Head item Inscription. To work this faction, I have to head into Coilfang instance. The bonus of that is there is supposed to be a great weapon drop in there and, I believe, a few really good blue armor drops.

It might seem odd to grind faction for the Axe above, then hope to get this one, but I don't want to leave things to chance. One I know I can get (faction item), I want the bag (which is acquire from handing in a lot of drops - I need about 80 more fragments for 20 being handed in for one token) and the creatures are decent enough XP to level my pets off of.

3) Last mission, for now, will be to clear up my quests in the various areas, then maybe go back and do the group ones. I also want to finish up a quest line in Shadowmoon to get a head item. All the while I'll be saving up for my flying pet which is going to be costly.

I still have to fill out some gear slots with various items, some of which can be crafted. I'll need to track someone down that has the recipes. I'll also need to get my gear enchanted and slotted.

Expensive stuff.

After that, I'll have to consider what is next... likely more factioning.

Smaken, Level 70 Orc Hunter

2008-07-19T08:12:00.002-04:00

Yes, I finally hit 70! Okay, so the Hunter class is said to be easy mode but still, I made it.

Level 70 seemed to be a little easier than the previous levels, but maybe I was just gung ho about getting there so it didn't feel as tough. I celebrated by hitting the auction house and buying up some gear - blues. I picked up a shoulder, belt, bow and pants. There didn't seem to be a whole lot else. I also grabbed a bunch of Fel Armaments so I can hand those in for dusts to inscribe some armor pieces.

In the next little while I'll focus on raising my enchanting, picking up gear and messing around with Talent builds to find something good for PVP. I'll also dig around and see what is needed to get some more upgrades in gear which will probablt involve factioning. I've also got to go looking for another riding trainer so I can pick up a flying mount.

I've got a ways to go still and several months before Wrath of the Lich King comes out.

On the back burner is Andinicus, who looks like he'll be fun to level and PVP with.

No lack of things to do in that game.

Wrath of the Lich King Stuff...

2008-07-18T09:53:00.002-04:00

I was snooping around FoH message board and saw this thread which spills the beans on some beta patch notes. I found the Hunter notes pretty interesting:

Hunter

* All pet families now have one unique ability. New abilities have been added for families such as bears and sporebats.
* Aspects now no longer cost mana.
* Avoidance, Dash / Dive and Cobra Reflexes are now pet talents instead of pet skills.
* Bite now has no cooldown, does the same damage and costs the same Focus as Claw, so works as a Focus dump.
* Clever Traps (Survival) has been renamed "Trap Mastery."
* Concussive Barrage (Marksmanship) - Can now proc from Volley attacks.
* Deterrence (Survival) - Cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, and now also increases your chance to resist spells by 60%. Now has a new spell effect.
* Every hunter pet can learn Growl, Cower and either Bite or Claw (never both).
* Hunter pets can now learn talents in one of three trees depending on family. Pets gain talent points starting at level 20 and earn an extra talent point every 4 levels.
* If a hunter tames a pet that is more than five levels beneath than the hunter's level, then the pet jumps to five levels beneath than the hunter's level.
* Improved Feign Death (Survival): Now also reduces damage taken during Feign Death by 15/30%.
* Loyalty, Training Points and the hunter Beast Training button no longer exist. Hunter pets can now learn all skills at their level. They will get new ranks automatically as they gain levels.
* Master Tactician (Survival) - Chance to proc increased to 10%, up from 6%.
* Monster Slaying (Survival) and Humanoid Slaying (Survival) has been combined into "Improved Tracking".
* New Talent - Improved Tracking (Survival) - Increases all damage done to targets that are being tracked 1/2/3/4/5%.
* Steady Shot now uses ammo. In result, its bonus damage has been slightly reduced. Players can notice a damage increase based upon what ammo they use.
* Surefooted (Survival) now reduces the duration of movement impairing effects by 10/20/30% (instead of resist % chance).
* Trap Mastery (Survival) has been removed.

First off, unique abilities sound pretty damn cool, it gives you another reason to get a certain type of pet.

The lower level pet jumping up levels is nice, though it makes raising a pet from the start less rewarding. For example, one of the pets I have is unique as a black lion. He's level 23 elite rare (Humar the Pridelord) and with this, I don't think he'll be as rare.

Survival talent tree is looking nicer.

I find the achievement thing sort of funny. It's interesting that they'd add that instead of a Leadership Talent tree. You gain Leader levels (like in EQ1) when you lead a group which rewards you with talents that affect the group. The same could be done for World PVP raids and PVE raids.

They should get on that.

That's all for now.
That's all I have for now.

69!!

2008-07-18T00:29:00.002-04:00

I hit level 69 earlier today. I continue my stomp forward to 70 over the next couple of days.

That raises some questions - what do I want to do at 70? My options seem to be PVP, raiding or calling it quest. To be decent for continuing I'll need to gear up first. That could mean faction grinding... ugh.

It almost seems futile to grind faction to get some temporary gear so that you aren't completely slaughtered while trying to get all the gear everyone else already has.

Sound like fun?

Actually, I don't do too bad. A couple of days ago when I was 66th and in Nagrand, I ended up getting into some PVP for Halaa. It was quite fun and I did well enough for facing off against 70s with arena gear.

I'll have to work on my PVPing and set up some hotkeys.. mouse clicking just won't do.

Pink Eye Sucks...

2008-07-16T20:14:00.003-04:00

It's the first time I've had this that I can remember. It's irritating and makes you want to rub your eyes a lot... which of course is how it spreads. You rub your eyes, touch stuff and pass along the cooties. Someone else touches something you touched, gets the cooties and puts them in their eye.

At least, that's how I explained it to my eldest little ogre who now has it in one eye. It's got to be tough for kids since they don't necessarily understand not to rub their eyes. The above was about the best way to explain it. The other way would have been to let him watch this:

Unfortunately, there is some swearing in that video so it's not suitable for little ogres.

The littlest ogre doesn't seem to have it.. yet. Mommy ogre either. She happens to be out and doesn't seem to realize how contagious it is. "Oh sure, you can go to the dentist still" and "You can take the kids out to play with their friends".

I'm sure their parents would be pleased to have them end up with pink eye.

Washing lots, walking around with stuff to sterilize what I've touched and getting the big little ogre to wash his hands lots. I'm not sure where I got it from, likely from the park yesterday or one of my little ogres.

Ah well, it's one way to cap off my vacation.

Hunting...

2008-07-15T10:15:00.002-04:00

I'm back to my Hunter for a bit. He's 3.5 levels away from hitting 70th level. I figure I can make the most progress with him this week. I'm almost done with Nagrand area, nearing 67th.

Unfortunately, the server is down for the regular Tuesday maintenance and should be back up by about 2pm this afternoon, just in time for me to get next to nothing accomplished today.

Of course, the wife thinks I'm sitting at home playing games all day so you can bet she won't be happy if I attempt to play tonight. Ah well.

Not much else going on. I haven't picked up any new games and I don't see any in the near future that I want to pick up. I might poke around with Warhammer when it comes out, but I'm not sure how long that will last. I might actually wait it out and see if they release a trial version. I don't know.

My biggest little ogre is now 5 years old. He celebrated by completing all the story levels in Lego Indianna Jones. We tracked down all the artifacts, parcels and scored True Adventurer on all levels. We even completed the Young Indianna level and destruction level. We didn't do the Warehouse yet, I think that is what stands between us having 100% - currently the game is rated as about 98% complete.

Making use of the Extras in game really helped. I guess I should have read the manual. We were going back into Lego Star Wars and trying to score all the mini-kits and red bricks there. He's got most of them, just missing a few. Again, much easier once you turn on the mink-kit detector and red brick detector.

One thing I noticed is that both games seem to have some sort of thing to do with poo. What the heck?

Okay, even WoW seems to have a thing to do with poo. They reuse all the same buildings but actually took the effort to make a poo model. Check around ogre areas and also in Nagrand around the local fauna - one quest even makes you go digging through it to get some 'processed' nuts. Sort of like those coffee beans...

Ah well.

Half Way Marker...

2008-07-10T08:06:00.004-04:00

I'm half way through my vacation. The first week was good. I went back to my old home country, Quebec. I was there with the wife, kids, sister, brother in law and their two adopted kids for about three days. We went off to Parc Safari which was about what I remembered it being.

Day one had us there at their water park - itty bitty one - for several hours. My littlest ogre was loving the wading pool and all the sprinklers. My oldest enjoyed the tube river ride and hand paddle boats. I enjoyed the scenary. That's right ladies, when you're at a water park and prancing around in your little bikinis, somenone, somewhere is oogling you.

Actually, I realized two things; I'm getting old and a lot of people in Montreal have tattoos.

Day two was overcast and actually rained on us. Frank, if you're reading this, it appears that the rain at Granby Zoo was not your fault but likely mine, Elaine's or Aidan's. :)

We did the safari tour and fed tons of animals. The kids enjoyed it. We parked and headed into the park little village area, which is when it started to rain. The BIL (brother in law) didn't have a rain coat or anything close to that so we popped into a shop to pick one up for him - $3.50 gets you a plastic, transparent Parc Safari poncho. The kids were pretty crazy in there, looking at everything and touching everything. I ended up buying the kids some huge lollipops - four lollipops ended up being $15.

They didn't finish them. I expected as much.

We also had lunch there while waiting on the rain to let up. Food was a little bland, the ice tea I ordered came in a can with a straw, service was really slow, the kids got impatient and I was tempted to walk out on the bill. Pricing was about what you'd expect for eating at a Kelsey's, Casey's, Montana's or Boston Pizza.

In short, bring your own food.

It wouldn't be a post from me if I didn't talk gaming at all so...

I created a Blood Elf Mage ("Andinicus") on the Earthen Ring server, which is an RP server. Not too far in I was approached by a PVP guild looking for people. I liked the sound of it, it reminded me of the days in the Hessians back in EQ1 which was a mercenary guild. I was hoping the RP server would bring back some of the fun in the game. So far it has been hit and miss.

Best part about Earthen Ring - aside from being the server Curt Schilling plays on - is that there are no queues for logging on. Cairne would have queues just about every time I logged on. If I were to log on in the late evening, I'd get stuck in a queue for 15-20 minutes. Not so on Earthen Ring.

I ended up liking the server enough that I moved Karrn over from Cairne server. I had to rename him since Karrn was taken. Any guesses on what I renamed him to? If you guessed Somerandomdouchebag you would be incorrect. I named him Smaken. I r o-rig-n-l.

He's been sitting still at 64, I've been focused on raising the Mage, who is now level 30. I started him on the Fire talent tree then switched him to Ice and got hims some Frost damage increasers. Shortly after, I discovered he was still doing more damage with Fire so I switched him back to Fire. I now find that I'm missing some of the effects Ice spec gets you - namely Frostbite. Ah well, I picked up two new spells that I wouldn't get if I was Ice; Pyroblast and a PBAE flame attack that apparently should daze opponents.

I also have a Tauren Shaman ("Lonomaya") up to 16 - this was the results of being frustrated in not being able to find a group to do instances. Either there was no healer or the healer we had dropped shortly in leaving the group to dissolve. I was quickly reminded of why I stopped my previous Shaman... there is just something about the class that doesn't sit right for me. I haven't deleted him, but I refocused on the Mage and put the Shaman on hold.

I also started an Undead Rogue ("Lugosi") which is up to level 15. I'm finding that one to be a lot tougher than the Mage, Shaman or Hunter.

Okay, so the Hunter is a bloody joke compare to the other classes. He rolls over stuff in PVE but does suffer a little in PVP. Namely if you bypass the pet, the Hunter is pretty screwed. Part of the reason I went Mage... and Rogue.

I'll get back to the Hunter. I suspect I'll be bouncing around from character to character for the next little while.

On a good note, I haven't been afraid of PUGs. I've made a few attempts to get into instances with people. It's been mixed results. I'll talk about some of those another time.

I've got to take the kids to the sitter and go shopping for some more birthday presents for my oldest little ogre.

Oh Crap...

2008-06-27T18:56:00.004-04:00

... vacation (3 weeks of it) has officially started and I'm already bored wondering what the heck to do with myself.

I fired up WoW for a bit, popped in as my Hunter, completed a quest and wandered around Terrokar Forest looking for some entrance to a cave or tomb or something. Couldn't find it. I was too lazy to check on the web and no one in the guild was online. I ended up logging off feeling sort of meh about it.

I eyed the CoH icon on my quick launch bar for a bit but didn't really feel like logging in. I'm reminded of why I stop. There is a really slow advancement to it - for the most part. To top that off, it has the same issue as TR... you have limited means of advancement and the path before you is sort of obvious. I can't see myself using the same powers over and over for another 30 levels. Meh.

I'm staring at the start up screen for NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer, which I downloaded awhile back but I never bothered to play it beyond a few rooms into the start. I might give that a go for a bit.

When I get back from the video store. Maybe.

Meh.

Oh, I should get some more beer. I'll start with that.

Why I Can't Go Back...

2008-06-25T11:28:00.004-04:00

I've played a fair number of mainstream MMOs that have come out and I have very little interest (or I have gone back to discover I couldn't really go back) in many of the ones that I've left.

Here's a list of ones I've played:

EverQuest - It's so old and just doesn't 'feel' right when I've tried it recently. I also don't look forward to the task - and it is a task - of leveling up a character in this game. I loved the dungeons, but I've also done then enough that what I loved about them (exploration, discovery and excitement of learning the area) can't be had. I will always have fond memories of this game. Always. My recent attempt at playing helped me file this one under 'Done'.

Asheron's Call - I went back about a year or so after I stopped and even then I found the graphics to be dull, dungeons to be bland and lacking depth, the lack of racial choices and the character advancement system were all a little unexciting - to me. I filed this one away as 'Done' back then.

Dark Age of Camelot - I went back to this game after leaving another one - I can't remember which - and I played with a friend who I dragged forward to another game. I can't remember if it was EQ2 or VG, I think it was EQ2. I leveled a Firbolg Druid almost to max level before this other game came out. It was a painful experience. The server lowbie areas were dead. The BGs had people, but for the most part, PVEing was dead. You have a small number of people starting over split across three realms and across a couple of potential starting areas which means... dead. Not many people to group with. Fortunately I had people to play with, otherwise I would have dropped this fast. Either way, that is a big reason why I filed this one under "Done" after that. All this game has going for it is the RVR and even then, you have to level up to get there...and the get the Master Levels since you're pretty gimp if you don't have them. "Done".

Asheron's Call 2 - well the servers are closed down so that pretty much settles that. "Done". hehe

City of Heroes/Villains - I'm actually re-subscribed to this game. It's amusing in short bursts, I almost wish they had a pay per day or something rather than a monthly fee. Still, the game is dead-ended. Oh, they're adding improvements and having events, but if you consider that the game is several years old (3?) now and they've yet to bump the level cap, add an expansion that increases content significantly or even expand on the raid content (AFAIK there is only one real raid), then you can conclude the they aren't likely to change that like other MMOs do. Also consider that Champions Online is in the works. I'm not "Done" with this, and I likely won't be until another, better, superhero MMO comes out.

Star Wars: Galaxies - I beta tested this and didn't really like where they were going with it at that point so I didn't pick it up on release. I only tried it again last summer when I picked up the SOE All Access Pass software package. I wasn't too impressed though I gave it several sessions. The initial areas seemed somewhat busy, but when I zipped over to the real game area, it was oddly vacant. Well, excluding the various credit farming spam bots that were advertising their services. This game never really 'was' for me so easily "Done" with it.

Dungeons and Dragons Online - This is another one that I beta tested then didn't pick up on release, instead I picked it up later on in the release. I'll admit, I liked the idea of the game but not the implementation. I didn't really like the gameplay nor how they adjusted 3e to fit to their MMO world. I also didn't like that several classes and races weren't available on release. This should have been a warning against it and my bud Frank warned me against it with two words, "It's Turbine". I won't go into this at length, but I won't be able to go back to this game for too many reasons to list. If I do go back, I will quickly remember what drove me away. They really had a good opportunity here but I feel they pissed it away for some reason. Did they think the name would be enough? Were they just trying to get some more capital together so they could make LOTRO? What ever it is, there is a lot of basic things that drive me nuts about it. My latest issue came from having dual monitors... DDO wouldn't start up even after disabling them and tweaking some other settings their support suggested. Hey Turbine, I've got this Dora the Explorer game out of a Fruit Loops box about three years ago and guess what? It worked fine on Vista and it works fine with dual monitors. Like Frank said, "It's Turbine". "Done"

EverQuest 2 - I've come back to this game about three times. I picked it up instead of WoW and got my character to 50th just as the Splitpaw Saga came out (I was too high for the Bloodlines module when that one came out). The guild Frank and I were running sort of split ways due to pacing (several of us were ready for raiding and wanted to raid while others were taking their time leveling up - hey, they're allowed, they're paying for it too). We also lost one of our DPS types to Fires of Heaven (that wouldn't be the last time I had guild members yanked away by FoH). Anyway, moved on to a raid guild and battled all the way up through the raid content, mainly working on prismatics. I had several fabled pieces and was just a Darathar kill away from getting my prismatic when I stopped. The guild's leader and several others were poached by FoH not to long thereafter. That didn't really affect me other than that I didn't expect it from that leader. Oh well. I went on to play something else, then came back with the gang and played a Warden up to 65ish. We got bored and left. I came back with some work friends but that didn't last too long because I was playing something else or I simply didn't have time. Later I came back again, I think it was after VG, this time with the gang again. I made a run with a Berserker but got bored again around the mid 50s. I moved my first character off Permafrost to Antonia Bayle and set him up again but that didn't last too long either (despite my excitement at the Kunark expansion). I simply got bored again. I think I'm pretty much "done" with EQ2.

Anarchy Online - I beta'd this one and didn't pick it up because the beta experience was horrible. I think this was the first MMO to use instancing and half the time the instances wouldn't come up leaving you stuck loading or running in and out of a door hoping it would kick you into the instance. A year or so later I'd heard they cleaned up a lot of things and the game was actually playable and fun. I popped into it and I did have some fun with it. I mainly soloed though and that got tiresome fast. I did drag Frank and Chris into it briefly when the client was free for a time. Neither one really seemed to like it though so I moved on. I don't have any urges to return so it's pretty much "done" for me.

Tabula Rasa - I was in the beta, thought it was fun in a mindless sort of way. I did like picking up the Logos and some of the powers. I ended up picking it up on release and I played it for several weeks. I can't remember what level I got to, but it was high enough to get a sense that the game wasn't very deep as far as character development went. I enjoyed shooting stuff, exploring and finding Logos. The missions were neat, I liked the instances and introductions to them. All really well done. What I didn't like was the lack of character variation or distinction in classes - other than which gun you're going to use. I also didn't like that it looked deceptively shooter-like. While playing you were seeing a shooter, but you weren't playing one. Under the hood there were hit rolls and such and I think that separation from being a shooter subconsciously got to me. I'm "Done" with that one too. Cute game, not something I'd want to pay a monthly fee for though. They did a number of things right though, I have to give them credit for that. It wasn't horrible, it just wasn't for me.

Age of Conan - This one didn't sit well for me. I really liked the Isle of Tortage. I liked the voice acting and the feel of things. I liked that they deviated a little based on class as well. What I didn't like is that the controls didn't feel responsive (thanks to Darren at Common Sense Gamer for pointing that out), I found myself mashing the keys many times because I wasn't getting immediate feedback. Combos were neat, but they lost their luster after awhile. I felt like I was doing some sort of finger aerobics while playing. Anyway, good game, good release, gritty, a little on the easy side since they have a built in quest spoiler that tells you where to go for each quest and high lights areas for you so you know where to hunt for things. Really, it killed exploring and looking for things. It also meant you didn't really have to sit and read the dialog between the NPCs. Why bother since the quest spoiler would tell you what to do. It's not like the NPCs were talking to you now that you were off the Isle. The feel of the game (not the environment, which was awesome) did me in. "Done".

World of Warcraft - I'm up to level 64 with my Orc Hunter and I'm not really feeling the excitement about logging in that I did several months ago. I think I'm burning out or getting a little bored of soloing. I know, I should do something about that. Get into groups or do some PVP or something. I might when I log back on... though I'm more likely to go ahead and just continue questing. I'm not quite "Done" with WoW, but I doubt I will play another character. I can't see myself going through the content all over again for some reason.

PlanetSide - I was in the beta, enjoyed it but didn't subscribe to it after beta. Why would I when there were free FPS servers and things like Unreal Tournament and Battlefield coming out? I did take a look at it last summer when I got that SOE All Access Pass software package, but on trying to enter the world with the guy I created I crashed. I couldn't seem to get in. This wasn't like DDO simply kicking me back out, this was an actual crash. I think I looked around a little to see if I could solve it but didn't find anything that worked. I do find SOE's knowledge base and support pretty good but I wasn't all that excited about playing it, more curious. "Done".

Vanguard - I was in beta and I did pick it up on release since I was one of the rare people that didn't seem to have severe performance issues (I upgraded my system just before release) and the crashes weren't frequent enough to impact my gameplay (of course, frequencies varied as they tried to patch things). It was the game to play quite awhile. I enjoyed it a lot and got my Cleric up to about 47 (or just short of that). If you dredge through my history of posts you'll see I got worried about what was coming up for the game - mainly the lack of anything new coming anytime soon - and found it a little on the easy side. I would be tempted to go back and play. I have been considering it but I think I'll wait it out a little longer. Maybe wait on the new models and some more tweaks to the game. I don't know if I'd go back and finish off my Cleric or start over somewhere else. I'm not done with this game yet.

Matrix Online - Despite being a fan of the Matrix movies (first one was awesome other two were steps down), I had no interest in this game. I tried it out a couple of times when it was part of the SOE All Access pack. Doing so reaffirmed the validity of my decision to avoid the game. It was odd and not really all that interesting. "Done"

Guild Wars - I played this one on release and thought it was sort of neat. I wasn't too sure about the instancing though and the fact that it wasn't shared with others. It just felt... odd. I was so used to having tons of people running about making jackasses of themselves that soloing through the first few instances felt lonely. Neat concept, class mixing was neat and streaming content to you as needed was nifty but leveling was a little fast. I remember being level 13 (out of 20 levels?) and not yet coming close to the ending zones of the PVE stuff. Smart move allowing people to create level 20 PVP characters and separating them from PVE. More games should do this. *cough* WoW *cough* It didn't really do anything that kept me and no one I knew (at the time) was even interested in it. I did pop back onto it not too long ago, puttered around a bit and then removed it again. I doubt I'll be back. "Done" with that one too.

Some of the mainstream games that I've made a conscious decision to not play are:

Lineage - Sort of before my time, in a sense. I wasn't ready for PVP in my MMO at that time.

Lineage 2 - Same sort of deal, though I also heard the grind was something that made EQ look fast (well, it is now).

Final Fantasy - I liked the FF series but there were several things about this game that made me not want to play. Cuddly race, meh. The server assignment was odd. I wasn't sure how the controls would have worked with the PC. Ultimately, too many questions about this game.

Pirates of the Burning Sea - I'm not that keen on pirates. It sounded pretty PVP focused and I could see myself smashing expensive things if that cool ship I spent months earning in game coin for was sunk and needed to be replaced (yes, I know, it wasn't permanent unless you were a pirate or something like that). The game just really didn't interest me.

EVE Online - Same deal as Pirates of the Burning Sea. To me, in my ignorance having never played either, they sound like identical designs only one is a ship in space and the other is a ship on the water. Yeah okay, PotBS has some focus on your 'character' that I don't think is there for EVE, but the same reasoning stands. Lots of work to get cool ship, cool ship gets blown up, vision turns red, veins pop out, OGRE SMASH! Ogre need new PC... Okay, I'm not that bad, but the point is, I don't really want to pay money to spend time earning something that gets flushed. I just don't call that entertainment.

Lord of the Rings Online - "It's Turbine". Despite hearing good things, I never touched this game. Didn't even pick up the box. And I won't.

Some of the upcoming MMOs of interest:

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning - Unlike Mr. Bartle, I'm not a game designer (though I am fascinated by underlying systems) and I also don't mind playing the same sort of game if things feel different. I might give this one a look but I'm not 100% sold on it yet.

