Team Land

Aww man, I should have written this entry earlier; better late than never because MTG is always a work in progress, always new blocks in the makings and new concepts/mechanics to be dreamed of. Basically, there was a vote for which type of Legendary card Wizards should create: Enchantment or Land. There was surprisingly a very close vote, nearly 50/50 split. At first I was very for Team Enchantment b/c if I was to be categorized as a certain type of planeswalker, I would be an enchanter; one that used totems, mind controls, and ones that would not only disable, but hurt my opponents in the process.

 I enjoy using enchantments that relied on luck and what was in my deck, such as Lurking Predators (many big expensive creatures)or Where Ancients Tread, that could do burst damage. I love to use enchantments than could change the tide of the game, such as Dragon Crucible, Gravitational Shift, or Collective Blessing.

 When I thought about the game itself though, I think I would have voted Team Land though instead. Why? For the meta game; I have rarely seen anyone use special lands in my casual group. Players infrequently use lands that give dual mana at the price of coming in tapped, and no one uses shock lands. Because of this, no one utilize spells or abilites that destroy lands and we are equally crippled when someone does use a powerful land such as Gavony Township.

  Lands that make a difference though are typically rare and in my group of friends, some of us don't have the funds (or luck via boosters) to get them. Hence, our decks always have spells such as naturalize to remove the countless enchantments, but no one has spells to destroy lands. 

By having a better stable of lands, it creates a reason to have special lands other than the reason of a mana source, which slowly becomes less important in longer games (of course, depending on the way the deck is built). I've seen countless games where players are begging their deck to give them something they can play and instead get a basic land. I personally can think of only a few special lands i'd even consider using.

Going with Team Land (or atleast greater variety in better lands), will create better MTG variety in deck building, increase the use of destroy land cards and make MTG better overall.

I hope for a day (or block) that we return to a plane like Zendikar, where there was a mechanic based on land. Land was important (see: Emeria, the Sky Ruin). It was equally important to have land removal cards. There were those enchantments that made lands into creatures.. or creatures that turned them into monsters. More variety, more strategies.

You're as loud as you are Ignorant!

Yesterday I did something I didn't think i'd ever do after a long day of training merchants over the phone at work: spend 2.5 hours in a Teamspeak guild meeting discussing our future. While enjoyable (to interact with everyone), it was also intense with many strong opinionated people.

With the time coming to a close for free server transfers, the officers and GM was contemplating whether our server was a good fit for us. This caught me off guard slightly, for while I did know about this, it was coincidently at a time in which other guilds were playing politics and (essentially) backstabbing our GM. I don't know how he does it, but with inhuman strength, my GM has pulled the server community together and facilitated cooperation with the rest of the guilded and non-guilded alike, with both high professionalism and grace. And while nearly everyone (both our guild, other guilds, and non-guilded people) was happy and thankful of his massive contributions, there were some not being honest and instead growing with resentment. They suddenly felt that this facilitation was bullying, disorganized and that instead of including the whole community in organizing our WvW, that only a few guilded representatives should make the decisions for the larger group.

It kind of hurt me to see our guild in such turmoil; there were ones that wanted to stay and others that wanted to leave, both for very valid reasons. For the longest time while I listened, I couldnt make up my mind what I wanted. Some were hurt that after putting so much effort in bringing the community together, the vocal minority was looking to tear it all down. While this could be seen as the community sharing the load of responsibility, it (wasn't said, but implied) didn't seem like this minority would spend the time to grow AND maintain the community. These people seemed like the ones that seek instant gratification and couldn't bother with the day-to-day constant issues my GM had to deal with. There were two sides of the coin for this issue (to stay or leave) as 'we' (everyone: the GM for all his facilitation, free TS, monthly meetings, coordination, the commanders for leading and having a presence, and the other guildies friendliness and professionalism which is the culture of the guild) had put in alot of time and effort into this server. To leave, we would say good riddance to these ungrateful people, in the hopes they see how hard it is to lead a community and revel in their own misery when it all came apart. The risk would be that while other servers may APPEAR to be filled with fantastic like-minded people, it is all a facade; people WANT you to come to their server, so of course they will appear that everything is ok. But there are internet trolls wherever you go, and we run the risk of being in the same situation again, only this time, if we want to move, it will cost us money to transfer.

If we stay, maybe these people will fall into line, stay the same, or even get worse. No one really knows, but in this case, atleast the guild is fully intact and there is no painful process of trying to enter very full servers and having them coordinate blackout periods.