Champions Online - I'm interested. The only Superhero MMO out there right not is City of Heroes/Villains. That's probably the only reason I re-subscribed, there are no alternatives. This one stands a chance of putting Cryptic's name right up there next to Turbine for me. Will they make all the same mistakes as they did in the first game? Will they release a game that has everything the first one had and more? Or will they slowly sink down into boiling hot lava without me and my 15$ a month to save them! Tune in next time...

The Agency - Curious but I'm starting to think it will be lumped in with Tabula Rasa. Time will tell.

Feel free to share your thoughts, tell me I'm wrong, call me an idiot for not liking your favorite game but please, PLEASE, don't agree with me.

General Stuff...

2008-06-23T09:52:00.003-04:00

The weekend was a bit of a blur as usual.

I caved on Friday night and ended up downloading EQ1's trial package, installed it and started patching overnight. After taking my son to gymnastics (a.k.a. ninja training) I hopped onto The Combine progression server and made a Troll Shaman - I probably should have gone Ogre, but I was thinking if I stayed Troll and went with Innoruuk I could get that nasty clickable snare neck item.

I popped in and took a look around. It took me a few minutes to get to the UI and interface (and to remap things I usually remapped in EQ1) then I proceeded to escape from the kobold captors. And clobber some rats. And some bats. And I logged out and uninstalled.

Not that it was painful, it's just that I did it before. I made it to about level 5 which was higher than my previous return (DE Necro that made level 2).

I know I won't ever get that 'new game smell' back. Breaking into the genre, exploring the areas and talking with friend about it like it's all new. Not happening.

Ah well.

I ended up hitting 64th in WoW with my Hunter. I started getting a decent pace going then I had to stop because everyone got home. I'm looking forward to advancing more with the Hunter now since I've got a lot more interesting things and less alien things to do (Zangarmarsh was a little bizarre). I would like to go back and try some of the instances though. I also got Aspect of the Viper, which really helps my mana regen a lot and I've advanced my Enchanting up over 130... it's slow going because I'm saving for the next level of Riding.

I also went and nabbed some more pets. I ditched the Ravager, I found the armor increase at cost of HPs really wasn't worth it. It just seemed too fragile, even with max armor training and some minor health boosts. I'll stick with Hayden (my Humar Pridelord cat pet) which means I'd better get back to Fishing up stuff for him to eat. So new pets, Tyler and Sean. My oldest son is naming them after friends in his class. Tyler is a Scorpid from Terrokar Forest (plains of bone) and Sean is a Warp Lizard. I have to admit the warp lizard is neat for pulling. I drop Intimidate on it and send it to attack, it runs a short distance then warps to the mobs. I know it will be nasty for PVP because I had one used on me rather effectively by a level 70 Dwarf Hunter. The Scorpid is also supposed to be really good because it stacks multiple poisons on an enemy so I can slip my poisons on a target, it stacks its poison and makes getting rid of my poisons (damage, miss chance increase or mana drain) tougher. It's also armored so it works as a tank pet.

I'm looking forward to wrapping up the quests in this area and moving on to Blade's Edge zone where I hear there are tons of quests which should finish my leveling to 70.

I'm still being anti-social. I have yet to put up my LFG flag or actively look for a group. I'll get over that soon I think.

I also installed City of Heroes/Villains on Saturday and patched it while I was out in the afternoon. I gave it a go later in the evening and had some fun with it. My oldest saw it and got all excited. He loves that game. He ran into the back room and grabbed the bench he uses to sit on and watch me play. Of course, he made me switch from my Fire/Ice Manipulation Blaster (X-Treem -13) to the one he likes which is a Guns/Devices Blaster (Ghost Op - 19). I respec'ed him to pick up Flamethrower and he's been pretty nasty with that. He's also got more Influence than the other one since I sold some costume parts in the auction house (he's got about 11 million influence). I also have my Gravity/Force Fields Controller (Alkatori Gen - 21) on that server. I'm playing those ones on Guardian where I have a few others, but nothing worth mentioning.

I also created a couple of characters on Freedom server since it seems to have more population. The ones on Freedom are Northgaard (Canadian Shield, North Guard were taken) and Crusader 42 (sort of robot looking so I made use of Brian's warforged character's name, though I threw Crusader on the front). They're level 4 and 5 I think. Northgaard is an Energy/Energy Manipulation Blaster - I love the knock back effects. Crusader 42 is a Invulnerability/Energy Tanker.

I'll try to remember to get pictures and put them up. I suspect I'll be playing it for awhile, at least as long as both me and my son have interest in it. I might try to teach him how to play it. He seems to do well enough on other games, though they tend to be a little less complicated as far as controls go but he does learn fast.

Oh, he conquered his first game on his own last night; Putt-Putt: Pep's Birthday Surprise. He was really pleased with himself. :)

Sporn and Mamariaphobia...

2008-06-21T11:05:00.003-04:00

I'm inventing words because I'm too lazy to look and see if there really is a phobia of breasts. I found this little subtitle from this article HILARIOUS.

Image: The "Boobalicious" character created by PC Gamer editor Kristen Salvatore earned her a warning letter from Electronic Arts, publisher of "Spore." Offending bits have been blacked out to protect the children.

Let me emphasize one part:

Offending bits have been blacked out to protect the children

Protect the children? From what? Something they sucked on for nourishment not too long ago? Do these people have kids? Did they blindfold their babies while breast feeding?

Seriously.

I can only assume the author is kidding but with the way people in the US seem to react about boobs, you can't really tell.

Sounds Like He Really is Done...

2008-06-19T22:53:00.004-04:00

I have to admit, I'm a little numb and unsure about online gaming lately. A big impact of that is knowing my online gaming bud of 10+ years has thrown in the towel and it really does appear like he is completely done.

In honor of NonStopChopChop©, The Way of the Baboon© and A Smaken Pull©, I present this picture of one of the last instances we did together:

What's the big deal? Well... it emphasizes a long history of how we rolled. I'll point out a couple of things:

1. The Group

Duoing in an instance. We've been duoing in games for a long time now, often covering the tank and healer roles.

2. On Track

That is what was on track and coming up. It was A Smaken Pull© in the truest form.

3. A Smaken Pull©

A four pull indeed. After that was going to be a much, much bigger pull. Note the disconnect. :)

Still, four and five pulls were the sort of thing we did... except in guk. Man, I wish I still had that screenshot.

Frank was two-boxing a Shaman and Cleric while I was playing Smaken Dahed 1.0. It started with about eight be we got adds and some of the adds were shamans with pets. Fourteen frogluks and about three pets, I kid you not.

I actually miss some of those days. As I type this, I'm listening to Shut Up We're Talking #28 and thinking about all the good times I had in that game and the previous ones, but more so EverQuest itself.

The good times weren't limited to Frank and I playing either.

I can remember Exmortis (DE SK - Scott) getting charmed in Splitpaw, Iillil (DE Enchanter - Darin) and I wiped and he got walked deep down into the dungeon when charm finally broke... followed shortly after by Exmortis breaking.

Another time was in Cazic-Thule (lots of "another times" in that dungeon) where I was there with Exmortis and Cody (a Halfling Druid), Cody just cast SoW on everyone (move speed enhancement) when an Enchanter pops and immediately charms Exmortis (he was weak willed... kinda like me dammit). Exmortis turns on Cody and harm touches him, almost killing him. Cody ends up kiting him all around the courtyard of Cazic-Thule while I stumbled about laughing my ass off.

And then there were some of the fun glitches in the game which usually resulted in lots of agro. Celembrimbor (High Elf Enchanter - Chris) getting agroed by stuff through walls. He'd sit down and a few seconds later something would be attacking him. The funny thing was it seemed like they'd come across a zone to smack him.

Thinking about it makes me want to play it again but I'm going to cling to the thought of having played it a ton already, not having my account anymore (I have one, but not the one that had expansions up to Omens of War... or was it the one after that?). Ultimately, the game is done for me. People playing will likely be twinked out, the old zones dead and people will know how to play making all the fun memories of learning the game and experiencing new things impossible.

Ah well.

By the way, I forgot to ask him for his gold in WoW before he quit :(

Again...

2008-06-17T12:45:00.003-04:00

Boredom is overtaking me again. You'll probably see posts like this at various intervals. I tend to get bored and thrash about looking for for something to play/do. The end result is usually something I regret picking up or getting into.

Some of it is due to not actually being able to sit down and play WoW for any length. It seems that every time I sit down to play, something comes up.

You want an example?

Yesterday, after supper when the wife and kids were playing outside, I started up WoW, picked my character and hopped in. Suddenly there is a loud bang outside in my backyard and my 4-year old starts crying. I rush upstairs and out the back to see that he slipped, fell and hit his head on the back deck. He was fine, just really upset. He decided he didn't want to play outside anymore (he was a little tired which didn't help) and asked if I could play some Lego Indiana Jones with him. I logged off WoW and played some Indiana Jones with him.

Just things like that.

When I do get on, usually late evening when everyone else is asleep, I tend to get a little bored of the quests. I think I need a change of pace but I suspect a lot of that is my own doing. I'm focused on leveling so I'm questing, solo.

What I need to do is put my LFG flag up and start getting involved with others some more. That or start working on my PVP mounts and do some BGs.

I'm a little low on doing BGs at the moment because I'm only level 63 and I know there is a feeling that you shouldn't go into the BGs until you're max level for the range. It's sort of crappy, but I can understand that mentality for some people that must win and I don't want to be known as a detriment for the team.

I'll likely try some instances and do BGs anyway and see how that goes.

I have had an itch to play City of Heroes/Villains, but I'm resisting because it is REALLY grinding as far as leveling goes. I do enjoy playing in the odd group though.

The downside is the 4-year tends to want me to play as a character I don't really like anymore (Blaster - Guns/Devices). The character I have fun with (Controller - Gravity/Force Fields) tends to be more of a support role so soloing with him is sort of painful despite the content being a little more different and interesting. I have a few others I enjoy (Blaster - Fire/Ice Manipulation and Scrapper - Dark Melee/Regen) but I'm not really sure I want to level them through stuff I've done a lot of. I also have another support type that is fun (Defender - Dark Empathy/Sonic) but again, I don't really want to level it.

On the Villains side, I've got several that were amusing, but getting tiresome and nothing really stands out. I've got a Dominator and Mastermind but not high enough to have anything cool. I've dabbled with a Stalker, Brute and Corruptor, but again, I lost interest in them fast.

End result, I think I'm avoiding CoH/V.

There are a couple of MMOs in the works that have my interest; Warhammer Online (WAR) and Champions Online. One is closer to release than the other.

I think if I were to play WAR, I'd go Chaos. I'm not sure which class, but likely one of the big armored types. I was checking out some of the videos and I like what they're doing with guilds and banners. I also like that they said any PC from the last 3 years should be fine - I'm not in the mood to chase technology anymore so I doubt I'll be upgrading anytime soon*. The gameplay will be the kicker.

I think a big thing that will help me enjoy MMOs will be to get over my phobia of PUGs. I've been pretty spoiled with set groups for the longest time.

* I did some math and I've spent about 20k on computers in the last 8 years. That's a pretty big investment. I've also taken a look at what I'm playing on the computer... lately it has just been WoW... which I could play on my previous PC just fine with the bells and whistles all going.

More On 4e D&D

2008-06-11T11:27:00.002-04:00

The other day I took a look at converting the existing evil characters in my campaign (players are playing evil characters) and I was stunned to see that a lot of them wouldn't convert easily.

I'll start with the ones that convert easily:

Puq - the Changeling Rogue would convert to a Doppleganger (playable race from the Monster Manual) Rogue. There is a significant issue with using the playable races from the MM; a lot of racial extras were moved to racial feats and there are no racial feats for these races in the PHB or MM.
42 - the Warforged Fighter would convert to the same (Warforged are also in the MM - quite different too; no immunities and they do have to rest)
Glaekan - the Human Cleric. He's evil and using a number of crippling spells from the Book of Vile Darkness, which isn't available. But even then, the PHB doesn't have rules for playing a Cleric that is focused more on Inflict Wounds than Cure Wounds. Clerics are all about healing or smacking stuff.
Forsuthamon - the Elf Cleric with a goal of becoming a Necromancer of sorts. This doesn't work for much the same reasons listed above. In fact, they get Turn Undead and no mention of commanding, rebuking or bolstering undead.
Zooklin - the Gnome Artificer. No Artificer class in 4e and Gnomes were moved to the MM as a race.
Quoktan - the Human Druid. No Druid class in the 4e PHB. Ranger doesn't really suit him either.
Malik - the Human Wizard: Enchanter. No specialist wizards in 4e, in fact, I didn't see any Charm or Dominate spells. There were some along the lines of Suggestion or Command, but nothing like Charm or Dominate - which is weird because there was a 'dominated' status effect defined in the PHB - I think.

That raised another question - how do I create evil bad guys as a DM? It seems sort of limiting despite the choices they do give you.

It got me thinking more about 4e and how it is laid out. Here are some of the observations I've been making to the group:

My feelings are mixed here. I like A LOT of the changes and like what it brings in the big picture sort of way. I dislike what is not immediately available and will clearly be added in future sourcebooks. That seems sort of 'money grab'ish. I do realize they are a company trying to make money, but it seems sort of like they've dropped a carrot in front of you and start leading you to other product with it. They made the PHB necessary without including a whole lot of choice as far as the classes go. In other words, you need to buy the PHB... but the class you want will be in another book which you'll have to buy to get that class. You can't skip the PHB because it contains information on creating characters, character races, equipment, skills, feats, rituals and combat rules. Do you think they'll duplicate all that information in other PHB releases that contain other classes and options? I doubt it.

Anyway, one of the big benefits I do see with regards to the system is that it is designed to be highly customizable. I can easily see replacing some of the At-Will abilities for classes to gear them more towards what we need. I can see expanding on the Encounter or Daily powers to reflect spells that are missing or allow for things like Wizard Specialization.

But, that is work that has to be done not options that are immediately available.

They did a really good job with the big picture of 4e which is to say a lot of it pieces together when actually in use and they did just as good a job in making it so they can release upgrades and add-ons to make more money.

I also get the impression the removal of emphasis of 'evil' characters was moved to a separate book for a number of reasons. Another book to buy, but also the ability to placate activists and say that the core game doesn't encourage 'evil', you have to go above and beyond to get that stuff and they will put warnings on that suggesting the content isn't suitable for young players.

I'm no so sure I'm sold on 4e anymore.

DDO (Hate) Renewed and I'm Your Juror

2008-06-10T08:39:00.002-04:00

Some time last week I popped DDO back into the DVD drive, installed and patched it. I then re-subscribed (which had problems - I think I should have taken that as a sign and backed away slowly) and started it up.

It dropped to desktop.

I tried again.

It dropped to desktop again.

I went looking for help on the issue and apparently there were issues with it and dual monitors (by the way, I've played A TON of games while running dual monitors and they've all at least - AT LEAST - started up. The only issues I've had with dual monitors is alt-tabbing out, though to be fair, those games had issues with alt-tabbing when I was using one monitor.

This wasn't all that easy to find, their support knowledge base is poor at best. Exactly the half-assedness (trademark pending) I'd expect from Turbine. I tried about the two different suggested fixes there (including disabling the dual-monitor set up - which I absolutely love having) - yes, the two, that is all they had posted - and neither of them worked.

Frustrated that they can't get something simple like that sorted out, my hatred for Turbine's solid product (yes, that's sarcasm) is renewed. I unsubscribed and uninstalled. I was going to rant at that moment, but I figured I'd take a bit of time to cool off.

In other news, I managed to avoid random selection for the first day of jury selection.

Can you imagine having me as a juror? I pity the fool..

Anyway, about half a year ago I got a form that had to be filled with regards to my value as a juror so I submitted it (it's illegal not to). I thought I was safe, but not too long ago I got a Summons to Juror notification which said I had to show up at the courthouse this past Monday (yesterday).

Now I've already been a juror once and it was a brief experience because the case was put back into the system because the Defendant was unable to continue the case and kept delaying the whole court. Her brother died - I can't really blame her for being upset.

I'm at the courthouse early, reading a bit. We head into the room where we get 'processed' - basically had over our summons to a lady, who sounded like one of Marge Simpson's sisters, she asked for more specifics about the occupation and noted it then gave your Summons back. When that was done, we were herded into a courtroom.

Now, I found this kind of funny, but it is also pretty sad. The Judge gave a little speech about how awesome a life experience it is to be a juror and how it pales in comparison to all other life experiences. I bit my lip and avoided standing up and stating that becoming a Dad was a bigger deal. I'd also rank having sex as being far better than being a juror. And, well, I'll stop there. Needless to say, there are a ton of things more awesome a life experience than being a juror.

In the previous room, the lady sorting our cards into a pile of 'present' or 'not present' said we were lucky, there would be only six Jurors selected because it was a for a civil case. Looking around the room, I saw about 50 people and thought, "Wow, I'm not going to get picked." She crushed my thoughts by mentioning that those not picked would have to show up next Monday for another selection.

The first out the Judge gave people was if they knew the Plaintiff, Defendant, Lawyers, Judge or any of the witnesses being called. One guy actually knew the Defendant while a couple of others actually knew some of the witnesses. Not a good start, I can remember last time, no one knew anyone.

The next bit the Judge continued with was asking if anyone had issues hearing the happenings of the court, if so, they would be dismissed. Now this is irony, the people that claimed to have a problem hearing the court put their hands up. They sure heard that clearly enough. Out went a bunch of older people with hearing aids in both their ears. One guy stood up and said he had two hearing aids but could hear the court just fine - the Judge said he could stay then. The people that left were dismissed and didn't have to come back on the following Monday.

The Judge added another comment about how awesome being a Juror is but the court case would be held in English, if anyone had issue understanding English they were free to go. No one stood up for this one.

Next up was 'medical issues'. He wanted to know if anyone had any medical issues that kept them from performing their duty as a Juror. He didn't want details, just to know. Tons of people piped up here.

Suddenly the 50 people were down to about 30, if that many. I started getting a sinking feeling.

Next he cited, again with more "Yay Jury duty" speak, that the case would take up to two weeks of time where Jurors would be required to be present from 10:00am to 4:30pm. If anyone had a reason why they could not do this, let it be known. Out came the excuses of travel, vacations, kids graduating, surgery appointments and two people cited dates in July which were well outside the range of the court case.

You could tell the Judge was getting annoyed. He was getting slower at acknowledging people's excuses, it seemed to increase at about half a second each person. The next and final way out for people was if the case would cause undue financial or personal strains on the Juror's life. One guy got off because he was a student with exams coming, he was dismissed and left (his girlfriend trailed along behind him - she was smoking hot by the way - who brings their girlfriend to one of these things?).

With all that out of the way, the room was starting to look pretty empty. The lottery began. It really was like a lottery too. All the cards they sorted previously (for people that were there) were dumped into a box, the box turned several times and cards were picked out randomly.

I cringed with each drawing, however was quickly relieved when the Juror number didn't start with mine. In short order there were 6 Jurors picked.

The Judge then announced the Lawyers would now be allowed to 'challenge' a Juror. If you were challenged, you would be allowed to go and another would be picked to replace you. This should not be taken as a slight against you.

Personally, I think most people were relieved.

There were four challenges so four more draws.

Fortunately, my number didn't come up so I happily left and went off to work. It seems I have to repeat the song and dance again next Monday though. I hope it's another short case or I might just have to be one of those people who have a vacation coming up.

In truth, I do have a vacation coming up. I've got the first three weeks of July off and I'm supposed to take the kids to Montreal to visit various zoos. With my luck the case won't be estimated to be that long, but they'll go over...

My First D&D 4e Character

2008-06-04T08:35:00.003-04:00

Here's a look at the character I whipped up last night in about one hour - I suspect it will go a little faster when I am filling a sheet (as opposed to writing everything down) and when I'm more familiar with some of the mechanics.

Alignment: Unaligned
Level: 1
- Level Modifier: 0
Race: Human
- +2 to one ability score of your choice
- 1 At-Will Power
- 1 bonus Feat
- 1 bonus skill
- +1 to Fortitude, Reflex and Will Defenses
- Size: Medium
- Speed: 6 squares
- Vision: Normal
- Language: Common, Elf

Religion: Melora

Class: Ranger
- Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, Leather and Hide.
- Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, militarty melee, simple ranged and military melee.
- Bonus to Defense: +1 Fortitude, +1 Relfex
- Skills:
-- +1 Nature (WIS) (Trained skill)
-- +4 Acrobatics (DEX) (Skill pick 1/4)
-- +2 Athletics (STR) (Skill pick 2/4)
-- +2 Endurance (CON) (Skill pick 3/4)
-- +3 Perception (WIS) (Skill pick 4/4) (Alertness Feat modifier)
-- +4 Stealth (DEX) (Human Bonus Skill)
- Class Features:
-- Two Blade Fighting Style
--- dual wield
--- Toughness (Bonus Feat) (+5 HPs per tier - there are three tiers; 1-10, 11-20, 21-30)
-- Hunter's Quarry
--- extra d6 damage for one attack per round to designated target (NOTE: I took a feat that upgrades to d8)
-- Prime Shot
--- If none of your allies are nearer to your target than you are, you receive a +1 bonus to ranged attack rolls against that target.
- At-Will Exploits (as often as you can during an encounter):
-- Hit and Run
--- allows you to move after attacking a target without provoking an Opportunity Attack from the first square you leave (STR based attack)
-- Nimble Strike
--- allows you to make a single square Shift before or after you attack a target (DEX based attack)
-- Twin Strike
--- allows you to make two attacks, either at the same target or each at a different one (STR based if melee or DEX based if ranged)
- Encounter Exploit (once per encounter):
-- Fox's Cunning
--- triggered, immediate action when an enemy makes a melee attack at you, you Shift one square and get to make a basic attack against the target (special bonus of WIS modifier to hit - otherwise a basic attack)
- Daily Exploit (once per day)
-- Sudden Strike
--- must be dual wielding, attack with offhand weapon (STR based), Shift one square and attack with main hand weapon (STR based) - second attack deals twice weapon damage (+ 1xSTR mod after) and the target is 'weakened' until the end of your next turn

Hit Points: 41
Healing Surges: 8

Feats:
- Lethal Hunter (increase Hunter's Quarry dice from d6 to d8)
- Alertness (Human Bonus Feat) (No combat advantage when surprised, +2 to Perception)
- Toughness (Ranger Bonus) (+5 HP per tier)

(I used an array of pregenerated stats: 16, 14, 14, 12, 11, 8)
STR 14 (+2)
CON 14 (+2)
DEX 18 (+4) (+2 from Human race)
WIS 12 (+1)
INT 8 (-1)
CHA 11 (-)

Defenses:
Base: 10 (10 + level modifier)
AC: 17 (base + 3 Hide Armor + DEX mod due to Light armor)
Fortitude: 14 (base + CON mod + 1 Human + 1 Ranger)
Reflex: 16 (base + DEX mod + 1 Human + 1 Ranger)
Will: 12 (base + WIS mod + 1 Human)

(NOTE: Fortitude is STR or CON mod, Reflex is DEX or INT and shield mod if any, Will is WIS or CHA)

Equipment:
Hide Armor (light armor, +3 armor bonus, -1 check penalty, 30gp, 25lb)
Longsword (heavy blade, +3 hit, d8 damage, 15gp, 4lb, versatile)
Shortsword (light blade, +3 hit, d6 damage, 10gp, 2lb, off-hand)
Longbow (bow, +2 hit, d10 damage, 20/40 range, 30gp, 3lb, load free)

(Gold spent 85/100 Gold Remaining = 15 for miscellaneous gear)

There is a lot to digest there.

One thing I thought of is, why would a Ranger ever just shoot his bow when he can use the Twin Strike exploit at-will? With Twin Strike, I can make two attacks with the bow (or use two weapons if I'm dual wielding).

I'll answer that with a question: why should a Ranger ever just shoot a bow like every other class? It's a Ranger! Of course, there is no reason you can't just shoot a bow, but as a Ranger you should be better at using a bow than a Fighter or Warlord or Cleric or Paladin or Wizard or...

See the point?

I also like the flavor of the other exploits you get (powers heh). You'll notice most seem to focus on allowing the Ranger to move about or move as a reaction. I like it. I like it a lot. This is how a Ranger should be - constantly moving about, attacking from range or melee.

As you level, you end up with access to something like 2 At-Will (I got 3 because of being Human)/ 4 Encounter/ 4 Daily / 7 Utility powers.

This is a little misleading if you just look at it and think of the spell preparation of the previous editions. You get to have that number available to you at level 30 (at level 1 it is 2/1/1) but each of these 'powers' (I admit, I don't like using that word in the context of D&D) has a number of times you can use them.

For At-Will, it is literally, At-Will... on your action you can use them with no limitation on the number of times in an encounter or day.

For Encounter powers, you get to use it once per encounter. Next encounter, that power is available again.

For Daily powers, well, do I have to explain that? You can use it once

Utility powers tend to be either encounter or daily powers and every class gets these at level 2 which is why the Ranger doesn't have one.

I looked ahead some and it seems I, as a Ranger, had three choices; one was the ability to allow someone in range to re-roll a skill check if I also have the skill - Hunter's Advice I think it was called. I can't remember whether it was daily or encounter but it was an immediate reaction ability so I could use it out of my turn. I can't remember the other two options, but they were focused less on doing damage and more on adding some use.

Each power selection has to be unique so you cannot pick the same encounter power four times and be able to use it four times per encounter. Also, this appears to be the limit of those things you can know so at level 30 you'd know 2/4/4/7.

Spells (I think it might be Wizard specific) end up being a little different though. My understanding is that you gain spells based on a class progression. Normally, at a given level you get to pick an encounter ability or replace (it's specific, one or the other) one with a higher level power. With spells, I don't believe you replace them so while you have 2/4/4/7 at level 30, you might know all the spells and get to pick each one at the start of the day.

This doesn't include Rituals though. Rituals cannot be used in combat, but I don't believe they have limitations on uses per day other than the costs associated with them (Ritual example is Speak with Dead).

I'm also not 100% certain classes don't circumvent the powers limit as a class feature, paragon or epic class feature and there might be feats that impact this. I'm still reading through it all. I do know some classes get a power-like ability as a class feature. Hunter's Quarry is an example. Clerics get a Healing Word ability.

Every class has a set advancement path. You all get the same number of choices at level 1 for powers (excepting Humans and Half-elves), you all get a utility power at 2, feat advancement is every two levels, additional powers come at the same time. It does appear that there are some differences, but they're not immediately obvious unless you read up on the class.

It is a very interesting system. I'll likely poke around and create another few characters for it to see how they look - I find doing this more interesting than just trying to read up on the classes.

Go With Your Gut

2008-06-03T08:35:00.005-04:00

Sometimes you should just go with your gut feeling on things and stick to it. Yesterday I cancelled AoC and I do admit I regret picking it up. Now most of the time, I don't regret picking up a game (aside from maybe AC, AC2, DDO... notice a trend?) but this time I do regret it.

I knew what to expect, I didn't really expect much of a difference from what i saw during beta - yes, better performance and no three hour windows to play. But... it's too hand held. It's like WoW, but even easier because Quest Helper is built right in and they make it even easier than that. I don't have to pay attention to the quest text read the journal. I just have to look at the minimap and follow everything around. The areas where quest items drop are there on the minimap too. I just mouse over it and get what it is I should be looking for.

The feel of the quests is getting to me. They have this cinematic view when talking to NPCs but they don't have any voice over. You get options to pick for responses, but they don't really matter. They might as well have Accept/Decline.

No dungeons yet. This really gets me. Small instances don't count as a dungeon any more than they did with EQ2 (i.e. Down Below, Vermin Snye and Crypt of Betrayal should have been merges without a zone over and been one big ass dungeon). In fact, I found most of the instances a little too crowded. Half the time I was wondering if this was really where I was supposed to be, but hey, the built in hand holder said so... and sure enough, they popped and some necromancer rolls through agroing everything with his three pets and slaughters them before I can hit the attack.

If I have to wait for level 30 or higher to do a dungeon, I'm not going to make it. Okay, maybe it isn't Conan lore, but they could have expanded on some of the zones that were meant to be dungeon-like. The volcano? The manor? Bleh.

I didn't even think about the PVP aspect of it. Man, I couldn't imagine jumping around and trying to launch my combos. Really, not my cup of tea... or coffee since tea is for pussies.

Anyway, I'm done with it. When the month runs out, I'll ditch it and uninstall.

I blame you Jolly Red Giant.

I managed to read more of the PHB from 4e D&D. It's not too bad, but there are a lot of changes to the game. I think a lot of things that appear generic or the same only look that way on the surface. If you don't consider other things, then you will mistake the game for being watered down and all the classes being the same.

This is a very common mistake that I read about on the 4e boards at Wizards.com. I actually took one such posting and pasted it into the D&D group boards I have. It garnered a lot of the responses of dismissing 4e. Now, they should have looked at the title of the thread because I was poking fun at one of our more vocal (and abrupt) players by saying it was his review so they should have taken it as a joke. I posted a correction to a lot of the information that was misleading but no responses yet.

Overall, I don't think they'll be interested without much looking at it first. I remember the resistance faced when talking about moving from 2e to 3e but they all ended up liking it.

And no, I won't be switching to it (as DM) unless the whole group agrees to play it.

Damn, I want to try a Dragonborn Warlord, Infernal Rogue, Eladrin Ranger or even a Half-Elf Fighter might be cool...

I'm working on converting their 4e character sheet to a fillable PDF form but it's going to take me awhile. Scanned in the sheets (not the best quality scan) and started popping fields on the PDF. Once I sort out how things work mechanically, I'll start adding some intelligence to the form. Maybe I'll put it up for download when I'm done, maybe not. :)

4e DMG Revisited - PHB Visited

2008-06-02T08:47:00.005-04:00

I had a chance to do a little more reading through the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide - there is a mouthful - and my suspicions were confirmed. It is mostly fluff content and constantly refers back to the Player's Handbook.

This DMG only weighs in at about 214 pages, some of those being chapter banner pictures that span two pages and several pages taken up for the mini (sample) adventure they have in the back.

Magic items? In the PHB.
Games mechanics? In the PHB (aside from some details for advanced rules like flight, aquatic/mounted combat, poison, disease).
Random encounters by level? In the MM.
Monsters? In the MM (of course - they had a couple of sample critters).

About the only things of worth in the DMG are chapters on Non-Combat encounters, building encounters (mileage here will vary), rewards and then there is the DM's "Toolkit" chapter which goes over things like adding templates to creatures.

There are the typical entries for adventures, running the game, campaigns and that's about it. Oh, the sample adventure.

Now with that said, there were references to the pages in the PHB that numbered in the 300s. Guess where all the rule content went to? Yup, sounds like the PHB.

I'm understanding why they wanted to release at the same time as the other books - it helps to add in all the page reference numbers.

Now, despite my sounding unimpressed with the DMG, I do admit it can be useful to new and old DMs, it's just not as useful to more experienced DMs than it is to newer ones. Even as an experienced DM there are some bits of information in there that can be interesting.

And, of course, if you think you can avoid it entirely, you can't because they put the XP reward system in there.

I hope to have the PHB or MM some time today.

UPDATE: The PHB arrived.

Taking a peek at it now. Yeah, I'm at home today, waiting on the guys that were supposed to start our fence last week. Seems they're delayed another day and a half.

Chapters are:
1. How to Play
2. Making Characters
3. Character Races
4. Character Classes (there seems to be a lot of pages on each of the classes)
5. Skills
6. Feats
7. Equipment
8. Adventuring
9. Combat
10. Rituals

The book weighs in at 317 pages, a whole 103 pages more than the DMG.

Note there is no chapter on spells? It looks like the 'spells' are now powers and they're not as vast a listing. Remember, they did away with things that apply bonuses or penalties to modifiers because they found that chewed up a lot of time fudging with the end resulting bonuses. I haven't read enough to see how it works, the impression I get is that you don't get all the powers at a level, instead you pick a few (Humans seem to get bonuses here).

I'm not sure how this is handled in advancing levels, though it looks like there are lists higher up. This is probably covered in the information before the classes. I get a sense that all classes get: Class Features, At-Will Powers, Encounter Powers, Daily Powers and Utility Powers. At a certain level you advance into a paragon role.

Those 'powers' are flavored towards the class. For example, Clerics/Paladins have At-Will Prayers, Fighters/Rangers/Rogues/Warlords have At-Will Exploits and Warlocks/Wizards have At-Will Spells.

It appears each class description shows a couple of options or directions of picking your powers. For example the Cleric has two listed as Battle Cleric and Devoted Cleric - both list suggested picks for Feats, Skills, At-Will Powers, Encounter Power and Daily Power. These seem to be suggestions.

Anyway, gone are the massive spell lists that were found in previous editions. I think that alone is enough to cause avid D&D fans to pound the panic button.

Pictures look cool - I do like the look of the Dragonborn and the Tieflings. Yeah, I do wonder why the heck they added another elf race, Eladrin, but I'll read up on it later and see.

Ah well, almost lunch time, I'll take more of a look then.

My Wife Left Me...

2008-06-01T16:41:00.003-04:00

... for Guitar Hero 3 on the PS3. She's determined to get 100% on "Talk Dirty to Me" and says she won't stop playing until she does.

Does this mean I've managed to make a gamer out of my wife? Let's hope so!

I did manage to finish it in about two days. I was allowed to play it the past couple of days all afternoon long so it didn't take me too long. Yes, it was on Easy, I wanted to unlock the songs and then I'll give it a go on the next step up.

I won't claim to be awesome, like I usually do, because I'm not all that great. I do well enough, though I had problems with that song from Slayer when you're playing for your soul. Heh.

Great game, lots of fun. I'd be tempted to get the downloadable content, but I don't know how much it costs yet and I'd have to fire up the PS3's online capabilities.

I have to admit, in an embarrassed fashion, that my wife battled Tom Morello and beat him for me. I came close several times but just couldn't time the attacks for when he would really suffer them. Now, I did help her, telling her when to use them and screw him up royally. I did beat Slash and Lou on my first attempt so... rock on!

My two little ogres absolutely love the game, even though they quite understand how to play it. The makers need to take note: Guitar Hero Jr! Let's go!

I feel a little disappointed that they previous two might not be available on the PS3 - hopefully they clue in and re-release them. I liked a lot of the tracks on the other two as well. I did hear they're supposed to be coming out with release of Aerosmith and some of their favorites, looks like I'll have to pick that one up.

I'm doing what I can to resist the urge to go get a second wireless guitar so I can do the co-op mode with my wife... I like some of the songs that are locked until you do that. Ah well.

Go Figure...

2008-05-29T08:40:00.003-04:00

I get home yesterday and discover that there is a package for me - what looks like a book! Knowing I only have the 4e D&D books on order, I'm excited to see it. I tear open the package and find a single sourcebook there.

Guess which one it was?

Which one would you prefer out of the three that were ordered:

Player's Handbook - information on the classes, races, new rules and mechanics.
Dungeon Master's Guide - information on how to play the game in a more fluffy sense. How to cater to players, building campaigns, running modules, and other bits of information like that.
Monster Manual - all the cool new monsters and getting to see what was carried over. Some insight to how things work.

You might have guessed I'd prefer the PHB, MM and then DMG in that order right? You might have also guess, but the length of the description for the DMG, that I got the DMG.

You would be correct on both guesses.

The DMG. Argh.

I haven't had a chance to look through it just yet, but man is it surprisingly small. I was also a little stunned to see a lot of artwork in there which has me worried about content - what's actually in there?

I managed to flip through it a little. The first few pages aren't horrid. The explain a various number of player types (not character types), how to identify them, how to keep them happy and some things to watch for so they don't impact the game negatively for others.

Overall, I thought it was fairly decent and accurate with one exception; it's like alignment. You cannot pigeonhole someone into a single alignment and expect that to sum them up at all times. Looking at the list I could attribute my players to one or more of those types. Sure, some of the player types would be a good description most of the time, but not all the time. I know I could fill any one of those types during any session depending on the situation, who is involved and how much sleep I've had.

Still, it is a good guide and it does offer decent insight.

The next part was about game types and the type of campaigns you run or wanted to run. I didn't read it too much, it was already pretty late. Instead I skimmed ahead taking a look at some of the other chapters - it contained a whole lot of what was in the previous version but the context was aimed more at some of the mechanics that are new in 4e - go figure.

I'll take a more thorough look at it tonight... unless the PHB arrives.

I Ruined My Own Surprise

2008-05-27T11:55:00.002-04:00

I just remembered that D&D 4th Edition is due out soon so I went looking at my pre-order at Chapters. Sure enough, it's slated for June 6th for all three books (PHB, DMG and MM). If I didn't remember, I would have had a pleasant surprise in the mail a couple of weeks from now. Ah well. I bet I'll forget before then.

On another D&D related note, the party was reduced to five players instead of seven last week. Things always seem to run smoother and with fewer disruptions. The group is currently 'evil', allied to the Emerald Claw. I figured tying them to an evil organization would keep them from killing each other off in typical evil fashion. I'm actually impressed they're playing better together as an evil group than they do when they're supposed to be 'good'. The beauty of working for the Emerald Claw is that they know there is something bigger and more powerful around to keep them in line. It also gives them the opportunity to play a role of 'the other side' where good is evil and evil is necessary.

I have them playing through the Shadows of the Last War module. The main villains in that module is supposed to be the Emerald Claw... which is tough because that's who they're working for. I had to switch things around a little since I didn't want to go with the typical 'evil factions competing' angle, at least not yet.

In the last session, the reduced party came across what was supposed to be an Emerald Claw encampment. I switched this to be a mercenary group hired by a Priest of Vol, Brother Garrow. I don't want to go into details (and if any readers are aware of this module, don't post spoilers because some of my players read this blog), but I figured I'd make the mercenary group called The Steel Face. This is a group that hates warforged and take trophies from the ones they kill - namely the face plates which they wear as masks.

The group's warforged, known as 42, has no memory outside of his recent awakening at the hands of the party's Artificer - a metrosexual gnome with a hate on for House Cannith. Now 42, had his memory jogged a little at the sight of one of the faceplates being worn by the mercenary leader. That's a plot coming up so I'll say no more on it.

As usual, the party threw me for a bit of a loop. Brother Garrow appears to be a Vampire and he's the big guy in charge of the camp and undead. The party's leader, playing an Enchantment Specialist, gambled and cast Charm Person on Garrow. This was probably the best and luckiest spell cast so far. Luckiest because Garrow and some zombies were closing in on the group from behind where the Enchanter stood unprotected. More luck to him because Garrow failed the save - Will being a Priest's best save. But Garrow is a Vampire so Charm Person shouldn't work, right? Wrong... Garrow clearly is not a Vampire. I'm not saying what he is, but the Enchanter definitely has clued in on this.

We stopped there and will continue tonight with Brother Garrow, befriended to our lucky Enchanter.

I have a few other plot lines brewing. One involves the Elf Priest, one involves the Human Priest and another involves the Human Druid, who has for the first time had to exert his will to use a specific magic item...

Mouahahaha!

Out of Gas?

2008-05-27T09:50:00.005-04:00

No, not a rant about the sickeningly high gas prices, this is about my long time gaming buddy running out of gas for WoW. It seems like he's ready to throw in the towel at 61.

All he sees ahead is more questing outside in the wide open Outlands. Uninteresting quests where you get a grocery list of things to kill. He was expecting a lot more from TBC, I guess he was disappointed.

Honestly, I could see it coming. The last couple of weeks he was very unhappy with the lack of use of his class, the slowness of soloing for him (he was playing a Holy Priest and wouldn't respec as a Shadow Priest despite my telling him it would be easier for him). He wasn't impressed with the lack of 'dungeons' in TBC. Yeah, so he was only 61 so he barely scratched the surface - the kicker for him was that he felt he couldn't go back and do some of the instances (which were getting larger and more interesting) in the old world because the gear we were getting in TBC was far better. It would become trivial and not worth the time taken.

Ah well.

I'm not sure where I sit with regards to WoW. I would like to hit the 70 marker and get into some of the PVP activities but I'm not all that sure anymore. I'll hang on to it for now, I'm sure I can pick at it here and there when I feel less inclined to play any of the other games I have. I'm not sure it warrants 15$ a month to have that on hold, but I'll see.

What I'm really looking for is a game that focuses on dungeons and exploration of dungeons. I couldn't care less about massive overland areas to explore - those are unexciting. I want dungeons. Dungeons with meaning and edge to them. I want a purpose to be there, not just some kill list.

I'll stop there before I start reposting all the previous blogs about what I'm looking for in a MMO.

I did play some more Age of Conan yesterday. I got my Assassin up to 23, almost 24. It's interesting, but I can't help but sense the repetitive nature of the gameplay. I also can't help but feel the quest options creeping up on me.

What do I mean?

Well, I created a Stygian Assassin to play out a creepy, sleaze bag type murderer yet the quests available to me don't provide me with those options. A lot of them involve deliveries or helping people. Deliveries? Okay. Helping someone settle the villagers and protect them from nightmares? Heh, no thanks. There have been several kill or assassinate-like quests which I dive into only to complete them fast. Then I'm left with gathering components for some old lady I shouldn't be giving the time of day to.

I do admit, I like the ones where you get to be a cocky son of a bitch. There was one where a guard captain was too afraid to deal with demon possessed villages trapped in a house which I boasted would be no problem (it wasn't really, even though the mobs were three levels higher). When done, I got to shove my success into the guard's face - that sort of thing is fun.

But having done that, I was left with either moving on to look for more quests like that or do the other tasks in the area. I couldn't help but feel I had to do the other tasks or I'd be left simply grinding on mobs in the local areas.

It's amazing what a little back story to the quests can do for you and how they're presented. One of the quests involved gathering snake eyes and scorpion pincers because some madman thought Set wanted him to create a new snake guardian. Disturbingly intrigued, I went along with it. He then decided the empty husks of the creatures he was creating weren't working because they needed snake blood. I had to go get some from a local merchant. I got the blood but I haven't turned it in yet but I'm actually curious to see what happens from that.

It's kind of neat to see that the quest can draw me in and make me curious. I'm half expecting the thing to fall apart on the madman and for him to go nuts or something interesting, not just dispense some sort of reward.

I don't think that will be the case with most quests, because it hasn't been so far. Like I said, the ones that draw me in focus more on what my character is capable of than anything else. Sneaking into a house and assassinating a merchant? Cool. Collecting lotus seeds and cactus flowers? Not cool... unless it's to make some poison that I then have to use to kill some sorcerer...

See a pattern? I'm an assassin... make me assassinate people.

Weekend of Conan

2008-05-26T07:41:00.003-04:00

Okay, not really but pretty close.

I think I set an all time record for caving in on a MMO - at least for me. The subliminal message was planted during lunchtime on Thursday (I think it was) and in the evening I had bought the damn game. I went to Walmart expecting them to no be carrying a game rated M but they had it so I bought it, installed it, patched it and played it a little.

I started with a Bear Shaman, which did fine up until about level 10 when suddenly I stopped being able to hammer my way through more than one enemy at a time - at least reliably. After a bit of fiddling with my feats, I started to have an easier time with facing off with two creatures at a time, but would die on three. I must be missing something.

I have to say that the class concept is fun (imitation of Kinetics Defender or Disciple classes) but the lack of a direct heal is a bit of a stretch. I have to get used to playing without one and pre-buff regens (I've got two). One pops on when I attack (if I precast it) the other is on when cast - but there is a casting time which you actually have to wait for. Not a big deal, but when you're attacking and have to stop mashing those keys in sequence to get a spell off, it feels a bit odd and it's easy to forget to stop and let the spell finish. Now the trick with that spell is that there are feats you can take (think talents) that can put up an extra effect so that when you cast that spell it is enhanced.

That's cool, except when you're fighting more than one mob at a time and really need to do damage to make them stop doing damage to you. The heals really aren't enough for you to overcome the damage being done. Now if I was grouped with a Guardian, sure, no problem. That leaves me needing to drink potions to top of my (lame) healing ability. Does this seem right?

Maybe that's the intent of the game but it rubs me the wrong way. Why do I have healing abilities if I can't really use them to keep me up? Instead I have to use potions on top of my healing abilities? Bleh.

They're all regens too, so they stick around and don't stack like a direct heal does. I think one of them gives me a larger amount up front, but the re-use timer on that is sort of slow.

By the way, I did one mission where I was supposed to heal the peasants while the Red Hand was attacking them... it was a mess. Yeah, I kept them healed, but at the cost of my life a couple of times. What was the issue? Well, like a Kinetics Defender, everything in a range in front of me gets the heals I fire off which means I was healing myself, Valeria (who was supposed to be helping) and 3-4 peasants. Guess how much threat that generates? Enough that the 4-6 Red Hand in the area all come to me.

Ah well.

I created a Stygian Assassin and gave that a go. Things were surprisingly easier despite not having my own heals. I could step into groups of 3-4 leading off with a stealth attack that nearly killed one and then lay about me furiously with blades dripping poison. It was sick. I especially like the brutal damage done when attacking out of the shadows.

I was impressed that the Assassin had a slightly different path while in Tortage, so it seems Funcom made part of the solo quest reflect your base class (Fighter, Rogue, Healer or Caster). That's kind of cool, but I saw that at one point they merge onto the same story line so you don't really get to do a lot of your class specific stuff.

I also found that you had to be specific levels to advance the solo side of things - levels which you couldn't seem to reach in the solo content. Basically, you were booted out into the daytime to look for solo content.

Back to the Assassin though. I found this guy got a few more combos than the Bear Shaman and those combos advanced A LOT faster. I've got one that is up to version 6 or 7 while the highest with my Bear Shaman was about 2, maybe 3. I also got two stances; one is poison blade stance which does increased DPS and the other is some sort of unholy stance where you can steal essence from people which you can then consume to get stamina back. I went with Poison mostly.

For feats, you get things that emphasize this. I picked up the first poison feat and most of the second. The first poison feat makes you proc something that causes the target to take extra damage - something like 500% damage at full which is were I got it (might be 400%). I also picked up an ability that increases my dodge temporarily.

You also pick up some extra skills like Skulking which ncreases your movement while hidden and Subtlety which sounds like it reduces the threat you generate from your attacks. I did enjoy some of the missions that involved sneaking in and stealing stuff or killing a merchant. There weren't enough of those for my liking.

Yes, I got my Assassin up higher than the Bear Shaman, the Assassin is level 20 now and off Tortage. The final quest was okay, I wish it would have kept track of who you threatened and allowed you to kill them off. I can't imagine my Bear Shaman getting through that if the ending is the same.

Once you're off Tortage, you're into some starting area based on the race you picked. I'm in Khemi which is somewhere in Stygia. I think most of the people I've played with are from Cimmeria. Heh. Looks like I'll have to figure out how to get there.

Oh, speaking of playing with people - I got to play with Darren from The Common Sense Gamer (see link on the side, I'm too lazy to link it). He's playing a Ranger which looks like it's some sort of tank/rogue hybrid. He was charging into things and clobbering them well enough. A little too much charging if you ask me. I turned around for about 10 seconds to tell my son and his friend from down the street that they can't play downstairs and should play outside (the friend's mother and father don't like him playing video games so he keeps sneaking into our house to play Lego Star Wars on the PS3) and when I turned back, Darren was gone. It happened a couple of more times during the brief time playing with him. I was starting to wonder - is he on some sort of timer so he's trying to get a lot done in a short time or something? Well, turns out I was right because shortly after a comment in Group chat popped up saying, "BBL little one is up".

I swear I thought I saw him yell, "LEEEEROY JENKINS!" a few times... really...

My original thoughts still stand.

The performance of the game is somewhat lacking given that I have a system which played VG on the higher settings without a hitch. I'm on medium settings at the moment in AoC. The graphics aren't too bad, but the texture swapping is a little sluggish (I have a card with 512 mb RAM on it). I move into an area and sometimes I see the high quality textures and other times a few are the lowest quality textures. Overall, the game does look pretty, I'll give it that. I am tempted to pick up a new video card, something that supports DX10 properly so I'll have to start looking into that.

The gameplay is still what I thought it was. Click a combo, start pushing the 1, 2, or 3 or some variation of that. It's not painful but I suspect I might get tired of it before level 80 or I might have to replace a keyboard or two. Yeah, the blood and gore is kind of neat. I do like the fatality animations so far - I've seen a number from decapitations, throats getting sliced open to plunging a dagger into the enemy's heart and violently yanking it out. Anyway, we'll see how long it lasts. I just don't get a feeling that the attacks are really doing anything other than 'damage' which is something I miss from other games where you might stun, snare or otherwise affect the target in some fashion. It seems more like I'm making the guy do certain animations than anything else... Dance Dance Revolution with one hand.