I see it that there are two communities in MMO games: inner and outer. The inner community is you, your friends and your guildies. The outer is the other guilds and nonguilded (pugs, is derogatory). I wrote a very opinionated entry on #savecoh a while back and I stick with it as it now affects me. I care about both my inner and outer community, but it is also a fluid entity: just because we move servers, doesn't mean we lose the community. Even if ArenaNet closed GW2 tomorrow, we wouldn't lose our community as we could always talk on TS, have our forums and knowing the kind of people we were, we'd find a new game we could all play together and continue. We'd lose much of the outer community, but what imho matters is the inner community. The inner community is much more flexible as the lines of communication is stronger, allowing us to exist and not be required to stay rooted to one spot, whether it be one server or one game.

"I'll follow you (the guild and GM)through the gates of hell" ~Billy

So while a toxic community was one of the main factors to choosing whether to stay or leave our server, there was another major part to consider: WvW competition and coordination. Our GM described us as a PvX guild, where the X stand for "everything." So we weren't necessarily (altho many people sound to want it) a WvW-centric guild, but one that did a little of everything, both Pve, Dungeons and WvW. People seemed unhappy that due to the toxic community and other factors (including low oceanic presence) that their World vs World experience wasn't as fulfilling. This was a tricky subject because while everyone felt the aforementioned toxic community part, not everyone was deeply vested in WvW. Now this is an important part b/c if you're not affected by WvW, then a toxic community MAY have a lesser effect. Imho these PvX people would feel less impacted by a server change as most of their normal routines wouldn't be affected. 

This is what I understood from the more hardcore WvW-centric concerned guildies: our server lacked (enough to be more effective)coordination, technical expertise and dedication (numbers-wise). Coordination is affected by the community; if it is toxic, that creates a barrier, but no community is perfect and there will always be those that seek instant gratification in WvW/whatever they do. The closest thing to this is a zerg that constantly flips control (camps, towers, keeps, etc)points. The other half of the coin of WvW is defending, which is the polar opposite of instant gratification. It is that feeling deep down that you are contributing in a different way, looking towards the long term. It IS a balance tho, a server cannot always be attacking or always defending and be successful as you'll always have multiple variables, the two big ones being the two other servers.

Technical expertise can be taught but only learned by those that want to. Once again, it goes back to instant gratification, if a player just wants to go in, grab camps, be mobile, get loot, badges and experience, they will follow the zerg and do what they feel like. They won't spend the time to learn  how to play their class more effectively unless it somehow will lead to even greater rewards. Even if they possess the skill, they may not possess the patience that it takes to defend positions. We (as players) can never escape this; while we may go to another server with a higher pool of players with skill, they might be disorganized and 'selfish' and it would be even worse than being in the original server with less skilled players.

So our choice was clear, either stay:
- deal with our growing toxic community and let the vocal minority get their way, or split the community into two factions; those that like the way we lead which is inclusive although a bit hard to control, or let it become a more exclusive club which can alienate the ones exluded
- stay with the guilds we've built relationships and influence with, as they don't intend on leaving the server
- continue to build upon everything we worked so hard on
- deal with the issues of WvW

Or leave for greener pastures:
- hoping that everyone can make it through the blackout
- that we can afford to rebuilt/rebuy influence for the guild
- that it isn't a facade and that people are genuine and cooperative
- that it won't just eventually deteriorate due to the fact that (vocal)trolls exist on every server
- the possibility that it is even worse (community and WvW-wise)than the current server and what we intend on doing if that is the case
- with the possibility that WvW will be more gratifying  (typically anything new, always is INITIALLY)

First Christmas with only one Grandparent

Took some good photos from my friend's daughter's bday the other week and I don't believe I posted about it. Yeah, (thats a boy). Take a look at my site for some new ones and maybe oldies you may not have seen before. I had organized the pictures and folders a few months ago to make it easier to view certain shoots.

I added this link to of Digital Camera World's website to my bloglinks as it is a fantastic site, full of news, reviews, previews, guides, etc. Highly recommended; moreso for newbies in photography, but I absolutely love to read (and about stuff i'm passionate about, so double bonus).

While I'll write an entry or two before Christmas and the New Year, its always good to say it early: Everyone have a happy holiday, pull yourself away from the pc to spend time with your loved ones and try your best not to drink and drive.

Introverts and Violence

It makes me sad inside when I hear about such tragedies such as the Newtown Massacre; more frequent are the killings and more horrific. If you or a loved one was affected by the tragedy, you have my deepest condolences; I don't have children, but if I did, I would think that a school would be the last place they would be exposed to gun violence. How sick do you have to be to kill innocent children? I wasn't surprised when the typical types of sources (media, senators, etc) blamed video games instead of looking at their own country's laws on gun control.