I admit, I like the climbing and hiding aspects, especially the skulking aspect and extra damage when attacking from the shadows which adds an immersive feel. They really did a good job on immersion and feel. The game is really gritty and earthy. Lots of superstition and evil demons about. One thing I don't like, is that they don't really give much of an evil path to follow. I found myself taking quests that were 'nice' despite wanting to be a vicious murderer simply because that was all that was available. It'd be nice to have some options more on the evil side. Yeah, there are threatening responses in most cases, but as soon as I got off Tortage those options seemed to become lesser.

One example, a guy on the dock asks me to tell some merchant his cargo has been on the docks too long and is getting in the way. He has an hour to move it or lose it (literally). I get there and the guy scorns me and belittles me. There was no option to stick a dagger in his gullet or even threaten him. That was disappointing.

Another thing that is missing when you get off Tortage, voices. The people you talk to no longer have voices so you're stuck trying to read the text which isn't always easy to read - they need to give it a black edge so it stands out from the background better. The NPCs still seem to go through some motions, but there is no voice. I find it sort of jarring and disappointing.

Oh, bug - they need to replace the graphic for the Rebel's Dagger (reward for leaving Tortage) with something that looks less like a bow (maybe there is an issue in my database, I'll check later).

Khemi seems to consist of a small island surround by a larger city, though I've barely stepped off the island. Compared to Tortage, I get this overwhelming feel of "where to now?". I did manage to get a few quests (they're not too hard to find) and even found a contact for what appears to be an assassin's guild. I was given my first contract to kill a man in all black in the Khopesh Province (I think it was called). This is another spawned area like the White Sands Island.

By the way, it seems the 'Epic' versions of the instances are mostly empty of other players. It seems the mobs there have a lot more HPs so they last a lot longer. They don't seem to do more damage, just take a lot more. It makes for some really epic fights - go figure. I suspect this is where you want to go as a group for a bit more of a challenge. I don't know that I was getting any more XP, I didn't think to look.

Oh, I'm also a little disappointed my guy hasn't gotten laid yet, call it childish but they were hyping the nudity and such. I was expecting more from that aspect. The only boobs I saw were on some player that was standing there topless (I'm trying not to think of what the player was actually doing) and one other set on a NPC noblewoman that was standing at the top of stairs in Tortage with some other lady. I got the impression this was a graphical glitch though, it looked like the top she was wearing was clipped wrongly (or rightly if you're a depraved sicko that gets off on digital boobs). Despite saving two whores (the first one on the beach and then the one from the Bearded Clam - yes, that's the name of a brothel in Tortage, nice eh?) and one dancer you don't get an opportunity to be pleasured... ah well.

Overall, not too bad so far. I do miss dungeon delving and have yet to find a game that did dungeons like the original EQ and EQ2 expansion did them. VG came really close actually, but I couldn't really see myself getting back into that game. Ah well.. here's to hoping there is a dungeon.

Toasters at 60

2008-05-21T08:41:00.002-04:00

Okay, so we can put people on the moon, create awesome electronic devices that fit in your palm, hybrid engines and even clone living beings... but we still cannot make a reliable toaster. Seriously, what the heck is wrong? It's a bloody toaster! I have yet to see a damn toaster last any significant time. In some cases I've had them come out of the box and completely suck.

Too light, too dark, burnt charcoal... argh. The one we have at the moment (Black & Decker - yes, the people that make all sorts of hardware) is completely unpredictable. You put it on light and it burns the toast. You put it on dark and it burns one side of the toast. You put it in the middle and it's lightly toasting both sides, except at the bottom on one side.

I'm going to go look for a toaster on the weekend. Any suggestions?

Once that toast is replaced, I'll get a couple of friends together and we'll take it out into a field to do this to it:

On a happier note, I hit the second old WoW level cap of 60th last night. It is sick how huge a jump the gear is... and the fact that it is purple in color (not quality). What the heck?

Things are a little trickier and I actually did something I haven't done in a long time while soloing - I died. Okay, it wasn't really a matter of things being trickier, I was just tired and not paying attention in an area where I should have been paying attention. I was boiling blood when stuff started spawning around me (aside from the beetles), soon enough I was facing off against a caster, several beetles, a grunt, two mounted dudes and their two mounts. Oh, and FD was down.

It was no problem when I went back, I simply stayed out of the patrol paths and boiled the blood. Go figure.

Blog Skin, PS3 and WTF?

2008-05-20T09:04:00.003-04:00

Okay, I haven't made any time to screw around with the blog look and feel so I just went with a default skin. I've no idea when I'll change it because, at the moment, I don't really care about it.

Anyone out there have a PS3, Wii, and two PCs (sometimes a wireless laptop) plugged into or working off a (cheap ass) wireless router?

I've discovered that I'm getting some IP conflicts and things are getting reset. Here's the situation.

Wii uses the wireless connection. It's on sleep mode all the time.
PS3 uses the wireless connection. It is on and off regularly as the little ogre is playing Lego Star Wars or watching movies.
Main PC uses a cable connection. It is on and off, more on than off.
Secondary PC uses a cable connection. It is almost never on.
Laptop uses the wireless connection. It's only on when I'm working from home.

Now, recently, since about the time that I've picked up the PS3, I seem to get random disconnects from WoW. Just sudden disconnects. Other times, I'll start up the Main PC and need to screw around with modem, cable box or reset the IP.

Just the other day, I noticed that I was getting kicked off when my son turned on the PS3, or when he turned it off.

Okay, so my wireless router likely has a limit of 4 connections so I could see it being an issue when I have the laptop, Wii, PS3, Main PC and Secondary PC going, but... when only the Wii, PS3 and Main PC are going? Worse still, why is shutting off the PS3 screwing things up?

WTF?

I'll have to look into it some more. Maybe it's coincidence, but I doubt it.

The only other thing I can think of as being an issue is the controllers - I have two. I didn't think Bluetooth devices (controllers specifically meant to be used with the PS3) would use the Wi-Fi?

Again it wouldn't explain why turning off the PS3 causes issues..

UPDATE: I did a search - go figure - and it seems to be a fairly common issue. At some point I'll have to sort through all of this.

Nerf Hunters

2008-05-12T10:31:00.004-04:00

I spent about three days arguing with my gaming buddy from Montreal over how Hunters don't need to be nerfed or anything, that Blizzard intended them to be what they are and that they were recently nerfed by the changes to the Spirit/Intellect formula for mana regen.

The short of that nerf is that I can no longer unload every fight and be nearly full mana for the next fight and just mow through mobs. I actually have to pace myself if I want to keep my mana up for use of other abilities... but I can still mow through things, one after the other.

Last night in Un'goro Crater, I AEed three of the bugs there which were even con to me. Okay, they're solo mobs and they did do a fair bit of damage to me, but still... they lost, I won. Next I soloed a level 56 Elite (I was 53 at the time), I thought I was a goner when I got two adds but I pulled through. It wasn't easy by any stretch, but still. I won.

And I moved on to kill something else without stopping to wait on my mana. About the only time I take mana potions or use drinks is if I'm in a dungeon and I'm feeling impatient. Heh.

No in defense of Hunters around the world, I am awesome. :) Actually, I went with the Beastmaster spec and a little into Survival, so my pet is built to take it and dish it out too. I have been hoarding anything with +attack power and I've focused on increasing damage. My gear isn't the best, but it's not weak either. I also play to the hilt and account for every little mana expenditure to ensure the minimal needed to succeed so I can move on.

If you think about it, I probably would save some time by burning through my mana (as fast as a Hunter can do that with all the cooldowns and stuff) then just drink to get the mana back. I have a couple of problems with that mode of play:
a) if I do that and get an add or two it can be messy
b) the drinks get expensive
c) it isn't as fun as constantly being active

Other proof that Hunters need to be nerfed (hopefully no one in Blizzard reads this):

- I dueled my Priest friend from (the one that argued that I needed nerfing) and killed him in probably less than 15 seconds. At the duel countdown I Enraged my pet (which enrages me too now) to make him immune to my friend's fear, sent him in right away with a Mark on the priest. He pre-bubbled but my pet tore through that, he likely AE Feared but we were immune, so he rebubbled which I took down with Arcane Shot leaving him to get devoured by my pet which I also put Intimidate on so it stunned him so he couldn't heal himself. It was a mess. In his defense he went mainly with Holy talents, so there should be no real surprise.

- I also killed a Fury/Arms Warrior that was 12 levels higher than me. Yes, that's right, 12 levels. He was attacking guards at Razorhill so I went to take a look. He was taking quite a beating from them so I helped the guards out. He revived and came back, taunting me to attack him while away from the guards. Ever the patient Hunter, I watched him and he sat down to eat... I attacked. With a combination of Enraged, Intimidating pet, Frost Trap (big frosty snare area) and Concussive Shot I managed to kite him around and take him down again.

Now obviously I had an advantage where I could engage him before he got the Charge off and he didn't really attempt to counter anything I was doing, he just sort of decided he should win so he didn't appear to do anything. Okay, maybe he just sucked, but I'd expect a player 12 levels lower than me to get completely owned with minimal effort.

Please don't nerf Hunters...

Make a Will Save...

2008-05-02T10:44:00.003-04:00

... again. I've been having to make a lot of Will saves lately.

Yesterday I resisted the urge to pick up a PS3 Remote (25$) for the Blu-Ray player which means I'll suffer with using the game controller for a little longer. It was good that I resisted that because had I failed that save, I would have had to make another Will save to resist buying Guitar Hero III with the Guitar (100$).

I also managed to resist picking up the Flobots CD (15$). I took a listen to some of the tracks on there and liked them.

I am also fighting the urge to subscribe to City of Heroes/Villains again (18$/month) which I blame Champions Online for. All that reading up on it has me wanting to fly around, wearing tights and blasting bad guys. Fortunately I didn't mention CoH/V to my oldest son, if I did then I would have faced a -10 penalty to my save as he loved that game.

Not too bad, I made three imaginary Will saves and saved myself (slightly) over 150$! It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Imagine the savings!"...

Yeah, okay, that was bad.

On another note, I was a good husband yesterday and put up the blinds in the kitchen window last night. We had to replace them when my oldest little ogre took the scissors to the strings that held them together. The wife didn't even have to ask, she was off to the grocery store, big little ogre was outside with a friend (and the friend's mother), little little ogre was inside watching TV so I went ahead and installed them.

Once done, the big little ogre came in and was coloring downstairs while the little little ogre was outside with mom and the other moms. I figured I'd go downstairs and fire up WoW to get some mining done (I recently switched from Skinning+Leatherworking to Mining+Engineering). A short bit later the wife comes in with the little little ogre who is proving why I call him an ogre (he was throwing a tantrum because he didn't want to come in). I figure he's with the wife so no problem, I'll let her take care of it.

About ten minutes later she comes down and starts bitching at me because I'm on the computer, the little little ogre is crying and isn't in his pajamas yet and I'm not being helpful.

Don't worry, I pointed out the fact that she had the little little ogre outside, he is a little little ogre and she's his mom so she should be able to handle his tantrum without my assistance, I couldn't exactly put his pajamas on him while he was outside and that she was welcome for my putting up the blinds in the kitchen.

She liked that.

She's now no longer the wife (no no, not divorce), instead I shall refer to her as Mrs. Ogre. She grumbled as she went upstairs to put the little little ogre's pajamas on, then put him to bed. She grumbled about upstairs, watched some reality TV and then went to bed asking me to put the big little ogre to bed after he was done watching his movie (Leap Frog - educational stuff).

Everyone was fine in the morning, no residual anger. Well, the little little ogre declared, "I am grumpy with you, Daddy!" To which I responded, "No, you're not." That threw him for a loop and he stated he was grumpy with me again, though he sounded unsure. I told him he wasn't again and he started telling Mrs. Ogre that he was grumpy with me. By the time I was done brushing my teeth the little little ogre had forgotten that he was grumpy with me.

Oh, with forgetting in mind, I locked myself out of my work laptop this morning. I was drawing a blank on the password for the hard drive encryption. I knew what most of the password was, but I was missing one character and I couldn't remember where it was for the life of me.

No worries, I could redeem myself by proving my identity with answering two questions.

1.) Who is was your favorite superhero?
2.) Who is your favorite entertainer?

I was stumped again. I guessed Superman and Robin Williams but apparently I was wrong. Those are tricky questions because my favorite superhero sort of changes. At one point I liked Colossus (X-Men), then Superman (he's the ultimate munchkin), and Spider-Man of course. Once Fantastic Four came out, I couldn't help but love the Jessica Alba... uh, I mean, the Invisible Woman.

Favorite entertainer? Holy crap, I've not idea where to start. Honestly, I don't think I have a favorite and if I do, it changes from time to time. I think I'm going to have to pick one and stick with it. I think I'll go with Jessica Alba and Jessica Alba next time.

The shittiest part about the day so far is that I really want a beer and my beer buddies either have lunch or have team lunches going on...

I think things are going to go horribly wrong in my WoW session tonight. We're supposed to do a bunch of quests in Zul'Farrak and we should have our Mage along with us. The group will be Me (48 Hunter), Frank (45 Priest) and Chris (40 Mage) so we should be more than fine.

Any guesses on what will happen?
A. Computer hardware failure
B. Internet Connectivity issue
C. Server crash and wipe

Session 2...

2008-05-01T11:48:00.002-04:00

Question for the masses: as a 'living construct', should Warforged be subject to Charm Person?

I didn't see anything that directly said they wouldn't be affected by Charm Person, but they are considered 'living construct' as opposed to Humanoid - or would they be Humanoid (Living Construct) in which case they would likely be affected...

Anyway, they advanced the module story a bit and discovered the underground forge but we had to stop there as it was sometime around midnight. The haven't found what they're looking for yet. I guess we'll resolve that next session.

I do admit I was a little surprised at the length of one of the encounters and shocked by the CR of a certain creature used in an encounter.

The long encounter was one that could have been dangerous had the lead party member (the Rogue) not spotted the hidden enemy. He would have attacked the last person in the group and they would have faced Sneak Attack damage - 2d6 damage is pretty hefty when you're dealing with first level characters. The rogue spotted him and drew his weapon, revealing that he saw the hidden Warforged who started the round by falling back to his allies. This combat took a bit long though not due to anything other than the group having bad luck.

Glaekan, one of the group's Clerics almost died in this fight. I suspect he was close to 0 if not actually at 0 HPs. "42", the group's Warforged Fighter, took quite a beating too.

As for the creature with the surprising CR, well, it was a Horrid Rat. You take the Rat creature and apply the "Horrid" template to it. This template seems to give them a high natural armor bonus, increase the damage die a little, add acidic saliva and make them almost impossible to reason with. End result is a 1 Hit Die creature with an AC of 20, a bite attack at about +4 to hit which does 1d6 damage+1d6 acid damage+possible infection with Filth Fever (disease).

Crazy.

After reading all that, I was going to pull one off the board but the group didn't want to be denied their morsel of XP (hehe).

I was really surprised they all survived and it came close a couple of times. At the end of the night, they all hit level two.

Go go Evil team!

Temp Layout and Stuff...

2008-04-30T09:58:00.007-04:00

Blogger has a new template system which I wasn't using so I decided to update my template to it. That sort of blew away my other layout, which is fine because I was thinking of changing it anyway. I'm still not sure what I'll settle on... perhaps a collage of ogres from various games would work. I'll try to make the colour scheme a little brighter and less dark, but no guarantees.

As for other stuff, I'd like to talk a bout Age of Conan, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to yet? I haven't seen any sort of official announcement yet so I guess I'll remain tight-lipped about it.

At the moment, the only other game on the radar is Champions Online... that one has me really curious. I'm still picking through the bits of information on the site, but it sounds like you'll be able to pick your powers and customize them so they appear unique - unlike in CoH/V where you could create this bad ass looking hero only to have him fire pink bolts at enemies.

Another thing I thought was interesting is that after creating your character you end up creating his archenemy. I wonder what they're going to do with that? It could be interesting.

I like the look of the art, it's a lot more comic-book cartoony (as opposed to Saturday morning cartoons cartoony) and looks fun. I'm sure my kids will enjoy it. My oldest really liked CoH but I can't bring myself back to playing it. Hopefully they do something different enough with Champions Online.

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (WAR) is not really on the radar. To be honest, I am a little turned off by the hype. At first it seemed exciting, but now it seems tired and forced. It's like watching a band that's played a fan favorite a billion times getting asked to play that one again when they have new material they'd rather be playing.

I'll take a peek every now and then and see what's up. If I did buy, it would probably be after release and I've heard from the players rather than the developers or PR people.

UPDATE: here's a good article from 1UP on Champions Online. I was a little disappointed to see that it will be aimed at PCs and XBox 360 as well. The fear in that is watering down the control options so that they fit on a console controller... like a certain other game did.

Go Flyers Go!

Session 1 Complete...

2008-04-24T08:44:00.003-04:00

... no deaths yet.

I have to admit, I was a little worried when the rogue was up ahead by himself with the party a good round or two of movement behind him and I knew a Warforged Barbarian was going to get the drop on him. Fortunately for him, I rolled bad on the damage die. The two hits the Barbarian had were both 1s. Unfortunately for the recipient of the second hit, the Barbarian had raged at that point.

The group handled it well. The Druid and his wolf, "Cuddles", moved in fast to engage, the Warforged Fighter moved in as fast as he could, the Rogue (wisely) retreated, the Clerics moved up to engage (one missed a touch attack on his Ray of Enfeeblement) and heal, the Artificer moved up and repaired the Warforged Fighter and the Wizard cast Magic Missile at the darkness and made good use of the "Daze" spell.

Well done.

The session wasn't combat heavy in the least, it was more focused on RP, puzzling out what was going on, preventing themselves from being arrested or bluffing their way into the Morgrave University - which was one of those, "Crap, that's not supposed to happen" type things the players will do.

While Scott (the Wizard) had a fair bit of focus in the evening, Gord (the Rogue) made an extra effort to become involved and Ken (one of the Clerics) had the path to his Prestige Class set up. I wasn't intending for the Rogue to have some spotlight yet, but he stepped up and made things happen so I let it all play out.

I have plans for the others, things just didn't get to a point where they could come out but they will.

I didn't miss the little bits of other RP and did reward people accordingly. I think for most part, once we got going people stayed focused and in character aside from a couple of tangents while I was dealing with the Rogue 'off-roading'.

The wheels are still turning...

The Internet is a Small Place...

2008-04-22T14:20:00.003-04:00

So Gord redeemed himself. He sent me his character sheet and background today. Good thing too, I was going to give him a Kobold Rogue character to play - alas, poor Squipidge will never see light as a PC. I've got to give him points for his background too - just not experience points. Sorry, I don't do that. He appears to have put some effort into it and showed a creative side I haven't seen yet.

Good job, Gord.

More about Gord... it seems he has a tie to Raph Koster.

I was poking around Gord's blog site - noticing the new layout and appearance is pretty damn slick, when I saw a link in the upper left corner as information on how to remove a Wordpress hack. If you take a look, you'll see a trackback in the comments to Raph Koster's site.

Small internet world, eh? (Oh shit, I'm being Canadian... but an 'eh?' is definitely required in this case..)

I'm not sure which offends me more; Gord doesn't know who Raph is or Raph doesn't know I'm Gord's D&D DM.

Probably the fact that Raph has no clue who I am...

We Won the Stanley Cup!

2008-04-22T08:06:00.005-04:00

Oh, no wait a minute, we didn't. We only just didn't lose out on the first round of the playoffs. Still, WOOOO! We won the first round of the playoffs! Now let's go burn some police cars.

Pardon my French, but WHAT THE FUCK?

How do you go from celebrating to rioting and destroying stuff in the very city you supposedly hold valuable and is viewed as a mecca for hockey?

Seriously...

I hear Habs fans are working towards getting their hands on a nuclear bomb just in case they actually win the Stanley Cup. "Haha! We Habs fans 'ave won dee cup! We now blow up dee world!"

It makes no sense.

Calgary has had some pretty good success in the playoffs so what did they do? They partied... hard... for a whole mile. It was apparently awesome, everyone had a good time and some chicks flashed their boobs.

No rioting.

Ottawa had made it all the way to Stanley Cup finals last year but we didn't end up rioting... and you'd think, of all places, we'd have a reason to riot with the seat of the Canadian Government being here. It'd be an ideal time to get political and make a statement right? Take a look at some of these pictures, take note of the last few that show police vehicles... which are NOT on fire.

Again, no rioting.

And when Toronto... well... let's forget about Toronto.

EDIT: Here's some footage a friend sent me from when the Habs last won a cup:

On another note, does anyone know how to get a song out of your head? I've had Cypress Hill's Rockstar in my head for a couple of days now and it won't get out.

I'm a rock super star, living large, big house, five cars..

The Party...

2008-04-21T08:40:00.004-04:00

... is still incomplete. But that was expected. The previous four DMs all warned me about Gord not having a character sheet in early or until the very same day we're supposed to start.

Thinking about it, I can see why... I mean the guy is married, has twelve kids which he has signed up into twelve different activities and he also takes part in the community with charity work, organizing walkathons, telethons and other 'thons'. On top of that he works really hard as a Government spy which has him on call or traveling to various locations. I'm amazed the guy has enough free time to sleep let alone attend D&D every week.

Okay, the truth is he's single, not the least bit active sports-wise (unless you count Dragonboat racing and geocaching), he has no kids, no girlfriend (that I know of), but he does have more gadgets than ever necessary. I think his only other hobby seems to be playing Bells.

I cannot fathom how he hasn't had time to put together a character sheet in the three weeks we've had off from playing. Here's a clue - you could have taken a short portion of the time you would normally be playing D&D, and used it to make a character. We've been cancelled for three weeks, with two game nights wide open.

Unfathomable.

Anyway, here are the characters:

Character Statistics
Character	Race	Class	Level	Status	Player
42	Warforged	Fighter	1	Active	Brian
Quoktan Forranth	Human	Druid	1	Active	Darin
?????	Changeling	Rogue	1	Active	Gord
Glaekan Vasharan	Human	Cleric	1	Active	Ken
Forsuthamon D'Voltare	Elf	Cleric	1	Active	Kevin
Zooklin Forgemaster	Gnome	Artificer	1	Active	Lloyd
Moad'dib	Human	Wizard: Enchanter	1	Active	Scott

I had wanted to try adding little 'twists' to characters, hopefully to later become plot points. The only two characters who don't have a twist of some sort are Scott and Gord. Gord doesn't have a twist simply because I don't have a character sheet from him. Scott doesn't have one because he's going to have enough fun as an Enchanter and as leader of the party.

Why is it going to be tough to lead the party?

Well, they're going to be a large group for one. Second the alignments consist of: one Lawful Evil, one Neutral and four Neutral Evils. Amazingly enough there were no Chaotic Evil types (yet - did I mention I'm still waiting for a sheet from Gord?). Now this group is bad enough when they're playing 'Good' characters they were often at each other's throats. I can't imagine how he's going to do it while they're 'Evil'.

It could be one of the shortest campaigns the group has experienced.

Realizations...

2008-04-19T20:28:00.002-04:00

I was sitting on the steps of my deck in the backyard watching my oldest son (four years old) wandering about the yard writing on things with chalk when it dawned on me that he's grown so big. Which of course led me to thinking about age and mortality. I'll be 47 when he reaches 18 years of age.

Anyway, thoughts of mortality and wondering what you've accomplished in life are often believed to be symptoms of mid-life crisis. Oddly enough, I have had an urge to buy a second car just for me.

That got me thinking of why I felt an urge to buy a car. I use public transportation to get to and from work. It takes about 45 minutes each way so about 1.5 hours each day, five days a week so 7.5 hours per week. That's a whole other work day I spend on the bus or waiting for one.

Wasted time.

We go looking for fast cars as a means of increasing our efficiency. No, it's not to attract some young bimbo. It's all about efficiency. Fast cars mean you get there sooner and spend less time traveling.

It's all about saving time.

I'll let you know how that pitch goes to the wife...

Another thought came to me when sitting outside, this time on the front porch, while watching my youngest son (two years old) playing in the front yard. My wife made some comment about my oldest seeing a wedding and saying he was never going to get married. Being infected with foot-in-mouth disease, I made some comment about our marriage having scarred him. The wife asked if our marriage was that bad.

Obviously I replied with the truth, we have our bad moments but who doesn't (Your skill of Deflection has gone up (101/105). The more I talk to people at work or friends, the more I realize it is pretty normal.

She made some comment about perfect marriages being rare. I had a foot free so I blurted out, "They're not rare, they don't exist. If the woman is perfectly happy then the man isn't." Fortunately, my wife is used to me so she prodded me some more. If you think about it, men and women want the same thing from marriage but it is impossible to both have all the time. Women seem to want a partner for life while men are looking for someone to replace their mother - this isn't actually the case.

Oh, little joke: Husband says, "Fuck you!" to his wife. His wife responds with, "Fuck you too!". This is an example of oral sex after marriage.

Anyway, if you think about it the woman is only going to be happy when she can completely control the man. It's true, don't deny it. You'd love to have some big handsome stud that will do what ever you ask immediately and without question. In fact, you want a mind reader who will do these things without having to ask. You want to be the center of this person's universe, they exist for you.

That isn't reality. Sorry.

Men will never be happy in such a case... at least not for long. So even while the woman is completely happy, the man is dying inside. This happy marriage is just an illusion.

I think it's safe to say that if the man is completely happy in his marriage, the woman isn't. Can you imagine what the ideal wife is for a man? She'd almost be an accessory... sort of like that awesome new stereo system. Show her off, and put her away until you want to play with her. Some sort of hybrid between vacuum, oven, washer/dryer, artwork and fleshlight that comes with a remote control including extra large OFF and MUTE buttons. That's just a round about way of saying men want to be in complete control all the time too.

Don't get me wrong, men can love their wives, but the ideal marriage - for a man- is not one where you spend every waking breath together. They want to be out and about with friends, doing stupid man shit. I won't claim that men want to do important things, heck, most of the time it isn't even productive. Every man is like this, even ones that appear productive. I have a friend that is constantly renovating and doing handiwork - sounds good, right ladies? Never have to ask twice to get a faucet fixed or light changed, right? Wrong. He's going to buy all the tools in the local hardware store and mess with everything in the house until there is nothing left in the house to mess with. Then he's going to want to buy a new house... that needs a little work.

We have something we like to do and you'd better not get in the way too often or it's going to drive us nuts.

We're very different creatures but essentially the same. Someone isn't going to get their way all the time. A good marriage is one where you get to pass control back and forth. A bad marriage is where one or both people constantly fight for control and think it can be won. The perfect marriage is to not be married, you're always in control at that point.

So what is the moral of all this writing?

I shouldn't go outside.

Beard Gone and I've Got a Mount

2008-04-15T09:20:00.004-04:00

I couldn't handle the beard so I shaved it yesterday. It was just way too itchy up around the cheeks. I found myself waking up and scratching, reading and scratching, eating and scratching (the beard...) and watching TV and scratching. Too much scratching. At first I thought it was a good thing, because Ottawa came out playing a lot better last night... then they tanked it in the third. Ah well. The series is 3-0 for Pittsburgh so Ottawa will likely be out on Wednesday.

On other notes, I managed to put together some cash for my mount in WoW. Karrn hit 40 on the weekend (though he hit 42 last night) but I didn't have enough cash for the Riding skill (it was 76 gold 50 silver) and I was stuck trying not to level and leave my friends behind, but I really wanted the mount. I was about 35 gold short. I did some questing in lower level zones and then decided to knuckle down and farm.

Where did I farm?

Why, instances of course. Gotta love having an infinite source of income.

At first I considered Wailing Caverns, but decided the named were too spread out so I picked on Shadowfang Keep and ran it about three times, clearing all the named. While I couldn't sell the blue drops, I could sell them to vendors so I watched the selling prices and kept the ones that were worth it. Otherwise, I kept all the greens. I came out with bags full of greens or blues that were worth selling. I'd sell the blues and put the greens up for sale at reasonable pricing. I'm often a little too reasonable. I also scored a blue world drop that wasn't BoP - those sell well.

At the end of the day, I had enough to buy my mount - a Dire Wolf. I wish Blizzard would allow pets to appear along side of the mounts, it's a little annoying to have them disappear and reappear. I guess the idea is that they won't be able to keep up. I was looking forward to having my black lion running along side my (almost) black wolf mount.

The world drop blue also sold for 10 gold which I put to buying up some mail armor since I still had a lot of leather gear despite having access to mail armor for two levels.

Sad part is that I'll likely continue on in farm mode until the others catch up in levels and to help them get their mounts. It's a little disappointing, because I was enjoying running about and questing. I'm catching up to the point where I left Malken on Mannoroth. I've been having a lot of fun running about solo.

I ditched the guild I was in since it seemed to be more about accumulating numbers than actually doing anything worthwhile. There was a constant stream of players in and they weren't necessarily quality people. Saturday morning, while duoing Razorfen Downs with Arasia, we were startled by the idiocy being said in the guild chat. It seems one of the kids in the guild was delighted to discover there were only a few people on in the morning and decided to spout obscenities into the guild channel. Not a big deal, but it was sort of distracting, idiotic and pointless.

I think we'll just wait until 70 and start looking for a guild then.

Yes, we were duoing Razorfen Downs. I was 40 and Arasia was 35, just hit 36 while we were in there. We cleared out all the named except the dungeon boss, who we got down to 1% before we died. We died in two other places; the swarm of spiders after the gong and with a bulk of the skeletons that are around that pile of bones. We did come back and clear them out with no additional deaths. I don't think we would have been able to get as far as we did if it weren't for the fact that some of the mobs in there are undead so Arasia was able to shackle them. That meant we could reduce the 4 and 5 mobs groups to two or three mobs. We seemed to handle the clusters of four elites well enough with this. The clusters where there were two elites and two to three regulars were easy enough. We didn't bother doing the escort quest (and guard), I seriously doubt we would have been able to handle it with just us two.

I suspect we're going to have a harder time in some of the other instances which we will be heading to shortly; Uldaman and Scarlet Monastery. We might actually see about collecting some people for that.

Work, work...

The Playoff Beard...

2008-04-10T09:00:00.002-04:00

... I'm growing one.

It's driving me nuts because it's so bloody itchy. Someone at work suggested growing a playoff 'stache which most of the hockey fans at work agreed to do. I refrained from asking some of the ladies to do the same, but only barely.

Anyway, I wasn't too keen on just the mustache, so I'm letting everything grow - on my face that is.

Good news is that I will likely be able to shave by Thursday of next week because the Ottawa Senators will be out of the playoffs. I'm not off the bandwagon, it's just reality.

We're down Kelly - our number two shut down guy, Fisher - our number one shut down guy, Alfredsson - our captain and the glue that holds the team together (seriously, Ottawa is something like 5-36 without him) and last night Volchenkov took a puck in the head - he blocks shots like a second goaltender, is our second best defensive defenseman and he is great at crushing people. Now, the A-Train might not miss a game because he was - apparently - trying to get back into the game last night but the trainers couldn't get his helmet on him because the massive goose-egg. We'll see if the swelling comes down by tomorrow night.

Ah well, they made it into the playoffs. I'd like to say they played well all year, but they honestly didn't. Murray is going to have a fun time cleaning house and filling shoes next year. If you take a look here at NHL Numbers you will note we have a lot of Unrestricted Free Agents next year and a couple of Restricted Free Agents. So it could be a fairly different team next year.

I've just heard a rumor of Ottawa shopping Spezza if they don't do well this year. I don't buy it though.

Blogging isn't news, it's blogging...

2008-04-07T15:55:00.003-04:00

Just saw a bit over on Potshot's blog about some blogging, oddly amusing. For some reason I can see older gentleman getting upset at something someone wrote or comments and having a heart attack.

Ok, so not necessarily funny, but one bit did strike a chord. Here's the bit, "Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet."

Guess what got me?

If you guessed the italic part you're good at taking a hint. If you didn't guess that part, your name must be "Brian" and you likely play in my D&D group.

When I first started blogging I didn't believe it was anything news related or even attention worthy. I feel no need to keep up with the rapid pace of the internet. This blog is mine, to do with as I please. At the moment, it pleases me to be an outlet for random thoughts and things that are going on. Should anyone care or comment, then cool. If not, I'm wouldn't be upset.

I have no urge to keep up to date on things or provide news. Oh, wait, I lied. Here is a bit of news important to me so it must be for you as well:

My 4-year old is making liberal use of the word "shit" much to our dismay.

Fortunately, he does use it within the correct context of the word so if his junior kindergarten teacher calls us to express her worry, I'll do my best to soothe her with, "Shit, woman, at least he's using it correctly."

I'm sure that will go over well.

See? No stress. No need to keep up with things.

Overall, I think a lot of the places I read try to do this and I do tend to prefer the non-news blogs the best (exception being The Common Sense Gamer blog, which I look to for news on WAR...).

Ganking on a PVE Server...

2008-04-07T14:00:00.002-04:00

GO ME!

Blizzard finally got off their rump and added Cairne to the Armory service so you can now ogle Karrn in all his awesome glory.

As expected, my bud's son has switched classes again - I think that is the fifth time - so he's not in playing range at the moment. My other friend, who was playing a Mage, has also fallen behind with only being level 26 last I saw.

Anyway, I've been progressing somewhat slowly since I've been holding back. Last night was an exception. I got on and started playing at about 9:30pm and stopped at around 1:00am. Bad me. I was cranking through a bunch of quests, collecting the necessary Fishing/First Aid books and messing around in Stranglethorn Vale.

What does that have to do with ganking?

Well, STV. It seems to be a hotbed of activity on this new server (it was pretty busy on Mannoroth too) and in my questing I came across a lot of Alliance players, none of which were flagged for PVP. It was a little disappointing until I came across a Dwarf Warrior soloing with his PVP flag showing.

I couldn't help myself.

He died pretty quickly. I'm not sure why he had his PVP flag on because he, quite honestly, sucked. Bad. Half the time he couldn't track where I was and he was thrown for a loop when I zipped by him, firing Wingclip. He must have been playing in First Person view or something.

Not one to corpse camp, I had had my little bit of PVP nostalgia, I was about to move on when he attacked me again. It seems there was a graveyard nearby and it didn't take him long to get back to his corpse.

So I killed him.

I bandaged up, and killed him again.

Then again.

Okay, at that point, I was getting a little annoyed. I was trying to move on and leave him be, but he kept throwing himself at me. I kicked in Cheetah mode and took off to a different area and started killing some raptors.

While killing a raptor, I saw a druid come to a halt within view. I'm sure he was checking my PVP just as I was. He then moved by and disappeared from track.

Ruht roh.

I put down an Ice Trap and stepped forward so it would be slightly behind me. I know Druids, they're crazy bastards that like poking stuff in the rear. In some cases, they're worse than Rogues. Sure enough, a second later I hear the trap go off and I see a ice covered druid in sneaky cat form behind me.

I calmly finish off the raptor and put some space between me and the Druid, then send the pet with Intimidate command on him (stuns for a few seconds and increases threat - I mainly wanted the stun). Once the stun broke I had Concussive Shot up and made use of it.

This Druid should a little more talent than the Warrior, he actually shifted to Bear form (I had him marked and my pet was eating him). Still, there was nothing he could do about it, even as a higher level character, he fell in short time.

I was a little farther out from the graveyard this time, so I moved off and noticed the Grom'gol Base Camp was nearby. I ducked in there until my PVP flag wore off then went back about my business.

I'm almost 36th now. I'm eagerly looking forward to level 40 (again) so I can get my mount and start using mail armor.

I almost feel like a bully on this server... ah well, serves them right for having their PVP flag on or trying to attack me.

Oh, we ended up joining a guild. No comments about them yet, it's only been one day and I wasn't really paying much attention to the chat. I did see bits and pieces of it which were typically WoW. No idiots yet.

I'm Holding my Breath...

2008-04-04T09:10:00.002-04:00

There is a number of things that can happen which will mean the Ottawa Senators do not make the playoffs, however, all they need to do is come away with 1 point (overtime loss) against Boston tonight to clinch a playoff berth.

Tonight it is decided - I hope.

If they don't win or go into overtime tonight then I hope that Philadelphia loses tonight. If Philadelphia don't lose tonight, then they need to lose against Pittsburgh or Washington has to lose against Florida - not likely to happen, Ovechkin is tearing it up and I'd LOVE to see Washington in the playoffs.

There are a number of other things that have to happen for Ottawa to miss the playoffs, let's hope they don't happen.

All that said, I am very interested in the off season where Ottawa is facing ten unrestricted free agents and three restricted free agents. Of those, they need to keep Kelly, Vermette, Stillman, Meszaros, and Lapointe. While I'd like them to keep Redden, I'd rather the dump his salary and focus on bringing in a top goalie or a spread the wealth and get some more depth to fill in and replace some of the UFAs they're going to lose.

I've mixed feelings on Commodore, I think it's unfair to judge him with less than a season with Ottawa. You need some more time than what he's had to fit in, fill your role and get used to the play of the team. I do like his mentality though. He's willing to block shots, tries hard and sticks up for people.

While I like some of the other UFAs, I don't think they would be a good fit for next year.

I'm looking forward to hearing what Toronto will do, they need some big changes... BIG changes. And I'm not talking about behind the bench. You can't blame Paul Maurice for where they are, he's done a phenomenal job with what he has. I'm sure he'll take some heat though and if he does get fired, I'd have no qualms about seeing him behind Ottawa's bench - they are looking for a coach after all.

I've Still Got It...

2008-03-31T09:42:00.003-04:00

On Wednesday I went off to Best Buy and picked up a Playstation 3. I did this for a number of reasons.

1) I was waiting to see which format won the war, Bluray or HD-DVD, before deciding what to do. It was annoying because there were movies I've wanted to get for awhile now, but I didn't want to buy DVD and I didn't want to commit to one format over the other either.

2) The PS3 functions as a Bluray player and can up convert DVDs. It also contains all the hardware necessary to upgrade (in the future) the player to one of the later formats.

3) It is supposed to play PS/PS2/PS3 games.

4) It is priced cheaper than an actual Bluray player that doesn't have the hardware to upgrade to the future formats.

5) My existing DVD Player seemed to be on its last legs. It was having issues with scratched DVDs (the newer one I have upstairs wasn't) and there seemed to be issues with the display (I was getting lines across the screen for the first few minutes of it be on which would go away after awhile).

6) I could disconnect the PS2 and a DVD.

7) I could connect one device to play both videos and video games into the HD connection.

Having got it, I was pretty impressed with seeing it adapt to my widescreen and up convert things to 1080i. There was one thing wrong with the color. It was coming out sort of green and pink (I used the AV to component connector so I could get 1080i - my TV doesn't support 1080p). Frustrated, I checked the web to see what was wrong. I didn't see any solutions so I double checked the connections.

Sure enough, I had the green and blue connectors reversed. Oops.

Having fixed that all was good - except support for PS2 games. It seems that I cannot play Scooby Doo: Unmasked anymore. While that isn't painful for me, it is one of my son's favorite games. I suspect I might have to try plugging the PS2 in upstairs, just to be sure it is available.

Oh, the package I bought only came with a crappy AV-video/audio cable, one wireless controller and Spider-Man 3 on Bluray. That is sort of shitty since I like to play games with my son. I was forced to pick up a second (wireless) controller and three games; EASports NHL 2008, The Complete Lego Star Wars game and Heavenly Sword.

Heavenly Sword is pretty crazy, I played it for once late evening when my boys were in bed. I got into Chapter 2 and I'm stuck at a point where I have to use some crazy chick with a crossbow-like weapon to shoot all these bad guys before they get to some old man who will get killed if I don't.

I hate trying to use the stick to aim... so I stopped there - it was getting early morning, so that was a good stopping point.

Lego Star Wars was good, much like the other one though I do notice several enhancements to this version graphically. Yeah, it's Lego Star Wars, but still. I see things like Bloom, Blur and Specular Lighting which I didn't see on the Wii or PS2. Very cool.

NHL 2008 was neat though tough to start. You see they changed the controls so you use the four buttons on the top of the controller to switch players, pass, saucer pass, or poke check/pass block and the two sticks at the bottom of the controller for moving/aiming on the left and shooting/checking on the right. Crazy. It took me several games to get used to this but once I did, I was back to being awesome at this game.

A little bit of history. I first started playing the EA NHL games back on the Sega Genesis. I used to play whole seasons right through and was quite good. The highest score I got in one game was 57-0. Yes, that is right, 57-0 (they didn't have increased difficulty levels). I almost had a goal per game minute.

Once I got used the controls in the PS3 for NHL 2008 I started figuring out the offense. I started blowing out games 11-5 and finished an the evening with a 23-3 game (Ottawa vs. Toronto). I still haven't quite figured out the defense, but I am getting it. Two of the goals the other team got in the 23-3 game were due to me forcing the goalie to pass the puck rather than just cover it up so I think I've got it.

Yes, it was on Rookie level. Now that I've sorted that out, I'll bump it up and see how I do on the higher settings.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the PS3 purchase.

(I did get some play time in with my oldest - he actually scored a goal too! And he was having fun with Lego Star Wars)

Big Balls, WoW and D&D

2008-03-31T09:24:00.003-04:00

This morning I got on the bus and sat down. I did the standard scan about the bus looking for anyone I know or someone worth looking at when one lady drew my attention. She looked quite peaceful, sitting nicely with her eyes closed. Ever get that feeling someone is looking at you? She must have because she opened her eyes and I nearly jumped out of my seat.

Her eyeballs were HUGE! It was like they were going to fall out of her skull or something.

A little disturbed, I rummaged through my backpack and pulled out a book to read.

In WoW, I've moved over to Cairne server (somewhat grudgingly) to play with my long time gaming buddies. We've been progressing fairly quickly and I have to admit that I'm going through the instances this time around and having fun.

So far we've run (clear) through:
Ragefire Chasm
Wailing Caverns
Shadowfang Keep
Blackfathom Deeps
Razorfen Kraul

For most of these we've gone in with a group of three: Arasia (Blood Elf Holy Priest), Armoquard (Orc Restoration Shaman) or Celecirce (Blood Elf Fire Mage) and Karrn (me; Orc Beastmaster Hunter). In some cases, Arasia and I went in just us two and cleared them (like Razorfen Kraul which we did yesterday afternoon).

It's actually been a lot of fun. I am holding back a bit because I've done next to no questing outside of the instances and I'm already level 30. If I were to start doing some questing in the off hours, I might actually out level the other guys. It's a bit frustrating because I do want to get back to where my other character was on Mannoroth (54 Blood Elf Beastmaster/Survival Hunter). I actually think this character is more powerful and I do know that by doing all the instances, I am getting better weapons than I had just doing all the quests solo.

The hard part is not knowing what the future of the character is because we haven't found a guild yet, the server is CST instead of EST so are we really going to be able to raid anything? I know on Mannoroth it's all ready to go. I'm in a guild, it is EST, and they are already raiding 10 man content.

Ah well, I'm having fun and the rest of the group seems to be having fun. Celecirce is worried about keeping up in levels and Armoquard has fallen to creating a bunch of alts so it's unlikely that he'll catch up and continue to play with us.

In other news, I was doing a fair bit of reading up over the weekend, sort of preparing. The players seem enthusiastic and have been contacting me by email or IM to discuss their characters. This should be really interesting, though I do have some worries. Hopefully I can put the fear of death in them so they'll work as a team.

Three days to go...

I Am A: True Neutral Human Wizard (4th Level)

2008-03-27T15:33:00.003-04:00

Seeing this, lengthy, poll on several other sites, I figured I'd take a look at see what it would say I would be.

Ability Scores:

Strength-12

Dexterity-14

Constitution-13

Intelligence-16

Wisdom-13

Charisma-13

Alignment:
True Neutral A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

All that said... I can't say it's all that accurate. I suppose I could fall into the 'True Neutral' definition, but I believe some of my answers about laws and such swung this pendulum over. I am more Lawful with a mischievous side than. Wizard is a little surprising...

Here are the detail results:

Detailed Results:

Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (22)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (24)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (24)
True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (26)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (16)
Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Chaotic Evil ---- XX (2)

Law & Chaos:
Law ----- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Chaos --- XX (2)

Good & Evil:
Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)
Evil ---- (0)

Race:
Human ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Dwarf ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)
Elf ------ XXXX (4)
Gnome ---- XXXXXXXX (8)
Halfling - XXXXXX (6)
Half-Elf - XXXXXX (6)
Half-Orc - XXXXXXXXXX (10)

Class:
Barbarian - (-2)
Bard ------ (-2)
Cleric ---- (-4)
Druid ----- (-4)
Fighter --- XX (2)
Monk ------ (-17)
Paladin --- (-21)
Ranger ---- (0)
Rogue ----- (0)
Sorcerer -- (0)
Wizard ---- XXXXXX (6)

I suspect the Barbarian questions are more about strength than any sort of reflection on temper. I am quite an Ogre when I'm angry, fortunately, I have enough will and discipline to not let the rage out.

Well, I'm up.

2008-03-27T11:40:00.003-04:00

Last night we went into the 'boss' room of the module we were playing (something to do with an Iron Fortress). In the room were three creatures that were invisible and two visible enemies. The invisible (Greater Invisibility no less) creatures were metallic cat creatures with stupidly high Damage Reduction with insane requirements to over come it (something like DR 20 silver and magic) and a Pit Fiend. Yup, you heard that right, it a Pit Fiend. The visible creatures were a fallen Trumpet Archon/Blackguard and a twisted mix of Fiend, Duergar and Red-dragon.

Back to the metallic cats for a moment, I would personally like to meet the guy who created this and bury a knife in his eye for all the difficulties these things brought me and my characters. I would also like to meet the module designer in person, so I can hoof him in the nuts for actually using these in large numbers throughout the module.

If those weren't bad enough, there were a large number of undead and golems throughout the module series. Essentially the later modules spelled out, "Fuck you Rogues". They also rendered casters ineffective with most of the golems having some form of magic immunity. The only one really doing any damage to this was our LE Fallen Paladin/Fighter/Blackguard with his mighty power attack using a magical Greatsword (note this fact, it comes back to play later).

Now I can't really fault the designers and writers for this, we probably should have made use of skills (such as Knowledge) which might have given us insight on how to affect these creatures, divinations or simply resorted to experimenting on a dead body of one such creature to see what sinks in easily.

Okay, back to the fight. In front of the door into this room was a Symbol of Persuasion. If this was triggered, the group would have to make an insanely high Will save or suffer the effects of a Charm Monster spell. Fortunately, we found this one and managed to avoid it.

Unfortunately, the fallen Paladin/Fighter/Blackguard we had in the group betrayed us and switched sides. No worries, he was a pussy without our Hierophant Pelor Cleric casting Heals every couple of rounds on him. Oh wait, he was the only one who could do damage to the fucken cat things and he just stepped forward onto that Symbol of Persuasion which ended up charming our Sorcerer, Ranger and me the Dwarf Fighter/Defender.

That left our Half Dragon Fighter/Cleric, Cleric/Hierophant and Cleric to deal with the masses in the room. Somehow all the creatures in the room were well versed on how not to fuck up Charm Monster effects - something our group tends to go out of their way to do - so Charm Monster didn't break. The Pit Fiend (caster of the symbol) told the charmed people to protect the guy we were after. That was something my character wouldn't do so he had a chance to disregard that command.

With an Opposed CHA check.

Failing that, my Dwarf Defender moved to protect the bad guy. The Ranger did much the same and the Sorcerer ended up following suit.

I'll sum it all up as:

Pure Cleric - Dismisses himself back to the Prime Material Plane (Hieroneous is going to love you for that one...)
Half-Dragon Cleric - Retreats as fast as he can.
Dwarf Hierophant/Cleric - retreats but on the way out grabs this big nasty sword the big bad guy was working on, in doing so triggers a Symbol of Death, he fails the Fort save and is 10 HPs short of not being affected by the spell so he croaks.
Blackguard - retires his character for switching sides.
Sorcerer - ended up being slain by a Mask of the Skull that the Blackguard got from my retired Rogue.
Ranger and my character - are toast because no matter how hard we try, we can't hurt those cat things. We don't bother rolling since it's already after midnight.