I was a bit offended when they started pointing fingers at introverted people who are the type to be more susceptible to cause such atrocities. I identify myself as an introvert; I enjoy my solitude, I find i'm better at expressing myself through writing, I do not enjoy large gatherings, but rather enjoy smaller deep conversations instead. According to the below video, 1 in 3 people are introverts. There have been many famous people in history that were introverts, including: Albert Einstein, Warren Buffet, Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt.

There was a great Time Magazine article a few months ago where it had a little quiz that would show how much of an extrovert/introvert that you were. I can't remember if this was the same one, give it a try.

What would you say you are: and Extrovert or Introvert?

The MMO Gamer: Short Attenti... ooo! Shiny Penny!

Now.. I figured i'd post this article first while its sort of still fresh.. don't worry, I'm still going to write up a newbie intro guide to Guild Wars 2! I like to post screenshots anyways and I haven't taken any yet for the guide anyways.. so possibly the first part of the guide will be up Friday evening.

One of (the many talented)bloggers on my bloglist, Bernard at Diminishing Returns, writes a short entry on how ArenaNet has failed to stick to their 'unique philosophy' of creating a game with near limitless ability to keep the attention of their audience. From the way it is written, it seems to me that he is implying that the game is boring already.

I really can't believe the short attention span, coupled with the insane addiction people have to games. Its only 3 months into the life of the game and people are complaining of lack of things to do. Granted, if i played with only 1 character(alt-aholic), i'd be close to max level in my near 1 month of playing; but this is free content and it looks like ALOT of content. I don't doubt people have 100% completion in this game, from the amount of hours I see put into it (8-10 hours a day; don't you have work people???).

I feel sorry for developers, for they seem like they are always stuck in a lose-lose situation. They must say their mmo is different (like suggesting unlimited attention grabbing ability), but a mmo cannot contain unlimited hours of gameplay, even with pvp, for people simply play too much, and eat up content too fast. These are also the gamers that are the first to complain and complain the loudest. Maybe it comes with the territory (being a mmo game developer), that you just take the good (developing a game you're passionate about) with the bad (trolls and mmo player demands).

Its a bit unreasonable to be bored if you haven't:
- watched every vista cutscene
- got 100% for every map
- got max gear from pvp and dungeons
- completed every dungeon
- watched every personal quest dialogue cutscene
- got max lvl for all crafting

At that point, I would say there are still more things to do:
- there is 4 other character slots (plus expanding it) to make alts for other races, other classes
- you can help other people with their quests, dungeons, etc
- you can become more dominant in pvp; defeating greater foes with lesser numbers (or do you like zergs?)
- people in COH boasted a great community; you can do something and make your server in GW2 a great place to play with friendly, helpful people

Publishers/Developers would absolutely LOVE to make a game that had unlimited hours of content. Why? Then you keep 'paying' (less so in this case of gw2: no sub). If they knew how to, they would. Its their goal to make a great game, but also keep making money. I'd say be happy with what you have, slow down and enjoy the game infront of you.. and worst case scenario, keep complaining or better yet, get off the pc and do something else with your life and get a real life achievement. 

Guild Wars 2: Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

I always meant to, but I never did when the screenshots didn't come out like I thought they would (it didn't show the little popup when you hover over gear).. but I wanted to write a little 'how-to' guide or beginner's guide for Guild Wars 2. I know that its a tad late, but there 'are' new players every day and I was very lucky to have very experienced friends who would answer my very noob questions. 

The worst thing when playing a new game is being lost and not knowing the things that makes a game great that everyone else seems to know. So per the request of one of my closest friends (that's you Brown Magic), i'm gonna do my best to answer all the questions he has and provide a newbie friendly guide in nice bite-sized entries versus one huge entry where TL:DR will naturally happen.

I'll be answering the following areas below:
- differences between solo play, group play, world pvp, etc
- item hierarchy (blue, green, gold, purple, etc), and important attributes
- zone wide rewards and when to move on to the next zone
- how to read the basic map
- basic overview of races and classes
- what to do from levels 1-15, then 15-30 etc (not just grinding but types of things you can experience best)
- overview of gathering; purpose, do you need it, why there are so many mats, zone equipment
- overview on skills vs traits and how to spend
- some setup options, moving gathered items, how to access bank
- overview on karma, mystic coins, and other currency; how to get, why you need it, how to spend
- differences between personal quests, heart quests, dynamic quests

I guess I partially didn't end up writing alot of this b/c i'm by no means a master of the game, but I am passionate about it and won't go on to brag about how it'll never be cancelled.. unlike some games.... b/c it eventually will.. but I would have moved on a long time ago and playing Guild Wars 4.
If anyone has any questions they have (ill answer them to the best of my limited knowledge) or would like to see me write something, please leave a comment and I'd love to try to get it posted for you! 