Four dead, one retired and two surivors on different planes we decide to call it there for this campaign.

It was a lot of fun and the DM did a good job for his first time DMing while also trying to convert the modules from 3e to 3.5e. I would really like to see him run another campaign of his own creation because the best part of the campaign was during a phase where he legged it to tie the modules together.

I'm next in line to DM so I'm going to spend the next little while preparing. Next week they will be creating their evil characters to run in my Eberron campaign. The following two weeks we'll break so we can start with the full group in attendance.

I'm looking forward to it... mouahahaha.

Game On!

2008-03-25T08:43:00.003-04:00

Being done with EQ2 and focusing more on WoW, I talked with one of my gaming friends who didn't believe WoW was a blight to the earth and that the cartoony graphics were something to loathe and he agreed to try playing WoW again. The original plan was to play on Mannoroth where my Blood Elf Hunter lives and a few people from work are playing, but that changed.

The guy I've been online gaming with for over ten years now heard that we were playing WoW and he was signing his son (11 years old) up to play. He was a little annoyed I didn't invite him to come play, but I had a good reason not to. You see, he believes WoW is a blight to the earth and that the cartoony graphics were something to loathe. I think that was a pretty good reason to not invite him. I just assumed he'd be against playing that given his grumbling about EQ2 and the infamous "taking a break from MMOs" comments.

Well, he decided he would play as well. The catch was that he didn't want to play on a PVP server. At all. I couldn't convince him otherwise no matter how hard I tried. He was keen on this fairly new server called Cairne. He's got something about starting on equal footing and on new servers.

Cairne is PVE and CST, so they're an hour behind us. I wasn't too keen on that. It's a new economy as well, which means it will be awhile before people are making items that can sell at a price where you can turn a profit. You're also facing stiff competition as most people are churning through the same tradeskill levels that you are and end up selling their items at a loss on the auction house - yes, people selling for a loss when compared to what a NPC vendor would give you for them (i.e. Hillman's Shoulders can be sold to a vendor for 12sp, people are selling them for that much on the AH so minus the AH fees and you've taken a loss). On older servers there are fewer people making the lower tier items so when you do make them, they sell well.

Another painful thing about starting on a new server is that everyone seems to do that, so there is actually a queue most of the time, though it is pretty short. The server also lags a bit.

Oh, and then my friend and his son play a ton of Battlegrounds... I really do mean he played a ton. Not only were they entering at the lower level range of the tier (something which is apparently frowned on by people who must win all the time) but they discovered the joys of Battlegroups... namely, when you're on a new server you get devastated by the twinks off other servers in the Battlegroups. They still had fun and I actually got involved too.

I should mention the players.

Frank - Arasia, Blood Elf (mangina) Priest (level 22ish now)
Michel - Armoquard, Orc Shaman (was about level 18 yesterday, Frank's son)
Chris - Celecirce, Blood Elf (mangina) Mage (about level 18 last I saw him)
Me - Karrn, Orc Hunter (level 26 /flex - I sneeze and I level)

That brings me to another point - Capture the Flag in WoW feels bloody weird (Yes, it was my first time in a BG). It took me a bit to realize where to set up the defense. At first I was setting things up in the flag room (I was around level 15 at the time so I only had my fire trap). This wasn't a good idea. It's far easier (with Track Humanoids going) to roam the middle in front of the base and intercept the flag carrier when he does get the flag (Boar pet FTW). It also took me a short time to figure out the power ups and lay of the map.

I focused mainly on defense and we actually won one of the 6 matches we played (3-0). The previous ones were a loss with us suffering at the hands of the twinks. Still, I came away with well over 100 kills and several hundred honor.

Frank was having issue as a Priest since his DPS wasn't really something capable of killing the Rogues that jumped him and they often got the drop on him. Even when I tried to get their attention they would focus on getting him down. Boar pet, Concussive Shot and mad Hunter DPS to the rescue. Until a Warrior would charge me. hehe

All in all, it was good fun.

We started to hit some instances over the weekend. We cleared out Ragefire Chasm (no big feat there) then proceeded to Wailing Caverns and cleared that one out twice (and did parts of it a couple of times). Yesterday we cleared through Shadowfang Keep and I'm hoping this weekend we'll hit Blackfathom Depths. We do quite well considering we rarely add to the group and we didn't have Chris around much. Me and my pet tanked while the Shaman and Priest kept things going. I did a little CC when I got my hands on Ice Trap (I couldn't wait to get that one again). The only areas of problem were in Wailing Caverns when we'd face more than one Druid and suffer from having two people put to sleep. We managed to pull through though.

I'm trying to hold back and not level any farther than I am now. It's hard to resist, I really want to get back to where Malken was but I'll try to be patient. Instead I'll raise my Skinning (on grey mobs), Leatherworking and Fishing skills. Oh, I scored Humar the Pridelord on the weekend, soon after hitting 23rd. I grabbed a wyvern to Ratchet, camped out for lunch then popped back in when the kids were napping and sure enough, he was there. I bungled the first attempt because I was rushing and trying to avoid extra agro but I got him the second time without a problem. I had tried to get Echeyakee but I had Frank and Michel with me and somehow they got agro and my taming kept breaking. No loss, he seems to be pretty common. I think I saw about 10 Hunters with him hehe. I did grab Ishamuhale but I wasn't that impressed by him and he was also fairly common.

Crap, I just realized I need to build up some cash for an extra stable slot so I can get upgrades in abilities for both my pets. Humar has only Claw 2 as a trainable and he could be using Claw 4. My boar, "Tye" (my son named him), is still using Bite 2 and the lower level boar abilities. He needs an upgrade too but I can't do that without dumping one of the two or getting the coin together to buy another stable slot.

Ah well, I'll get to farming in around the Barrens. I might even go into WC and clear out some of the areas that I can to collect a lot more medium leather (I'm up to being able to use Heavy Leather).

To quote an orc peon, "Work, work." Back to work I go...

AoC: Is it for real?

2008-03-09T14:24:00.002-04:00

Quoting from a preview with comments inserted..

Six months ago, Conan looked to be in a spot of bother. The beta began, and the players let out a unified "Erk". The problem? The combat. In trying to move away from the standard MMO fare, Conan's esoteric approach to online fighting left many players bemused.

Now, only about four months from the delayed release date, it's that element of the game that's seen the most work.

Okay, so I'm a little behind the times on this one, but I wanted to point somethings out.

The good news is that it's still different enough from every other MMO to be interesting. The better news is that it's very easy to play. Perhaps even too easy. Every enemy in the Robert E Howard-inspired game has three points where they can be attacked: left, right and above.

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These are shown by semi-circles floating about them when targeted. If you hit them on the left, they'll defend that side, maybe leaving the right exposed. Exploit this, and take advantage of your ever-increasing set of skills and the combo system, and you'll be employing a degree of tactics not seen before in MMO battling.

We're a bit concerned that combat might now be too simple at the start, but we're reassured by Funcom's promise that it will get more involved by the time the game launches, with combos present from the very beginning.

This is a worry of mine, will it be too simple? I worry that pushing three different keys to angle the attacks and run some combos will be too minimalistic. Will it keep me entertained?

The story gets equal standing with the combat as the focus of development. Taking the lore from the Howard books, rather than any iteration of the comics or the unbearable Arnie movie, Funcom are placing the narrative firmly at the centre of things.

Along with two dedicated full-time writers, there's a team of eight people solely writing quests, and another responsible for managing the lore. There'll be 800 quests ready at launch, and surprisingly few of them appear to be timesink "kill 30 rabbits" nonsense.

Okay, this is good news.

Don't worry, I know this comes from a preview which generally tend to be positive and leave your imagination to imagine things in a positive light. I have a box of salt here next to me.

In fact, some genuinely inspired ideas are being touted, including solving murder mysteries, and stealth quests requiring you to sneak over rooftops and eavesdrop on NPC conversations. The large team is there to ensure quests have meaning in the game, linking them to the story, giving you the motivation to complete tasks.

This becomes even more detailed with the Destiny Quests available to you at night time. These focus on learning more about your character's mysterious background, and should create a far greater sense of your presence within the world, with a history going back before you created your character.

Very cool, but *eating some salt* this sounds a lot like the single player aspect of the game which is a minor part of the game content, no? If it plays out throughout the game that will be cool.

This idea of there being reason behind actions is prevalent throughout. NPCs are having their heads filled with big old lumps of behaviour, so rather than standing stupidly waiting for you to clonk their heads in, they'll be getting on with busy-work. Guards will have extensive patrol routes, relieve each other from duty, even gain a sense of ambition until they're willing to go exploring, and naturally get drunk and then go for a pee up against a wall.

All this can be used to your tactical advantage, as you and your buddies tackle enemy camps however you see fit.

Sweet, ambush a guy while he's relieving himself on the wall. I can just see hanging out in a seedy bar watching him and waiting for that opportunity. Of course, I can't see myself wanting to do that for every character I start. Sneaky is cool if you're playing a sneaky type. Hopefully they've added quests and storylines for the other classes of the game.

While Funcom's previous MMO, Anarchy Online, might not have won a giant audience, it does seem to have taught them the value of details. Conversations, for instance, are far more involved than in previous MMO offerings.

Rather than clicking through the cutscene, or choosing "yes" or "no" to a quest, in Conan you'll have BioWare-style conversation options, so you can choose the attitude with which you approach situations. In fact, be rude enough and you can talk your way out of a quest.

YES! This is what I was looking for!

It won't dramatically change the progression of the game, and there's no shifting between 'dark' and 'light' or anything similar, but it's a nice touch that lets you feel far more involved in proceedings.

NO! Having choices are meaningless if they, well, have no meaning. I suppose it will let you immerse yourself in the game. Again, is this the single player aspect? How does it handle multiplayer and the odd crazy player that wants to pick a fight with someone you're trying to be diplomatic with? Because, you know, I'll be looking for some heads to crush.

Guilds look to be getting a decent chunk of attention too. Once you've reached level 40 (of 80) you'll be able to start doing some serious crafting. But rather than just churning out attractive hats, this will allow you and your guildmates to establish a large, instanced base for celebrating your glory, with as many as 150 players sharing the space.

Does this mean the guys who can't play most of their waking hours will be without a guild because people will only want crazy people who spend more time in a virtual life than their real one?

It's an amusing goal to aim for, and there's a small tactical advantage too, as the area offers opportunities for resource gathering, which will come in useful for PvP action.

Again, benefits PVP which puts the casual gamer at less weight.. maybe.

Then dozens more details present themselves. Over 100 voice actors have been used for the NPCs, and from our brief play, they're pretty decent. It's a hefty relief to hear a Scottish accent in a game performed by an actor who's at least visited the country, even more so one who can offer an authoritative and impressive brogue.

There's a day/night cycle, which affects the behaviour of the NPCs. There are 2,500 animations for male and female characters, with hundreds of emotes to match (including getting drunk and the subsequent peeing).

Very cool but...

What remains to be seen is whether the many years of effort will connect into a coherent and engrossing MMO. The combat, while much improved, will still provide an obstacle to new players merely by dint of being different from World of Warcraft.

Bingo.

We'd really like to see Conan succeed - hell, we'd really like to see any MMO different enough from WoW succeed. The open beta starts any moment now.

Open beta is apparently under way as is a technical beta. It seems some members from the previous technical betas were added into the general beta populace. What's the difference? Well, the technical beta people are playing only within set time frames while the general beta types have access like a normal beta tester might (I'm assuming this).

Anyway, I'm amped about the verbose communications instead of the Yes/No or Accept/Decline options which leave you with little feeling for your characters. That could be cool as long I as I deviate from my, "Bah, I'll read it from the journal" ways.

Offical release date was said to be May 20th, 2008 so just a few more months.

R.I.P.

2008-03-05T07:56:00.003-05:00

Gary Gygax died yesterday.

I'm having a really sad moment as I reflect on the years of gaming thanks to him. I started playing D&D when I was about 7 years old, that's over 26 years ago. My parents had bought one of the Basic sets, you know, the one where Elves, Dwarves and Halflings were classes instead of just races?

Wow, it's been a long time.

I played that for quite some time, occassionally switching over to Advanced D&D (1st edition to 3.5), Fantasy Hero, Marvel Superheros, Champions, Gammaworld, Palladium (all the flavors of that system like Rifts, Robotech, Heroes Unlimited, TMNT, Ninjas & Superspies), Middle Earth Role-Playing Game and, my all time favorite, Shadowrun (1st through 3rd editions, I own 4th edition but haven't played it).

Some of the campaign worlds I've played through include: Greyhawk, Blackmoor, the basic world, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Oriental Adventures, Hollow World, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, The City State of the Invincible Overlord and Eberron shortly. I've also run custom campaigns, of course. At any one time I have at least two possible custom campaign worlds kicking around my head.

For the most part I played the role of the DM, though it has been a really long time since I've DMed, over 10 years now I think.

All that to say, thank you Gary Gygax.

Nothing.

2008-03-03T12:46:00.003-05:00

Ever have a period of time where things just didn't seem right? Things you enjoy just don't seem to be fun. Food is bland. TV shows do nothing for you. Games feel like you're just going through the motions. You just want to sleep sort of thing?

That's where I am right now. I think it started yesterday. I just wasn't into anything I was doing, everything was boring or uninteresting. I settled for reading a few chapters of the book I'm reading (Seas of Death) but even then I kept putting zoning out and had to re-read the same paragraph several times.

I'm not sure why I'm feeling this way and it's not the first time, though it is uncommon. I suspect it's just anxiety over my upcoming birthday. Birthdays have sucked for me the last little while. There is no excitement to them and I can't help but certain people come around just to be involved in what ever we decide to have for dinner. Usually we order Chinese food and I, indirectly, end up paying the bill (thanks to the freeloaders who are not members of my family).

Picking a gift hasn't been easy this year since I usually get movies (DVD) or books or something obvious like that. This year I've had the wife order an Ottawa Senators jersey. Very cool. It's going to be a little late due to shipping.

I didn't want to go with DVDs since I'll eventually pick up a BluRay player once the later specs are available. There aren't any books out at the moment that I don't already own or have yet to read.

I guess a lot of it is the complete lack of anything spontaneous. I know exactly what's going to happen for my birthday and the only real difference between it and any other day is that we'll order in and have ice cream cake (my oldest son is allergic to eggs). After that, it'll be the same deal. Play with the kids a bit, likely give my oldest a time out for hitting his brother for some silly reason, put them to bed and probably "spend time" with the wife. This mainly involves sitting on the couch together and her falling asleep at 9pm... if I'm lucky for her to last that long.

I supposed I could have summed this entry up with, "bleh".

Oh, in other news I was rewarded 100$ for helping out with another group. I took some time away from my busy work schedule to teach them how to use something. The guy who set it up appreciated it and said as much by email but also CCed the local director and my manager.

I thought about what to buy all weekend but couldn't decide on anything. I managed to convince the wife that 100$ off a PS3 which also acts as a BluRay player was a good idea (it involved me saying, "PS3 or a birthday hummer?"). I didn't pull the trigger on that because I just can't bring myself to use a console as an player. Sorry Brian, I didn't mean to give credit to Darin's argument.

One of the issues with adopting a current BluRay player is that most of them weren't built to allow for easy update to version 2.0 (or what ever is coming around Christmas time). The PS3 is an exception so I actually did consider it, for a little while.

DDO Temptation? And D&D 4e...

2008-03-01T18:35:00.004-05:00

I made my Will save and won't bother trying it out for the free week. Apparently I can give a 1-week pass to friends (I'm not sure if I have to play to get it) so if anyone reading this wants a free trial week, let me know.

In other D&D related news, I caught wind of this, which seems to be some sort of demo pamphlet for 4e D&D. It's a bit rough to read since it was scanned in at poor quality.

At the end of the character sheets you'll see a two page short player guide. There are some interesting things to note with 4e. At first glance it appears sort of like rules for a board game or miniatures game, but when I think about it, a lot of the changes are good changes which should speed up combat and make all classes a little more interesting.

Here are a few of the things I noticed among the pages:

Classes seem to be Cleric, Paladin, Wizard, Warlock, Fighter, Rogue, Ranger and Warlord. There doesn't seem to be a Druid, Monk, Bard, Barbarian or Sorcerer class.

They talk of roles for each class; Controller, Tank, Striker and Leader. Controller (Warlock and WizarD) seems enabled to affect multiple targets at one time, the tank (Fighter and Paladin) is focused on taking damage and keeping the creature's focus (something that is missing with current versions of D&D), the striker (Rogue and Ranger) sounds like it focuses on bringing down a single creature quickly while the leader (Cleric and Warlord) types seem to have abilities to bolster party members in various ways.

Movement rates are now simply a count of squares instead of having a certain umber of feet that ultimately gets sifted down to a number of squares (these do seem to be impacted by armor).

Reach only comes into play when it is that creature's turn. I sort of like that.

Durations are different now, things tend to last until a save is made or for the entire duration of the encounter. No more odd formulas of 3 rounds +1 round per 2,3,4,5 levels.

Saves are different, it is now a target of 10 and you roll a d20 and if you get over that the effect ends. This is specific to certain effects and it is also subject to modifiers.

Racial bonuses seem a little more relevant.

Action points are simplified. You simply consume one to gain an extra action. These have very simple rules attached to when you get them.

There are four defensive stats; Armor Class, Will, Fortitude and Reflex. It looks like most mundane attacks have to overcome Armor Class will spells and power effects must overcome one of the others.

They're removed the penalty for firing into melee.

They've lumped a number of skills together. For example Move Silently and Hide were lumped together as Stealth. Spot, Listen and Search seem to be lumped together into Perception. There was also a Passive Perception and Passive Insight skill which seems useful to DMs.

They've made healing a lot less reliant on a Cleric. All characters get to use some sort of 'Second Wind' type ability which will heal them a certain amount. It seems they can use this a number of times per day.

Classes now have 'Powers' which fall into three categories; Divine, Arcane and Martial. There also seems to be some racial powers. Mundane (non-caster) classes also get powers which seem to be called "Exploits". These vary per class and seem pretty cool (check out Cleave, Tide of Iron on the Fighter sheet and Careful Attack on the Ranger sheet)

They've made playing a caster a little more fun at lower levels because you get some "At Will" powers which can be used without limit - there seems to be some exceptions. There are also some "Per Encounter" powers which can be used a number of times per encounter. Finally, there are "Daily" powers which seem to be once per day (likely more, but they've only supplied level 1 characters).

Take a look at the back of the character sheets for descriptions of some of the powers. One I thought was really cool was Turn Undead. It's a Will attack that does an amount of damage to all undead in the range and also pushes them away 5 squares. I could just imagine that...

To see what I mean about Tanks having some sort of means of keeping the enemy on them, take a look at the Combat Challenge for the Fight class on the front page undead Race and Class. Also look at Divine Challenge for the Paladin. It seems you can specify a target, engage it, and if he doesn't attack you he takes damage. Kind of neat, I envision it as the tank taking advantage of the target not being focused.

It seems like you've got Standard, Move, Minor, Immediate and Free actions. But it also sounds like you don't have to juggle as many (i.e. it sounds like you take a Standard or a Move not some combination of Standard and Move or Move and Move or Move and Move Equivalent) but I'm not sure.

Another thing to note is that the alignments on the sheets seem simplified. I'm curious about this since it seems to be watered down to: Good, Unaligned and, I suspect, Evil. Maybe they'll focus a little less on boxing a character into one of the nine alignments and allow players to really define their character. I've always found alignments to be somewhat of a lazy short cut to define a character.

Overall, it sounds like they've simplified combat so it should be a little faster, more intense and less typical - more heroic. It does seem more powerful than you'd expect, but it looks like they compensate for that some... note the number of Hit Points and what is Bloodied? Is it another track of damage you can take but while in that state you face penalties? I have no idea.

All in all, it sounds like they've streamlined the mechanics even more. Is it more focused on combat? Seems like it, but you know, there are very few rules for the RP aspect of the game so why wouldn't there be more emphasis or rules for combat?

ROT: Bananas

2008-02-28T09:22:00.003-05:00

Do women feel self-conscious when they're eating bananas in public? It's a big old phallic symbol for us depraved men.

The other day I was on the bus on the way into work when an attractive woman pulled out a banana and started eating it. I have to admit, I was mesmerized for a moment. I looked around and all the guys within sight of her were watching, mesmerized as well. I think she noticed because her eyes widened and she sort of started scanning the area and saw a number of embarrassed looks. Of course, I was grinning because I noticed the other guys mesmerized and thought it was funny.

Do you think she took my grin as the product of some sort of perverted day dream?

Oh, and she had a small mouth, which got me thinking about the small hands comment.

Ladies, especially you attractive ones, please refrain from eating bananas in public areas - it makes me a little uncomfortable. (Haha, because that will ever happen!)

CoD4 - Man Down!

2008-02-25T10:17:00.002-05:00

Game completed.

It is, without a doubt, the best FPS game I've played to date. Phenomenal. Way too short though. I literally couldn't get enough of that game so I might have to play through it all again.

I played through on the normal level of difficulty and it was still pretty challenging. Surprisingly, I had the easiest time with the mission where you're in a flashback to when the Captain was a noobie sniper assigned to do wetwork. Man, that was fun. I was terrified the soldiers would see us and open fire.

Anyone who hasn't played the game, there is a mission to sneak into enemy lines and assassinate a 'bad guy'. I don't want to spoil anything, but you end up sneaking past infantry sweeps and even right under - literally - a convoy that has stopped momentarily. You cap it off with carrying your boss out of there and sniping loads of enemies while waiting on the chopper to land in the LZ.

That mission blew me away.

And the endings... good stuff, a bit typical, but still pretty cool.

Only complaint would be that there was a constant "you do this" orders from the guys in charge and some of the time it wasn't obvious where to do it. One example is where you have to take down two guys while they're not looking but your partner doesn't specify which one to take down. Simply saying, "Take the guy on the left, I've got the one on the right" would have made life easier. For some of the orders that involved specific interactions they did make things gold and glow, but sometimes when there is a timer counting down you miss it (like the keyboard in the last part of the game - it must have been on the wanning part of the glow when I looked over it).

Awesome game. They need to expand on the single player and make it more.

Oh, and I did get my ass kicked on several levels but I managed to pull through. It seems like there is an infinite supply of bad guys until you secure an area so you're almost forced to do some of the indoor combat.

Dogs suck. I liked dogs until I played this game. But I guess it's my fault for not remapping the melee attack to one of the side buttons of my mouse.

Just a note to parents, even if you disable the gore option, when a dog gets a hold of you it is still messy. I think some of the pre-made movies still included blood. I actually didn't let my son watch a couple of them...

Awesome game. Way too short.

I Declare War on Gnomes.

2008-02-21T09:03:00.004-05:00

If you are playing a Gnome, I will attack you on sight regardless of your level.

The other day I was passing through Thoridan's Wall and I saw a level 21 Gnome Warlock heading the other way. I was about to send my pet and start handing him his ass, but the gnome innocently waved at me. I hesitated at the pathetic sight and decided to let him live. He wouldn't have been a challenge for me at level 41 anyway and I'm not the type to gank lower levels over and over simply because I can.

Well, no good deed goes unpunished. Shortly after, I was on my way to complete a quest when I saw a level 30 Human Paladin being power-leveled by a 60+ Gnome Mage (skull - couldn't see the level). I held back out of sight and watched them through my tracking ability (I love tracking). When they were out of sight, I moved down and handed in the quest.

A large stone elemental appeared and yelled that it wouldn't let me release Myreal (I think the name was) so I engaged it. About two hits into the fight, I get blindsided by that Gnome Mage.

So, I now declare war on Gnomes all classes. You will have no mercy from the Blood Elf Hunter named Malken on the Mannoroth server.

I have no apologies to the Draenai Shaman I killed three times that night (ducking behind a hill, hoping I don't see you isn't going to save you from my Track Humanoids ability). No apologies to the Night Elf Priest I killed twice nor any for the human Paladin I killed twice.

I am loving PVP.

Call of Duty 4

2008-02-20T08:10:00.003-05:00

Wow! I was completely blown away by this game! Literally! I discovered what the hand grenade warning indicator the hard way and got blown up.

I downloaded the demo (1.3gb of it) off FilePlanet on the weekend, but I didn't get to installing it until last night. Install was no problem (even on Vista) and didn't take long at all. I fired it up, inverted mouse axis, switched the resolution to 1680x1250 and kicked off the level the demo gives you access to.