Guild Wars 2: Personal Quest

Lets get straight to it people: I am still loving (see: addicted) Guild Wars 2. Its a great game, but not a perfect game. I question frequently why I can't trade items with players.. I can't think of an mmo game that i've played where there were issues with it. But when you have a free mail system.. it doesn't cause too much of a bother. The main issue i'm encountering these days is the Personal Quest system.

 I love the Personal Quest system in that when you customize your character, you have a background story which affects your actual over-arcing story in the game. You experience your story via a Personal Quest, which is a persistent quest that is always available to you; you can zoom through it (although it increases in level difficulty) or wait til you hit max level to tackle (it will of course de-level you so that it is still challenging). Your friends can join you and it will take you to the appropriate map areas that you normally would visit anyways, so its rather convenient. It gives a good chunk of experience, has good loot rewards, and you can save the gear for transmuting in the future.

While I haven't encountered how indepth/special your story gets (thanks to my alt-oholicism), the beginning always seems to be very tailored to how you chose your background story. But after you get over that beginning part, it seems to become a generic storyline of you needing to defeat the dragons.

That isn't my main issue I have with the game b/c I don't expect Arenanet to develop such a detailed questline for the many ways you can customize it. My beef is that the dialogues between you and NPCs are not engaging. I wish it was more like SWTOR; in SWTOR, you got to pick your responses, finding a balance(or extreme I suppose) between Light and Dark side choices. In GW2, there is a preset dialogue that you must just listen to. I guess we should be happy that your character has his/her own voice and isn't just a silent mute.. but its really boring to just listen to these preset dialogues. I would have loved to see (we can never expect to have choices in the future; NEVER! I have thus predicted it) dialogue options implemented in the future, but doubt it will ever happen.

To nitpick a little more, your party members that join you on your personal quest have no input (a la dice roll per SWTOR) and get no rewards other than the loot and xp of the monsters you kill in the instance. So very little reason for them to join you, other than to be helpful and participate in one's personal story.

Anonymity and the Internet

The internet is a ..."special animal".. it encompasses almost everyone's life. For better or for worse, its here to stay and it isn't going away. While sharing information is a great feature of the internet, we've seen many examples of where it has gone horribly wrong. We have the General Petraeus scandal (affair) and Amanda Todd (cyber bullying) tragedy as very recent examples.

My friend wanted to highlight a function of sharing that is used on the internet currently.. that while is a popular form.. it has it's weaknesses. My friend Brown Magic is a fervent player of the real-time strategy game, League of Legends, which (in my mind, please excuse the ignorance) is like Starcraft, but individualized heroes that you can level up. There are various websites in which you can post 'builds' similar to the builds you would see created on RPG games or MMOs to make the most efficient version of that class.

Two of the main sites include:
Solomid & Mobafire

My friend made a really detailed guide for his favorite hero and posted it on the site for people to learn and be effective if they chose that hero. The problem stemmed from the way in which these kinds of builds are exposed to the community; currently exposure is based on a voting system. One can either set their guide to vote anonymously or needs to write a comment to be able to vote. If your guide isn't very popular (for real, or artificially), then your guide will be mired at the bottom of the list, never to be seen by most players. People can be both devious and malicious and abuse this system by voting down your guide (whether it has merits or not and whether you tried it or not) and voting up their own or their friends (whether it is good or not). 

This reminds me of an issue that I see at my own work. We have a third party company that we've recruited to get us more clients and the way we compensate them is from the number of clients they get approved. It doesn't matter if they're pushy or provide a poor representation of our company (through lies or not telling the whole truth), so long as they get a certain number of clients approved, they wipe their hands clean once the process is done, leaving my group to deal with uneducated, angry clients. The system is broken but there are solutions as always: if we tied this third party's compensation to the sale volume plus the satisfaction of the client, it would benefit our company to a greater extent. 

Another example is this very own blog.. or my photography website. I sometimes sigh when I look at my page views and the amount of comments/favorites that I receive compared to others. I put an honest effort into my entries and my photos and it makes me sick when some blogger blatantly writes some provoking article for the specific intent to draw traffic to their site, or a photographer takes photos of a nude model and has more views of the one photo than my whole site (although that is a bit different).

So while my friend has written a great guide, his guide was unfortunately voted down by a person that created a horrible excuse of a guide themselves and their friends voted up theirs so they would have better exposure on the site.