WOW.

I can't say that enough. There is a little movie and a run down of what's going on in the area from a satellite view. The camera zooms into the area you are in and the game starts off with someone barking orders at you.

I stood stunned looking at the definition and details of the gun. Then looked around and ducked in my chair as some gunfire started up and bullets started flying towards me and my unit (not that unit...). We busted hump to cover and advanced while making use of suppressive fire.

Suppressive what? Fuck that... I took out the guys that were popping up in upper floor windows in various locations. Suppression by death.

Well, the game designers were on to me. They had a few 'bad guys' (as my son calls them) shooting from a protected/covered area so I had to make use of the suppressing fire the others in my unit (...) were laying down.

It felt great. The movement felt right, aiming felt right, zooming in felt right, the number of shots to kill an enemy felt right and the gun felt right.

Cover is your friend since you start off in an ambush. It took me a bit to get used to how to drop to my belly, crouch and then get up from there since it wasn't a toggle like in the Battlefield series of games.

So I moved up the street and found a burned out building filled with 'bad guys'. It was rough to get close so I picked off the few that I could and rushed for a dark doorway. One of the other soldiers suggested using night goggles, so I put them on and it looked good there too.

After a few seconds more of my unit (seriously, enough with the giggling) came through the door and set up a perimeter, watching the stairs and doors. The lower level was clear so the guy in charge ordered me to go upstairs and start clearing out the enemy. He also ordered someone to come with me. That guy burst up the stairs and almost got knifed by a 'bad guy'.

I dispatched him - what else as I supposed to do? We proceeded through the floor clearing out rooms until we got to the side facing out on the street where more of my unit was pinned down (no giggles? good). I was ordered to grab the mounted gun and take down the other enemies on the upper floor to which we had a clear shot from this angle. Ever one to shoot people, I grabbed the gun and went ape-shit.

We secured the area, but we still had to get to one of our tanks stuck in a bog and help get it out. I neglected to mention that didn't I? Anyway, there were some enemy tanks headed that way. Out back was another mess of enemies in the way with more hollowed out buildings to ambush us from. So I cleared those out too - this is where I learned about the hand grenade warning indicator.

Now about the hand grenade warning indicator - some people might think this makes things easy. You're wrong. Without it you wouldn't know someone threw a grenade. The game combat is just that crazy hectic and half the time you're ducking behind cover. The indicator lets you know there is a grenade nearby and which direction it is in. Really, it's a crazy busy game. Gunfire, explosions, fire, enemies moving about, allies moving about and people barking orders.

Okay, so we cleared that area and saw some tanks rolling down a highway towards the tank we're trying to recover. The commander barks at me to get the rocket launcher (I forget what it was called) and take out the tanks.

This is when I discovered the objective indicator on your compass. It'll point you to where you have to go for specific things.

Sure enough, there it was. I picked it up and zoomed to target the tanks. After a couple of a seconds it locked on a tank and I fired away. I downed two more tanks but local enemy fire was starting to connect so I went to an upper floor and fired off the last rocket and destroyed their last tank. The game automatically switched me back to the rifle I was using and we continued on towards the tank.

The tank was surrounded by enemies, several with RPGs that had to be taken down quickly. My unit (really, come on now) quickly re-enforced the few troops guarding the tank and we proceeded to clear the area.

At this point, I wanted to see how the game would handle the berserk, Quake-style play I cut my teeth on. I charged their line, ducking and weaving until I broke by their barricades and started tearing them up from behind (okay, giggle at that one). It didn't take long for them to turn and focus on gunning me down since I was the more immediate threat.

Cool!

After re-spawning, I came back at them.

That's an interesting thing. I re-spawned when I died. I can't tell if I restarted that part or if I continued as it was. It was sort of nice actually. I loathe starting all over and I especially hate it when games are designed so that when you start over you have to watch the intro video without a way of skipping over it (yeah, I'm talking about you Demonstone).

Tank secured, I had to circle around and clear out the other side to do so. That is when I discovered the building full of 'bad guys' and no way to get at them. The commander barked another order at me that they needed to take out the local anti-air gun so they could call in air support.

Off I went to find the anti-air gun. Dispatched a few 'bad guys', planted some C4, ducked behind some cover and pushed the big red button.

BOOM!

Any game with C4 in it makes me happy.

Back to the commander and he starts barking orders for me to place the beacon so air support knows where to find us.

Why do I have to do everything? Damn, I sound like my wife.

I place the beacon and in comes two attack choppers who proceed to lay waste to the building the 'bad guys' were taking cover in.

The mission ends there with the typical, "Good job soldiers!" from that lazy bastard who made me do everything.

That was the end of the demo. It rocked. Everything in it just felt right and seemed to click for me. It looked great, played great and felt great. I quickly hit BestBuy's site and ordered that game.

The images and videos on the game's site don't do it any justice at all.

Go here for more videos. I love YouTube.

Unit.

The Little Ogres Have Something to Say...

2008-02-18T11:22:00.003-05:00

It's "Family Day" here in Ontario so I'm off today - as are most of the people in the province, well, except my wife. It seems the federal government employees and some of the services that cater to them are not taking today off. So it's just me and the boys.

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birds

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There... these little guys have been blogging since they were four years old and two years old. They're hooked too, they want to keep typing stuff but my battery is dying.

We're Done. No Wait, We're Playing Again. I think

2008-02-16T18:35:00.003-05:00

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I've been playing online games with a friend for over 10 years now. It started back in the day with Quake2 and my 33.6 modem (soon after upgraded to a 56k then cable - ping ftw!).

Well, the last few weeks have been a little rough and the next few weeks are going to be busy for me at work so I might not have much time to play. On top of that, our current healer (I have a set group in EQ2; me = Berserker, 10yearonlinegamebud = Illusionist, friendfromtheUSwhoIhavenotmetinperson = Conjuror and localgoofballwhoIalsoplayDandDwith = Defiler) said he's going to be busy over the next little while as well. That will start getting us closer to Spring and then Summer. Summer is when our current healer tends to spend weekends at his trailer on a lake - cool for him.

Now, my 10yearonelinegamebud is looking at this and seeing that we're going to need a healer. He's a little bummed out about it and starting to worry that we'll end up spending the two times per week that we get to play, looking for a healer. We used to do that a long time ago then we determined it'd be best if we (10yearonlinegamebud and I) always played a tank and a healer, interchanging so we had it covered.

Have you ever had to look very hard for DPS people? I haven't. It seems people prefer to play those roles since there is no real responsibility to it, you either do the damage or not (yeah, I'm oversimplifying, but when people die it tends to be the tank and/or the healer that gets blamed).

Here's a history:

EQ1: I played a Warrior, he played a Cleric/Shaman. We switched servers and I ended up playing a Cleric while he played a Shadowknight.

EQ2: I started as a Guardian, he played an Inquisitor. Round two, I played a Warden, he played a Ranger, two others played a tank, and our Conjuror played a Wizard. We lost the two tanks so we reverted to the Guard/Inq combo. Round three (post VG), we started up again (see above group) and now it seems he's going to switch back to his Inq, just in case**.

VG: I played as God, err, I mean Cleric while he played as a Warrior. The others filled out the roles around us.

** Okay, back to round three. My 10yearonlinegamebud is very goal oriented and driven - he's also the best player I've seen in all the games I've played, no matter what role he plays. He's given us true meaning to the phrase, "Full Power".

Need an example? Well, he's already level 80 in Tailoring and has 250 in Tinkering, meanwhile the rest of us are around level 55 in our respective tradeskills and we haven't had the time or cash to spend on the extra tradeskills.

That's pretty hardcore considering he's got a full time job, wife, son and enjoys other activities like several TV shows and sports.

How is he so awesome? He learns the mechanics of the games, looks at the choices available and selections things for efficiency and filling the holes of which ever class he is playing. He learns the tricks of every class and makes some of his own. It's like he lives and breathes the game.

One of the things that frustrates him the most is a feeling that he's wasted his time.

I usually think, "Well, if you're having fun, it isn't really wasted time - right?" But I can see how he'd be annoyed about ditching a character he's leveled to 56-58, 80 in tradeskill, 250 in another tradeskill and factioned for Deserts of Flame.

So when he sees one of the core group leaving or being unavailable, he immediately sees us spending most of our sessions looking for a healer or trying to trio without a healer (we can do it, it just limits the content we can do when we want to do it) and starts evaluating the game and where things are going.

He's a crazy thinker. Wheels are always turning... unless he floods them with port.

Looking at EQ2, he's seeing a lot of button mashing, dungeons that aren't really big (compared to EQ1 and VG), easy crafting, fairly easy combat and little real form of distinction. He looks at the gear and sees that you can use crafted or mastercrafted gear up to max level and even continue to use it in raids where it might finally get replaced (this may be a bit different in KoS and RoK, but from what we saw of KoS, that wasn't the case).

This isn't limited to EQ2, it's a common trend. Worse, it's a trend we almost want. I know I was looking at Age of Conan and saying, "WTF? You push five different buttons in a sequence to do some move you learn at some level? Why not just make a single button for that move?" Thinking about it some more, it might be cool...

Really, I think the game that suited him best was Vanguard, though we've already got characters that are almost max level, seen most of the content and if we were to play that, we'd end up hitting max level with no real new content for a long time. Not appealing to him in the least, or me for that matter.

He was tossing around the idea of playing his Inquisitor again, so we wouldn't have to look for healers every session. The problem was giving up everything he put into the Illusionist. He didn't like the idea of having all that effort going to waste. He also doesn't want to play more than one character - like I said, he's very focused and driven. The other choice was to take a break from MMOs.

Late in this week he decided to quit EQ2 and take a break from MMOs in general. The final decision was made yesterday (Friday).

Now, from my prespective, this sucks. Not the end of the world, but I have no desire to play EQ2 without him playing too. He did take a break from MMOs awhile back and I have to admit, I was incredibly bored.

This moring I got an IM saying he would switch to his Inquisitor. He said he sort of wandered around the house looking for something to do. He was bored.

So in the space of a day, he changed his mind and wants to get back to playing.

What's the morale of the story?

Uh... we should always play a tank/healer combo so LFG isn't painful because we're probably going to be playing online games for another 10 years or more.

It's too bad I can't convince him to hop back into WoW so we can tear up some Alliance on the PVP server I'm playing on.

Back!

2008-02-13T08:22:00.002-05:00

I got back Saturday night, much to the delight of my oldest son who was counting it down like Christmas, "Two more sleeps until I get Daddy at the airport!". Both boys must have missed me because I woke up at 2am to them both in my bed, the older picking on the younger and the younger crying.

It's good to be back.

I think.

I wasn't allowed to sleep in on Sunday, even though I was coming from the West coast so 5am was more like 2am. Sunday is also supposed to be my sleep in day. Oh well. I got to watch some cartoons with my two year old. I let her sleep in until 8:30am. We took a walk through the snow to the 'boobie store' as my two year old pronounces it, and picked up some movies for the afternoon and evening (The Game Plan and License to Wed). Both were predictable but okay... who the heck uses the expression, "Walk the midget" for sex?

I spent the afternoon outside in the cold creating a snow 'palace' for my oldest, who wasn't napping. He loved it and so did my youngest when he saw it the next morning. In fact, they love it so much it's tough to get them in the van in the morning.

Monday was back to work, though I didn't go to work. Instead I had to go to the University of Ottawa to do some interviews for potential interns.

I felt so old afterwards. They were all so young, energetic and enthusiastic. You could see their hopes, excitement for their future and all around naivety. I couldn't pick them all so unfortunately, all that youthful joy will go un-crushed... except for one lucky applicant.

Yesterday I was back at the office, though not really. I got in to discover my boss was already there - which is odd because he usually gets in at 9:30am (it was 8:15am). I plugged in my laptop, started it up and wandered over to say hello and talked about which one of the young students we would be enslaving.

He mentioned that I was late for my yearly review.

Nice.

He booked it yesterday when there was no chance for me to respond. No worries, he's easy going. I got a good review and a promotion as well. You're now looking at a Senior Tester... as if I didn't feel old enough after seeing all those students. I swear, sometimes I think he sets me up for some of these things. Maybe I shouldn't have made those 'mid-life crisis' comments. For those curious, the salary range is 66k as a min, 88k as a mid and 111k as a max. Pretty big range, very exciting too. It's good to get the step up by real work and get some recognition. At some point during the review, I think my manager was worried I'd jump off to another team. No worries there... not yet. :D

Anyway, off on course. It's an internal course for a really big product suite which was condensed from five days to three. Fortunately it is related to things I work on so I'm familiar with most of it.

I'll try to have some game related stuff soon. I hope.

I miss games.

Work Work....

2008-02-01T08:21:00.000-05:00

I'm like an Orc Peon, "Work work."

I'm off to San Francisco then San Jose for about a week next week. I leave Monday at 2 local (EST) and get there around 8:30pm local (PST) or are we EDT and PDT now? What ever. GMT-5 to GMT-8.

I'm fortunate enough to stay at the Marriott this time, last time I was at the Fairmont - which was nice, but it's cool to see somewhere else. I'll be spoken for most of the time that I'm there, with only a couple of free nights, being Tuesday, Thursday and sort of Friday. I say sort of Friday because I get to grab a shuttle to San Francisco at about 7pm and get dropped off at the Embassy West Hotel at the Airport where I'll be leaving from Saturday morning - I get home around 9:30pm local Ottawa time.

It should be an interesting experience, more fun than last time I went.. which was pretty much just me by myself having to give lessons on new tech to a team there. That was years ago though and one of the managers did take me out twice, though didn't stay out too late. Once was to the local restaurant near the Fairmont and the second time was to "Japantown", as he called it, for my first Sushi experience, which was pretty tasty.

Anyway, this time just about the whole test and development team (along with most of the other site teams) are going so they're really spending some $$ for this conference. It also means I'll have people I know to go out and play with.

I expect to kill some of the slower moving brain cells.

The point of all this is, I probably won't blog anything until I get back (I hope because then it means I'll be having too much fun to even consider blogging) which will be about a week from not.

I'll get Sunday with my family, then I'll have to sell my soul to some overtime work the following week until everything gets caught back up... my stuff and other people's stuff. I seem to get done first and always end up helping other people on the team finish up their areas. Do I get recognition for it? You bet. Shipping bonuses are weighted towards people that did lion's share of the work. That'd be me... the lion.

RAWR!

ROT: Pornstars and Memory Loss

2008-02-01T08:11:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile since I've shared any random ogre thoughts, I mean the really weird shit that pops into my head usually triggered by something I see or something someone says. Lately things have been a little more direct or pointed. Well, here you go:

You ever wonder if they use any camera tricks in porn to make things look at little... bigger than they are?

Me neither, but think about this: small women with small hands.

There was another random ogre thought I had earlier, but I've since forgot about it. Don't ask why I seem to lack a decent short term memory, it's better you don't know.

UPDATE: I remembered! The new title should be, "Pornstars and Other Peoples' Wives Who Are More Yours than Yours..."

I was thinking about this the other day after I picked out a blouse for my wife which was quite revealing. I thought to myself, "WTF am I doing?" You know the whole statement of, "I want to look nice for you"? Well, here's what ends up happening...

I see her for all of two minutes in the morning as we're rushing around packing snacks, bundling the kids up for the winter and rushing out the door. She's off to work, I drop the kids off and head off to work myself. The work day passes and I come home to find that she's changed out of her "'nice" clothes and into her "I don't care if the kids get peanut butter on these clothes" clothes. Generally, jogging pants and a t-shirt.

How screwed up is that? And it's not just my wife - I'd be worried if it was. The girl I work with does much the same too.

That lead me to thinking about it and I think I spend more time with my female co-worker (our cubicles are attached) than I do with my wife. My wife actually calls her my "work-wife". It's bloody weird...

At least I get to appreciate what my work-wife is wearing, even if her husband doesn't get to while others get to appreciate what my wife's wearing even though I don't get to.

That's just all sorts of wrong... wth.

PvP Fun...

2008-01-28T09:26:00.000-05:00

I've noticed a distinct difference in the PVP patterns of Horde and Alliance.

In my lower level Alliance experiences, I was never ganked by high levels. Ever. I was left alone unless I engaged a higher level. When I was involved in PVP, it was usually with a bunch of Horde that came to the Alliance side looking for some skirmishes. They were all around the appropriate level for the zone they were attacking (i.e. no ??/skulls). The only gankers I faced were the odd Rogue who, again, was about the right level for PVPing in that zone (i.e. they were killable).

As a Horde type, I've been ganked numerous times by characters out of my level. It seems the Alliance go to lower level zones and hang out ganking lowbies a whole hell of a lot more than Horde do.

My first experience was in Tarren Mill where some ??/skull Mage AEd and killed me in one shot. When I finally got to Tarren Mill, there was a Warrior (??) and a Mage (31). A Rogue on Horde side was fighting with the Warrior so I figured I'd help a little. The Mage dropped a blizzard on me so I ran back to the guards while still taking the damage over time. Guards agroed the Mage, Mage died. The guards also agroed the Warrior who was chasing after the Rogue (who was losing). When the Warrior realize he was getting too many guards to handle, he started to run. Did you know Concussive Shot seems to land on a ?? rather reliably? Anyway, thanks to my stunning him, he ate a death.

He came back and wanted me to come out and play. While at first I was annoyed, it is tough to kill a ?? you know, I finally caved and came out far enough to get killed. Amazingly enough, he moved on after that. Cool, he got his revenge and moved on. I wish I could remember the spelling of his name, but it was a weird one.

After that, I saw a level 31 Dwarf Paladin jumping all over a Tauren Shaman who was something like 21. I intercepted him and sent him back to the graveyard... only to be one shotted by a ?? Human Paladin. That guy got me a second time before a level 70 Undead Priest showed up. The guy didn't even try to fight the Priest, he turned tail and fled.

The other day in Tarren Mill I was one shotted twice by a Night Elf Hunter (the second time was while trying to vacate the area after getting my corpse). I was later killed by a Druid (again, Night Elf). That one took more than one shot though. While back at Tarren Mill, I saw a Draenai Warrior that as about 31. He got too close to the guards so once again I sent the pet and made use of Concussive Shot. I chased him down (hey, I was pissed off getting ganked by stuff I couldn't affect so I figured I'd take it out on someone I could... even if he was seven levels higher than I was) but discovered he had a level 31 Night Elf Hunter friend. Heh.. I quickly retreated while leaving my pet on the Warrior. The Night Elf sent his pet on me and started to chase. I switched to Aspect of the Cheetah, dropped an ice trap and booted for Tarren Mill. Sure enough, the pet got to me as I got to the guards and train to the level 31 Hunter ensued.

I like guards.

Remember that ?? Druid that got me earlier? It seemed he wanted to gank me some more. He attacked me at the top of Tarren Mill and managed to get kill me off. After I revived, I caught him tangling with a guard. He wasn't doing so well and started to break off... Concussive Shot payback. Yup, he ate it and died.

What did I learn from this?

Horde types like even fights and will go out of their way to travel to areas where they can get them.

Alliance types seem to just want to win, even if there is no challenge so they'll hang about lower level zones and pummel the lowbies to raise their low self-esteem. They also turn tail and flee at first sign of worthy opposition. Oh, and they're not very smart. I shouldn't have been able to use the guards like I did if they were smart.

Go Horde!

More Heroes...

2008-01-24T15:52:00.000-05:00

I hate the Leafs (a lot less lately) and they're making it harder to continue to do so. TSN ran this story which further defines what a role model should be.

I have to give credit to Ovechkin for also making an appearance despite the fact that he was part of the visiting team so it was likely a last minute thing. I've ranted about a few of his cheap shots in the past, but I do have to give the guy credit for being pretty cool off the ice.

Why do I hate the Leafs less now? Well, I like Paul Maurice... actually, I think I like him more than I like John Paddock. I like the way Paul Maurice has them playing, even if they have been losing. I hope the appointment of Fletcher (even if it is only temporary) gets them back on track.

Game Development is a Joke...

2008-01-17T11:11:00.001-05:00

I just saw a post over at Moorgard.com where he was pimping his place of work (38 Studios). The video interview of Curt Schilling he links to on Ten Ton Hammer is quite good and candid, but it also reminds me of a lot of what other MMO developers are saying or have said - including Brad McQuaid.

Now, I'm not saying what ever 38 Studios puts out will be the next Vanguard, I'm just noticing a lot of the similarities. That got me thinking... if they're all sounding about the same, setting what seems to be the same sort of goals and they're all aware of what makes a good, fun game, then why is it we're getting so many lame games?

Have you ever heard a joke that was absolutely hilarious that you almost pissed yourself or had what ever you were drinking come out of your nose? Have you then heard that same joke told by someone that just cannot deliver? They mess things up, constantly back track and correct themselves, "Oh, I mean, they said...". They ruin a really good joke. The essence of the joke was there, we all have a sense of humor (different tastes, but a sense of humor none the less), so why isn't the essence of the joke enough to make us laugh?

Games are much the same way. We all have a sense of what is fun to us and what is not fun. Game developers attempt to cater to this - they get the big picture, they can deliver on the joke. The guys on the front lines presenting the ideals and goals of their game, unfortunately, aren't really the ones making it. The front-man's joke is being told by others, who might not be nearly as funny or who might add a bit of their own (distasteful) flavor to it.

In both cases, it is all in the delivery.

All that said, it sounds like the big man (or men) have had similar likes as far as games go, so I can't help but keep an eye on this studio.

Evil Bastards...

2008-01-14T11:27:00.000-05:00

After our current DM's campaign is complete, he has two modules left, I will be up to bat as DM. I decided to hold off on 4e and instead make use of all the money I invested into 3.5e's Eberron Campaign setting.

At first, there were several members resistant to the idea of Eberron, however those people seem to have had a change of heart. Several of them are now very excited at the idea. Wonder why?

I am going to run an all Evil campaign.

Yes, that's right. I'm opening up things like the Book of Vile Darkness and Libre Mortis to players. Instead of being heroes they will play the part of villains. And they seem to relish the idea. Of the seven players, five voted for it, two weren't too keen on it and one was good either way.

I had to ask the two opposed to it if they were really offended by the idea - I understand that some people might not enjoy that sort of thing, so far only one responded (I can't tell who voted, but I suspect it was Ken and Gord). Ken has said he was okay with it, he just prefers playing the heroic types. Gord hasn't even posted on the thread. I will go with the majority decision though.

That leads me to a whole other problem; Our group has a hard enough time keeping each other alive and getting along in a Good-aligned campaign. If any of them read this, remember that I'm just as guilty. How are they going to handle it when they are EVIL? It's going to be more difficult since Evil Clerics cannot spontaneously cast heal-type spells, they get inflict instead.

This is going to be quite a challenge.

Originally, I decided I would make them all members of the Emerald Claw, working for a greater evil with severe punishments to be had for in-fighting and failure. But after talking to one of the players that I also work with, I realized how many ideas of his I had to squash because it wouldn't work within that organization. I decided to loosen it up a bit. Instead of being part of the Order, they would be part of a mercenary band that was disbanding at the end of the Last War. The characters, not wanting to disband, would pick up the banner and continue on.

I then started seeing some interesting things in the character discussion thread. It sounds like I could end up with an evil party with ties to seven (one per character) different factions. This could be a problem when one of those factions comes calling and demands they turn over something they just acquired for another faction.

I put up a warning, hoping that the players would discuss and plan things out a little more, but several of the players seem to want to have this done for them to avoid having a short campaign. It seems like I'll be going full circle and having the party be minions of the Order of the Emerald Claw.

The group, so far, consists of:

Brian - Warforged Barbarian or Fighter.
Lloyd - Cleric, likely of Vol since that's the national religion for Karrnath.
Kevin - Cleric, again, likely Blood of Vol.
Scott - A Wizard who may specialize in Necromancy (he's grumbling about the fact that Necromancers can seem to create undead easier than they can control them) or Enchanting (who needs corpses when the living will do just as well).
Ken - A human Fighter. Our current DM, he said he wanted to get a feel for the game world so he would start off with something simple.
Darin - something roguely. He said he was really considering a psionic character. He's always fun as a rogue-type, being Chaotic Neutral IRL and all.
Gord - no idea. He hasn't commented...