This is obviously unfair and broken-ish system of displaying information. But I discussed with my friend.. that this is the internet; it is the place that constantly spawns internet trolls every day b/c it is so easy to be anonymous. The only thing I could say to console him (other than being able to get his story out there) is that we do these things (possibly for the fame) but because we are passionate about what we do. I'm extremely happy if even one person visits my blog and likes what I write. I never get tired of people telling me that i'm a talented photographer and I should do that instead of my current job. This is something that we must always remember; to do what we are passionate about and damn (ignore) all those that don't understand it.

Now, we're not just going to leave it at that; we are going to write about a few solutions we have in mind.. whether they come to fruition as mainstream in the future, who knows, but it is better to give solutions than just complain about things that are broken.

One solution that BM suggested was to have a "like" system similar to Facebook which when I think about it is a rather good way too. It alerts your friends (sometimes whether they want to know or not) that you like something, and if you don't like something, you can comment and *ahem* 'discuss' it with others. While a system like this can still be exploited by getting people to just 'like' the guide more than others, Facebook has a great system in that it uses real identities (to the best of my knowledge), to prevent fake accounts. And maybe this is what League of Legends is missing: real accounts linked to guides. And while that sounds like a very expensive solution, there must be user accounts one makes for LoL and maybe they can link a person's career performance (game-wise) to the public, so that possibly, a person with a longer (game) career has more weight than one that has a very short (and possibly fake) resume. I have seen some websites or games (Guild Wars 2) can tell the IP address you're logging into, i'm quite sure the same principle can be applied when voting on a guide in this situation. If it can tell you're from the same IP, then it prevents you from voting more than once on the same guide.

Another solution that BM brought up was if you are restricted to why a guide is helpful via commenting, there should be a choice of categories such as:
1) I used this build, and it worked!
2) Lots of detail and well explained
3) Good use of media
4) The writer knows his/her stuff
In separating guides by hero and then being able to search popular guides by how it would benefit the user reading it, may be a better way than an Up/Down Vote system. Anonymous systems always seem to be a very flawed way of communication.. but a by-product of the internet that we may not be able to escape.

I hope my friend finds solace in what i've written today and hope he realizes that he has written a helpful guide that has probably helped one person dominate, or at least like his favorite hero. If it even helped one person, it has value and that in itself is heroic.

Satire and Posing Girl Gamers

While the author says that this entry is a satire, it is poorly done and makes it seem like he's angry and was seriously burned by some girl (and who hasn't?) recently. By not making it more obvious, with each more nonsensical argument, it's harder to believe that this was a lampoon. Basically it seemed like a whole lot of elitist talk on how if you're not up to his standards as a hardcore gamer, then you're shallow and a poser.

"People who play video games understand the fundaments of fun."

Hehe.. "fundaments" ..I like this.. this must be one of those weak arguments. A game is a game, even if it is a Facebook game. Sure, I don't like hearing the click-click-click, knowing that she is wearing down my mouse, but its ok.. she bought me that mouse to game!

"If the ratio of party games to every other genre is even close to 50% (or worse, beyond) you can bet that the console only gets dragged out for special occasions as a novelty when friends are over."
It can be said that there are two arguments here; 1) that you're not a gamer if you like musical type of games or party (Mario Party/Raving Rabbids) games, 2) that if they have those type of games, that it only is played when people come over. First thing is, video game nights with friends is really fun. While it may not make you a hardcore gamer if you partake, it still makes you cooler than the girl that sits on the sidelines and rolls her eyes. If anyone looked at my Wii game collection initially, I would be in the category of 'poser' to this author because it was alot of party-centric games.. but that is what the Wii was kinda created to do.. bring people together to play together.

"If your guy or gal doesn’t know what you mean when you ask them for their K/D ratio or whether they’re interested in a quick deathmatch, there’s a good chance they usually have no idea what you’re talking about"
Elitism. Alot of people play games, and don't bother to learn the vocabulary of the type of game they're playing. They're not interested, not because they're pretending to like the game. They're not interested b/c they're too busy having fun with the game.

"Folks who’ve never heard of a ColecoVision or a Commodore 64 know nothing about the roots of their so-called favorite past-time."
You're making this so easy! As time goes by, the newer generation would never have touched or heard of those old game systems. I've heard of ColecoVision, but I've never played on it, much less heard of a Commodore 64. I must not be a true gamer then. 

"Anyone who claims to be a video game fan and can’t handle standard first-person shooter controls on a console is clearly not fit to call themselves a real gamer"
Probably one of my favorite weak-sauce arguments; this person obviously is a fps gamer and thus puts a strong weighting on the validity of those games. I personally love pc fps for the better controls, but play on the 360 so I can play with my friends who prefer to play infront of their tv than pc. Clearly he's wrong, turn-based strategy games are the only REAL games worth playing!

I don't see what the problem is with a girl that pretends to like games when she's spending time with you; isn't it normally the opposite? We're pretending to like something the girl is passionate about, so we can get closer to them? Think of it this way, you know those couples where the partner doesn't like it that you spend all your time playing games and thinks you're wasting your time? A person that will pretend to like something you're passionate is about, will more than likely atleast pretend to understand and let you partake, rather than steer you away.

You know how long a sarcastic guy like me will last in the joint?

Sooooooo long. ~Jeff Winger, Community

Now thats satire.

More Borderlands 2 Randoms

My Grandfather has been pretty sick in the hospital these days and after spending time with him there, all I want to do is vegg on the sofa and play games. Kind of a depressed response, no? Natural? Maybe. I've been getting alot of Borderlands 2 in, so here are some randoms:

- I hate Buzzards; basically enemies in flying hover cars.. just like the Rakks in this game, the Buzzards' flight pattern is totally erratic.. actually anything that flies (includes the Hyperion surveyors) is very hard to take down manually

Guns guns guns. You want them, I have them.

- game getting too hard? Use those Golden Keys and you may be surprised at how powerful you become

- don't have Golden Keys? 1. Make a Shift Account on the Extras option on the Main Screen for Borderlands 2. Follow @GearboxSoftware on Twitter and enter the free codes. They are time sensitive but can be used by unlimited people, so give it to your friends!

- I want a bigger storage space or maybe a mailbox I can use to send to my alts; people would argue if you had such a system, its like having an unlimited bank space, but I disagree, its all about implementation: Make the mailbox system last only for 3 hours or so and if you don't get to them, the system sells it or puts it back in your inventory; possibly throwing out the cheaper/weaker gear automatically

- disliking the Eridium Blight area; its too sparse. My vehicle got destroyed by accident (damn RPG robot!) and it took forever to walk to the next vehicle station. The Highlands (major are before) was large, but it had 2 big areas to content, many pockets of things to do between each area and had many quick travel areas to other instances. The EB, doesn't seem to be that way; get a vehicle and don't lose it!

- Gearbox did a great job in making fun characters to play with; I keep trying my all my characters and have a blast with them (although I'm afraid my Commando is too weak right now). I was originally leveling my Mechromancer so she could play with my gf, but then I found it was really easy to solo (until you hit the Eridium Blight area.. whoops) and shot past my target of lvl 23. So I decided to play with my Gunzerker and he was incredibly powerful; always Gunzerking with dual fast shotguns, and throwing out 2 cluster grenades at a time.. things died FAST. When I got him to lvl 23, I switched to my Assassin to snipe as it is my preferred way to solo. Got him to lvl 31 which allowed him to get his highest tiered talent skill, switched him to a melee specc and used the gun/shield combo of Law&Order (melee attacks heal OMFG & roid damage). If that wasn't powerful enough, while in stealth, if he killed an enemy with melee, he would RE-stealth again to infinity (if you can do it before the timer runs out). Game Changer.

CoH: You've got Fan Mail!

I was thinking of individually replying to each comment for my previous entry, but .. there are just so many! Joking aside, I thought I may get a bit snarky and get downright rude to the last few people (from naturally needing to defend myself over and over). I really wish I had monetized my site so i'd profit from writing such a provoking article!.. Not that I wrote it to annoy people or piss them off; more to just get a different opinion on it all. 

First off, thank you for reading hopefully most of it, and thanks for (as MMO Gamerchick viewed it as) not just blasting me with just venom and hate but keeping it civil, providing valid opinions and data/numbers (although links to validate it is better) on why you believe the game deserves to continue. People who know me would agree that I tend to think way outside the box and I do sometimes get a bit blunt/don't sugarcoat my opinions which would result in such backlash. Its interesting what you all wrote and i'm not at all offended if there was venom or the odd "you're doing it wrong."

Some things:
- i've never played CoH; although i've watched my brother play it(in the past year or so). Was not interested in the type of mmo genre, nor the graphics. With that all said, my opinion (on everything) would still be the same if it was a game that I did play, currently played and/or enjoyed.

- I attempted to try to get actual facts and data on the game, failing to,  I tried to minimize writing any real numbers other than the 'how old the game is' part. Its more of a poke in jest rather than trying to stick you with a branding iron.

- I've obviously played many mmo's and understand how a great community makes and can break a game and that it provides an intangible value that companies may not scrutinize when making business decisions. I do believe a community can still move tho, and there are so many ways these days (FB, Twitter, forums, blogs, other games etc) to keep it going and find another way to connect.