This could be a lot of fun. Oddly enough, I'm hoping someone picks the Shifter race and decides to be a cannibal. I have no idea why.

Bedouin Soundclash...

2008-01-10T22:18:00.000-05:00

.. who?

Awesome Canadian band who I just had the privelege of seeing live. You might have heard:

Or perhaps:

The company I work for managed to get these fellows to do a private gig for us at the Captial City in downtown Ottawa as a combination Holiday party and 25th anniversary party. They were fantastic! I was completely blown away - what you hear there, is exactly what you get. Better still, they seemed down to earth and humble. It was liberating - I mean that in the sense that for the hour and a half that they performed, I forgot that it was freezing cold outside and felt like I was somewhere in the Carribean.

It was awesome... and no, I am not drunk. I didn't want to drink while taking antibiotics. Okay, I wanted a drink very badly, but my willpower is strong...

Enjoy some clips.

For an encore they played:

(yeah U2 cover)

Christmas Gaming...

2008-01-07T08:53:00.000-05:00

A little late, but I wasn't feeling up to any decent post and I got sidetracked with a rant about selling the "Making of" something before that something is actually made.

Over the Christmas break I didn't do a whole lot of gaming. I beat Scooby Doo: Unmasked several times with my oldest son (he does most of the levels himself now). My oldest got Mario Galaxy from his aunt and uncle so we've played a little bit of that - he still prefers Scooby Doo. Otherwise, I played a little bit of EQ2, not nearly as much as I would have thought for a number of reasons; illness, friends travelling, and visitors.

With EQ2, I've advanced to 53rd level, 55 Armorer. I've also got over 50 AAXP, full cobalt, including imbued weapons and I've got a full suit of xegonite in the bank (I found a guy that does the crafting at fuel cost). I've also got about 10 clusters of incarnadine in my bank waiting to be crafting into armor as well.

I was smart and lucky.

I was lucky with harvesting, I get loads of rares and tend to sell them off unless I can craft something with them, then I craft something and sell it for up to twice the raw value.

I was smart by taking the cash I made from that and looked at the costs of rares well ahead of my level. I managed to buy up several clusters before RoK came out at really cheap prices. Ebon clusters going for 20gp (they now sell for about 1pp), Cobalt clusters at about 5gp (I kid you not), Xegonite for between 5-10gp and once RoK was out and the last tier of rares were saturated, I picked up some more of those - I think just above 10gp.

I've currently got a wall full of Legend and Lore trophies, along with most of the old world HQ items. I'm missing the following: Crown of King Trannix, Golden Efreeti Boots, Tobrin's Eyepatch, Stein of Moggok, Screaming Mace, Heirophant's Crook and the Flowing Black Silk Sash. I'm not too far off completing several of those listed.

Now a dirty little admission. I picked up Tabula Rasa over the Christmas break and played it some. Overall, it is a fun game and it is stable, looks nice, the instances are amusing and missions are interesting. I also like collecting all the Logos.

But, I don't think I'll continue it. I've got a couple of level 15s and it's really starting to feel like more of the same. Go here, kill that. Go there, collect X Ys. Deliver Z to A. They have a couple of quests that are go to B and defend C and a couple of escort quests, but not a lot (and I only saw those in the second region).

Okay, so I just described the majority, if not all, the quests available in most RPGs, MMO or otherwise. So what's the difference? Well, it seems the Bane are very repetitive, the combat play is about the same and I don't really feel like there is enough character advancement.

You level up and get three points to put into three attributes. You get two skill points to put into a limited number of skills and abilities. You don't get a whole lot of abilities to pick from or advance to. For example you'll start with Sprint and a Lightning Bolt type skill. When you hit level five you pick a route, Specialist or Solider.

As a Specialist, you get a couple of abilities - I can't remember what they were. I think one was called Decay, which seemed like a DoT or debuff while the other was Leech which almost sounds like a life tap type ability. You also get access to a Leechgun and can use various repairing and healing devices (they look to be PBAE heals which makes having to target allies unnecessary).

As a Soldier you get Rage and Shrapnel. Rage is a damage increaser (seemed ineffectual) while Shrapnel is a PBAE. You also gain access to Chainguns. Chainguns are fun, but man they consume ammo like crazy. And overheat. And jam.

I pursued the Soldier line and advanced to level 15. I then picked Ranger and cloned the character and made the other one a Commando.

The Ranger get access to a couple of new abilities; one allows you to summon an ally - who didn't seem that useful - and the other allows you to call in an airstrike (even underground - hmmm....). One more ability you get is a debuff you can place on the critter which makes it vulnerable to damage types that don't normally affect it. A new tier of armor also opens up which is neat looking but I don't really see the effect of it... it's supposed to be a Stealth armor, but doesn't seem to do anything stealthy. I can't remember if a new weapon type opens up, I'd have to check

The Commando gets a few abilties that I don't remember, I was really focused more on the Ranger who I wanted to eventually advance to a Sniper. I also haven't played it in about a week.

A neat thing about the Logos Powers is that you need to have discovered the Logos that fuel them to be able to use them. So even though you get them at that level, you might not be able to use it. The other thing is that some of them require some sort of component. For example, Shrapnel requires that you have Scrap Metal and consumes it as you use it. I sort of liked it, but felt there wasn't nearly enough powers.

Advancement seems focused on more HP, mana, different armor, bigger guns, and a couple of more powers per class switch. Not a whole lot to look forward to. I can't imagine hitting 30, picking Sniper and then playing 20 more levels with the few abilities that the character would have.

I've moved from the first zone and into the second zone - the zones are very nice, look good, have good atmosphere, but they seem to be repetitive. Very similar looking, the terrain is different and there are a couple of different critters; slimers and electric bugs. This is expected since it is the same planet, but I would have hoped for a little more change than that.

I'm really not sure how much longer I'll be subscribed to this. It's amusing for bits and burts of play, but I haven't really felt any urge to play in the last week, none what so ever. I just get a feeling my time might be better spent playing some EQ2, be it harvesting, crafting or advancing HQs. Heck, if I needed a change of scenary from time to time, it might be worthwhile subscribing to WoW instead.

I don't know... I'm currently content with EQ2. I blame Chris for my purchasing Tabula Rasa, it's clearly his fault.

Somehow.

Pay For Beta... Info?

2008-01-03T11:58:00.000-05:00

Not related to MMOs, instead it's what Wizards of the Coast is doing with D&D 4e. Take a look at the sale of this book: Wizards Presents: Races and Classes.

Here is the blurb:

This lavishly illustrated 96-page book gives roleplaying game fans a unique, behind-the-curtain glimpse into the making of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. The book contains essays and asides from the game's premier designers, developers, and editors. Through words and illustrations, it explores some of the D&D game's most iconic races and classes, sharing insights never before revealed in any previous game product.

Is it just me or does this seem like they're selling stuff that could be or should be free? Perhaps as articles or something on their site?

I'm a little annoyed at this idea.

Why?

Well, let me answer a question with another question: Would I be as annoyed at this book if it was released after 4e was already out the door?

No.

It seems they're praying on the interest of fans to get this books as an advance look rather than selling it after the fact as a nostalgia. And they're going to do it next month too: Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters.

This lavishly illustrated 96-page book gives roleplaying game fans a unique, behind-the-curtain glimpse into the making of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. The book contains essays and asides from the game’s premier designers, developers, and editors. Through words and illustrations, it explores some of the D&D game’s most iconic locations and monsters, sharing insights never before revealed in any previous game product.

Wow, they changed two words for that description... bah.

Apparently in the Races and Classes book they have revealed eleven races and fourteen classes, but we're likely to only get eight of each for the release - it's weird thinking of release used in this case. Anyway, that means three races and five classes are going to get scratched or, more likely, pushed out to some form of rules supplement.

Evil, I say.

UPDATE: I did some searching, looking for reviews on this release. Here is one that I found. I'll paste the contents here for ease of consumption:

crazy_monkey1956, 12/29/2007 9:25:48 AM

Monkey's Note: This is more of a review and analysis of content and is therefore quite lengthy. Get comfy before sitting down to read this.

First Impression

Just paging through the book and reading a few snippets here and there that catch my eye, I come away with an overall tone from the book that I don't like: condescending. In particular, I found the following quote from page 68 (the section on Rogues, more specifically skills) rather offensive:

"But when's the last time you saw a PC make a Profession check that had a useful effect on the game? (Hint: If it was recently, your game is probably not as much fun as D&D should be. Sorry.)"

That grabbed my attention as I paged through the book and that's not a good thing to be catching a reader's attention with. It goes back to that word, "condescending," and suggests that the game designers know what fun is and the players, or at least the players who like to use the Profession skill, don't. My way of having fun playing D&D isn't going to be the same as the designer's way of having fun playing D&D. Sorry.

Second Look - Races

The first few sections of the book, from "D&D and the Birth of a New Edition" through "The Process of Re-Creation" are a bit difficult to read, mainly because they throw about design team catch phrases and code names like "Flywheel," "Orcus I," and "Orcus II" without providing any sort of substance or real context to what those terms actually meant at the time. The condescension continues, unfortunately.

In the next section, “Heroes in the World,” we finally get into some of the things I like: The idea of expanding the sweet spot of playability and power sources. The gem within the power sources section is the notion that magic can work differently for different classes…it isn’t all going to be one unified system tied to the arcane schools of magic. The section also discusses the influences of Star Wars: Saga Edition on the development of 4th Edition D&D. Having never played Saga Edition I can’t really offer much opinion on that little snippet.

In “Choosing the Iconic Races” we learn that there are a few races in the 3.5 playbook that the designers have decided to intentionally “never print again.” It would be interesting to know what those races are. I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea as the races in question may very well be worthy of forgetting, but for the simple sake of curiosity, that list would be fun to see.

The section on Humans presents some interesting tidbits, but perhaps even more intriguing is the level of detail the default world has. 3rd Edition used the bare bones of Greyhawk as a default setting for the core books, with an emphasis on “bare.” 4th edition appears to be presenting a much more fleshed out world with its “Points of Light” model, with specific place names and history intertwined in the stories of the game’s races.

Dragonborn are a new core race, and their section also presents a lot of specific “Points of Light” setting information, including a fallen empire of the Dragonborn, Arkhosia, and a Tiefling empire known as Bael Turath. I like the idea of dragonborn as a core race, mainly because the name of the game is Dungeons & Dragons. In past editions of the game, the dragon part of the game’s name doesn’t show up until the adventurers are into their 3rd or 4th adventure if not later. Having a dragon in the party from the get go makes a lot more sense, especially for players new to the game. What’s the point in playing a game called Dungeons & Dragons if there aren’t any dragons?

My first thought on 4th edition dwarves, as presented in this book: their armor looks like it’s made out of Legos. I’m coming away from the section on dwarves with a very Lord of the Rings feel of the world. Again, I find myself really enjoying the glimpses of the “Points of Light” setting revealed in the race descriptions. It seems the designers put a lot of thought into giving the game a distinct feel, as opposed to the “text-bookish” feel of the core books for 3.5. I see a lot of thematic inspiration from Dragonlance and Tolkien in the dwarven descriptions and I don’t see that as a bad thing.

The notion of Eladrins as a PC race was a bit odd to contemplate at first when taken from the perspective of Eladrin being planar beings on par with angels, demons and devils. The word Eladrin has been given an entirely new use, however, as a renaming of High/Grey Elves. There’s also an intrinsic link to a new part of the 4th edition cosmology, the Feywild. The book doesn’t give us as much information on the design principles behind Eladrin as it does with humans, dragonborn and dwarves. That’s unfortunate.

With the elves and the Eladrin, it seems that the notions of “Magic loving wizard-elves” and “Nature loving ranger-elves” have been completely divorced into two races. At least that’s the surface impression. It seems as though it’s really just the old subraces with new names. I’m not sure slapping the name “Eladrin” on Gray Elves is really necessary. Even in the artwork, I don’t see enough distinction between the races to make them feel like actually different races.

Halflings are now river people. Halflings have evolved over the editions from straight Hobbits, to more Kender-like. With 4th edition that kinder influence remains, though toned down slightly and Halflings now have a new home: the rivers of the world. Halflings are also growing, to about four feet tall. That’s ok with me.

Just looking at the artwork of 4th edition tieflings, I find the horns and tails to be a bit much. One thing I enjoyed about 2nd edition Planescape tieflings was the capacity to customize their appearance and abilities. 3rd edition removed that for the most part, at least for their racial abilities, but at least you could play with the appearance. 4th edition has made them a full race and thus homogenized their appearance. Not so sure I like that.

Also touched on in the overall races section are a few other notables: Celestials, Drow, Gnomes and Warforged. There is a sidebar about fixing level adjustment. I have to say I am in love with the idea of Racial Feats replacing level adjustment. This coming from the guy that has spent hours revising the monster progressions in Savage Species. Racial Feats are just a very simple and superb fix to the level adjustment conundrum. Aasimar are out, or at least the name “aasimar” is out, primarily due to the buttocks problem of the first syllable apparently. Doesn’t hurt the assassin any. Drow are in as a playable race (minus pesky level adjustment), but later (they’re not in the first Player’s Handbook). Gnomes, the question-mark race of 4th edition. Who are they? Dwelflings, it seems. They just don’t have a defining concept that allows a player, or a designer it appears, to take them and run with them. Warforged are in, but it’s not clear from the book whether they are in the first Player’s Handbook or not. It seems unlikely.

Second Look – Classes

One of the fundamental good points for 4th edition, in my opinion, is finally defining the various roles adventurers fill in a party and making classes fill those roles. A class that tries to fill more than one role or that doesn’t really have a defined role ends up having difficulty finding a niche in the game and results in some un-fun for players.

At first glimpse, mushing attacking, saves and defense all into one static progression seems like a terrible, “dumbing down” idea. But, shouldn’t the wizard or sorcerer be able to be an expert at hitting things with a ray spell? In 3.5, Wizards and Sorcerers have a really crummy base attack bonus, which means that playing that sharp-shooting ray master just became kind of lackluster because he’s never going to be very good at hitting things with rays.

There’s not as much world flavor in the classes section of the book as there is in the races section. One interesting snippet from the cleric section is this quote:

“Since alignment no longer has a major mechanical effect…”

That can be both a good and a bad thing since there is a certain interesting flavor to spells like magic circle against evil. Still, having rules for morality is a little strange.

The first thing that strikes me about the section on the fighter is that the artwork for the fighter…isn’t fighting anything! And that’s a good thing! 3.0 and 3.5 suffered from snarling, battle laden artwork that downplayed other things heroes might be doing. One of my favorite pieces of D&D art is a group of adventurers standing around the strung up corpse of a small dragon, obviously proud of their accomplishment. Not a big fight scene. If 4th edition returns some of that aesthetic, that will please me greatly. One thing that bothers me about the text on fighters, however, is the discussion of weapon styles. It only mentions two: weapon and shield and two-handed weapons, neglecting two-weapon style fighting, or single weapon style fighting (the classic “swashbuckling” style).

A bit of a formatting mistake in the fighter section: the sidebar on armor is continued on the next page as regular text, leading to a bit of confusion of reading order.

It looks as though that swashbuckling flair and fighting style that was curiously absent as an option for fighters has migrated over to the rogue. While thematically appropriate, it still seems that fighters ought to have that option as well. I do like the idea of the notion of balance being separated out into combat abilities and non-combat abilities. Combat situations and non-combat situations really have nothing to do with one another in terms of game mechanics so trying to balance them against each other seems a bit futile.

My wife and I have had some interesting conversations about skills. She really likes 3.5’s skill system with one exception. In her words, “There’s never enough skill points.” She likes playing highly skilled characters. I have some reservations about how the revisions to skills are described in this book, based on those conversations. It seems as though skills are being de-emphasized.

4th edition warlocks seem like a curious mix of 3.5 warlocks, hexblades, and the pact and vestige magic from Tome of Magic. All very sinister and not a little disturbing. Disturb ing can be good in proper doses, however. Another tidbit I found interesting can be gleaned from the discussion of the warlocks’ role. The warlock utilizes the arcane power source and is in the role of Striker. Thus, one can infer that where role and power source intersect, one finds a class. It will be interesting to see what classes come about from combining the roles and the power sources in interesting ways (a divine striker or a martial controller, for example).

Compared to the other class write-ups, the wizard section makes me not want to play a wizard. Since that’s not the aim, I would assume, this is a failing of the book in that regard. The wizard write-up is full of typos, first of all and is written from a perspective of “hide, don’t get hit because you’re squishy and greedily conserve your powers to protect yourself and let those other dimwits in your party do all the work.” Not at all inviting. The wizard section does provide a glimpse into feats and something that makes multi-classing either a thing of the past or at least changes it in a very fundamental way: Class-Training Feats, which apparently allow to take class-exclusive feats from other classes.

Several other classes get a very brief look, including barbarians, bards, druids, monks, paladins, rangers, sorcerers, swordmages, and warlords. Every one of those classes is being worked on, though not all of them will appear in the first Player’s Handbook. In particular, I like what they’re doing with the barbarian and the sorcerer. The druid focusing narrowly on wild shape has me a bit apprehensive, though.

The last section of the book deals with the Tiers of Adventure; the three stages of adventuring: Heroic, Paragon and Epic. As with party roles and power sources, it is a concept that has really always been in the game, just not spelled out specifically as such. One important difference from 3.5 is the notion hinted at that Epic level play stops, presumably at level 30, with the character fulfilling their “Epic Destiny.” 3.5’s epic level is designed, in theory, to extend the play experience as far as players are willing to take it. 4th edition appears to have a level cap of 30. The jury’s still out on whether or not I personally think that’s a good thing.

Final Thoughts

The setting information sprinkled throughout the race descriptions is, in my opinion, a very intriguing prospect, if only for inspiration purposes. All of those fallen empires provide a context for the ruins and dungeons the PCs will be exploring. If they know they are heading into a ruined city of Arkhosia, they can expect and prepare for the adventure differently than they would for an adventure in a Nerath ruin. Even if you don’t use the implied “Points of Light” setting for 4th edition, the notion of providing context to dungeons is a good one and one I’ll be using in my 4th edition campaigns.

The last page of text in the book reprints Bill Slavicsek’s “&” or “Ampersand” column from D&D Insider. The capstone of this book, therefore, is something a lot of us have already seen. And that about sums up this book. It contains a wealth of intriguing tidbits to chew on and speculate about, but ultimately most of the information is stuff we’ve seen on the D&D Insider website or leaked to other sources. The primary intent of the book, therefore, seems to be to get that information to those D&D players who aren’t regular internet users. For those of who are…you may regret spending money on this book. I don’t think I regret buying the book, but, unlike a normal game book, after this first read through, it will sit on my book shelf and collect dust.

Monkey gives the book a solid 3 out of 5, mainly for its lack of future usefulness and the occasional condescending tone sprinkled through out.

Does 3 out of 5 sound a little generous to you?

cough cough Bleh

2008-01-03T08:19:00.000-05:00

Guess what I got for Christmas? I think it might be Bronchitis.

I'm on Biaxin (antibiotics) since I've got a mild allergy to penicillin. Fortunately, Biaxin is a lot nicer to me than the stuff I used to get. Here are the side effects:

Most common side-effects are gastrointestinal: diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain and vomiting, facial swelling. Less common side-effects include headaches, dizziness/motion sickness, rashes, alteration in senses of smell and taste, including a metallic taste that lasts the entire time one takes it. Dry mouth, anxiety, hallucinations, and nightmares have also been reported. In more serious cases it has been known to cause anaphylactic shock, jaundice, other liver disorders, and kidney problems including kidney failure. Inform your doctor immediately if side effects are extremely bothersome or serious. Clarithromycin may cause false positives on urine drug screens for cocaine.

I have a sudden urge to subject myself to a drug screening - is that wrong? Anyway, side-effects impacting me are: headaches, alteration in senses of smell and taste, and dry mouth. Oddly enough, none of the are the common side-effects or the fun ones (hallucinations or nightmares).

I can't remember the name of the stuff I was on before, but it had some pretty nasty side-effects most of them leading to a fatal result. Obviously, I didn't suffer from those.

Why do I think it is Bronchitis?

Bronchitis is an inflammation of the bronchi (medium-size airways) in the lungs. Acute bronchitis is usually caused by viruses or bacteria and may last several days or weeks. Chronic bronchitis is not necessarily caused by infection and is generally part of a syndrome called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); it is defined clinically as a persistent cough that produces sputum (phlegm) and mucus, for at least three months in two consecutive years.

This is the second time this year I have had this. Last time was around April and I left to go too long - so long I had thought I coughed my brain lose and couldn't move without having pain in my head. This time around, I went to the Doctor after about two weeks.

Symptoms?

Bronchitis may be indicated by an expectorating cough (also known as a productive cough), shortness of breath (dyspnea) and wheezing. Occasionally chest pains, fever, and fatigue or malaise may also occur. Mucus is normally green or yellowish green.

Expectorating cough? Check.
Shortness of breath? Check.
Wheezing? Check.
Chest pains? Check.
Fever? Nope.
Fatigue? Check.
Malaise? I'm not sure, but something doesn't feel right.
Mucus is green or yellowish green? It was yellowish green.

Aren't you glad you read this blog?

I am starting to feel better.

Isn't it amazing how drugs affect the body? Have you ever really sat down and thought about it? I'm thinking about it now as all I taste seems metallic and my mouth is dryer than the day after my bachelor party.

Unreal Tournament 3 Screenshots and Crysis

2007-12-13T10:50:00.001-05:00

I took some screenshots a few days ago and finally remembered to upload them to a host. No video though. I really do mean to pick up this game.

Here they are (click for bigger image; 1680x1050):

The demo has a default model for players, if that's the case for the full version, I'd be surprised.

Another victory shot... yeah, I remembered to take the screenshots after the gameplay.

A look at a sort of central area - the green things are +5 health pick ups, the thing at the tip of the gun isn't actually at the tip, it's down in that crater and it's a health pack. Yes, that's my last victim.

There are a few things that are impressive about this screenshot.

1) I set the frag limit to 55 and hit it
2) I only had 1 death
3) I mostly used the sniper rifle (which is what you see there)
4) I had 11 bots in the map

Yup, my PC was controlling 11 AI bots while I was running about shooting stuff in pretty high quality settings with 1680x1050 resolution. The game played so smoothly, I was a Godlike, Rampaging, Headhunter several times.

I'm definitely going to pick this game up for therapeutic relief.

I downloaded and tried out the Crysis demo. It looked good, I was really impressed with the faces and their animations/expressions - awesome job. It really did remind me of Far Cry though, even with the whole super suit. They added some things to the UI, like switching guns and augmenting those guns. They added a radial menu for triggering augmentations from the suit, which I'm not sure I like. I didn't really look, for key bindings but I would hope you can map those to other keys.

Unfortunately, I didn't play it for too long. I may pick it up at a later date, but I'll likely pick UT3 over this one. Why? UT3 will suit what I'm looking for when I pick up a shooter. I just want some mindless violence where as I get that Crysis will have a more involved story with constant objective changes. Yeah, I know, I'm picking the mindless violence and pretty pictures over the game with more depth and a storyline, but they're FPS games so... shoot me.

Bon Jour, Bad Day...

2007-12-13T08:28:00.000-05:00

Today started off rough. I woke up at about 5am (after crawling into bed around midnight) to my oldest son's barking cough, wheezing, and gasping for breath. His asthma flared up, likely due to a cold since his other trigger - allergies - doesn't seem likely. I got up looking for his inhalers and he started to say between gurgles and gasps, "Daddy... last night... in Lego Star Wars... I was powing Storm Troopers... not just one... but there were two!"

The wife was already up and had his inhalers ready. While he was taking them, we discussed who would be staying home with him today. It seems her meeting discussing a promotion won out over my ~~Christmas~~ Holiday lunch with my team. Sad part was that my manager moved it up from next week to this week so I could go. I can't help but feel bad about that, but what can I do? The future Uber Ogre is sick and in need of a parent.

I'm at home now and just got news that my wife got her promotion! The promotion should come with more work (which means she won't pester me so much on MSN?) and about a 20% raise! Is it wrong that my second thought was, "Can you come home so I can go into work now?"

As I type this the Little Ogre is playing away at Lego Star Wars (on the PS2). Nothing like working to the sounds of laser fire, Star Wars theme songs and screaming Sand People.

Ah well, installs are done, back to work.