- whether the data provided in comments (about revenue) is accurate or not, it is curious that a company would close the servers if it was THAT profitable. Its like having a cash cow; why get rid of it? Maybe 10 million minus all the expenses (to paraphrase from Simpsons: Oh won't somebody think of the expenses!) doesn't make it viable. Maybe the same amount of resources can be put elsewhere to create more value.

- I find boasting of a strong 'community' is rather subjective, and saying its different (than other mmo communities) is saying that its better than any other games' community. I raise my eyebrow at that constant argument. I'm quite sure people playing in other 'communties' wouldn't agree. But lets agree to disagree.. or not ;)

- My use of words probably wasn't best (in the previous entry)but it was due to what I read from the article; kind of fighting blind loyalty with my own brutal blunt opinion. I do know no one likes being told that what they are passionate about doesn't matter. I felt the entry (by Chris) implied that anyone that didn't agree with their point of view, was stupid and there is no other opinion that is right than theirs. I'd imagine there are more people that root for your cause than my realistic (aka: cynical lol) opinion, so I wouldn't feel the need to get in such a frenzy. But that is your right to do so. (hence 35+ comments and rising!..?)

I'm not here to continually argue with fans of CoH and refute your point of view and declare mine the best. That would be trolling and boring. Its not giving up to a large amount of responses (i'm actually surprised you found it or follow me), but just not interested in writing more about it. Despite my opinion that I think it is a lost cause, I (surprised?) do hope your passion is saved from 'extinction' and worst case scenario, some company makes a super-hero mmo that suits you & your community's needs. I purposely didn't write more than what I already wrote in my original entry, thinking that it would bore people, but as the case may be, it probably would have helped to be more clear!

Once again, thanks to all the comments, you've made me write way more than I wanted to.. thanksss

Keep fighting for what you believe in.  

The Reason NOT to Save City of Heroes

As you can see from many months of entries, I haven't really written anything of substance or thought; mostly pictures, photographs and card previews. I find it easier to write (something gaming related) something of substance when you've got a game to play. I unfortunately won't be playing Guild Wars 2 anytime in the near future and thus must wait to bore my readers about the wonders of Borderlands 2 with Return to Ravnica card reveals instead.

I saw an article that C.Smith wrote at Levelcapped, and at first I was not going to bother (read or have a blog response), but then after reading it a few times, I think it deserves a closer look.


I'm normally not the one to be argumentative, but I don't agree with alot with what was written there.

Companies have no obligation to tell their customers why they are shuttering the servers to an old game. I don't believe they even need to do it with a new game. Say ArenaNet tomorrow closes all their servers to Guild Wars2, "thanks for the money, later!" I believe they can do that. There would be horrific backlash worldwide and no one would ever buy an ArenaNet product again, not to mention there would be more than one legal case put against them.

The obligation they have is to give notice that they are closing the servers. Not on why. 

Does that mean we should just give up, not question The Man and walk away? No. You have the right to question it, write those letters, and make your voice heard. 

One interesting tidbit; CoH is one of NCSoft's longest running titles besides the Lineage series. Apparently its older than the original Guild Wars and the obvious Aion. Does it not make sense to close down servers to an unpopular game so that more resources can be allocated to a newer game or to a game in development?

I wouldn't say that accepting the closure of CoH is being one step above a vegetative state, but more about being realistic, being mature and understanding how the real world works. The bottom line is: does CoH matter? And the answer is: It really doesn't. Just because you don't fight for one instance of a thing, doesn't mean you'll do that for everything. Thats why I don't fight for CoH; b/c it doesn't matter.

I'd argue that CoH IS like a can of beans sitting on a supermarket shelf. It is a product that a company produces and chooses what to do with it however they see fit. What is it other than a online game that allows different levels of interaction with other people. Is it not like an out of date cell phone, countless years old that a company doesn't want to manufacture anymore b/c they are developing even better phones, far superior in every way, with nearly every feature the old phone had?

People waste so much effort in saving things that are a lost cause and won't make a difference. Saving CoH is one of those cases. The decision has been made, and unless NCSoft is full of idiots, they did their research, they have the data, the graphs, the experts to tell them whether this is the right thing to do or not. And its the case that its not worth wasting resources on keeping. A company has many but 2 basic goals: 1) to make money, 2) to have loyal customers. It doesn't matter how loyal they are if you're not making money, b/c if you're not making money, you can't pay the people to support the game. If you can't pay people, unless they're independently wealthy, they won't stay and work for free. If you don't have workers, then you don't have much of a company, do you? (Check this article on some tidbits on their revenue stream)And what happens then? People will argue that NCSoft makes revenue elsewhere, so if CoH bleeds them, its ok. Wrong. Where do you go from it being ok that it is a drain on their company, to it not being ok. Be realistic b/c in this case: everyone loses.

I was writing earilier how CoH doesn't matter. How about what happened with the Islamic Spring in Egypt or currently happening in Syria? Things like.. your government is suppressing you rights and killing you for it. What we're talking about is a game that is being closed that we're spending so much effort on. Gaming has their merits but it isn't everything in life nor should it be given precidence over other parts of life.

If CoH was worth maintaining, then there obviously would be more people playing it and paying for it, but it obviously is not (according to the graph, with less revenues, means less players, meaning you would need to charge them 25$ to have the same amount of revenue, if thats even sustainable). How often do we hear news about CoH? Never, b/c its not a popular game anymore. People are playing GW2, The Secret World, waiting for the next WoW expansion etc.

While both developers and players put countless hours into the game and form emotional attachment to it, that doesn't mean the company loses the right to choose whether they keep it going or close it down. It is childish to think that companies don't know that anyone that has a hand in the product is passionate and attached to it. A smart company will find a new product, a better product that these passionate fans can appreciate.

So while one game dies, many more will be born. Its just the cycle of games; especially mmo games. While there are people that still play the original Call of Duty game, there are possibly 10, 20, 100, 200 times more players playing and savoring the newest iteration. CoH is a super hero mmo game, there has been other super hero mmo's developed (Champions Online & DC Universe)and many more to come in the future. By forcing it to exist, you keep the market saturated and reduce the need to have a newer, better one for today's modern mmo player. 

#SaveCoH is actually doing a disservice to mmo players, especially those that enjoy super hero themed ones. Let it die with grace so the sidekick can step up to the plate or a new super hero appear from the shadows.

Tighter Control

Lets talk about something different.
Earlier this week there was a shooting in the east end of Toronto which killed 2 people and injured about 14. Just last night with the midnight premier of The Dark Knight Rises, there was a shooting in Colorado which resulted in 14 people dead and about 50 injured. My condolences for all affected.


There has been alot of talk about how to solve and avoid tradegies such as this:


- have more afterschool activities for at risk teens


- create more jobs 


- tighter gun control


- (more american response) allow more concealed weapons for people


Each has their own merit.. I wonder what is best for each situation.


--------------------------------------------------------------


I started a new blog with my girlfriend if you want to take a look. Before I Do.
Its a blog on questions a couple should explore before getting engaged/married. Kinda like questions one would go through in a marriage prep course at church.

I can see this will be difficult... in that now ill be managing and writing for 3 different blogs..

The Quest System

Have you seen those university courses where the syllabus is structured like an mmo with quests, bosses and achievements?


I've read alot of self-help books in my time, as I learn best by reading and my dad has a huge collection from his days as project manager. A common theme about being successful is plotting a timeline of things of what you want to accomplish, when (to be completed)and how (you'll do it). Although I believe in this system, I honestly don't practice it too much in real life. The closest I get to is mapping a goal out, how I can accomplish it, but sometimes there is the fear of failing at something that big, holds me back.


A close friend that knows me very well put it to me that I tend to over-think situations and sometimes I just need to take the leap and not be afraid to make mistakes. I'm deathly afraid of making mistakes in life (vs games/mmos) and thats why I plan so much but takes me so long to get started.


I wonder if I set up these goals more like an mmo, with quests, bosses and achievements, that maybe i'll have a better chance at accomplishing them. That a different system of accomplishing goals will provide better incentive to see it through. 


I find that when I know I have things to do, ill write it down on a lined piece of paper, so that whenever I have a free moment, ill look at it and work on one of those tasks. Its nice to see when you complete them, but as the books state, when you don't put a deadline to them, sometimes they aren't completed. For example, "make peanut butter chocolate chip mini cupcakes for the first time" has been sitting on that paper for the whole week. I promise ill do it saturday... unless I go shopping for clothes instead since I have a gift certificate. Its one of the things on my list (shopping) soo.. thats ok. Kinda.


For us mmo gamers, maybe approaching completing tasks in real life should be put in the same form as an mmo. We have a quest, this most cases, a timed one; I personally hate timed quests, but it did usually mean we'd finish that first. There would be little check marks under the quest title that were steps you needed to finish in sequence to complete your quest. There will be a boss battle at the end, which if you defeat, meant your quest is complete. Once the quest was done, you'd hand it in and get rewards including achievements.


I think we tend to focus on the boss battle which scares us, while we forget to be greedy (Money is not bad, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil) and think of why we're doing the quest: Loot. We need to think of the rewards we'll get for completing said quest. Sometimes we also get the intrinsic value of the journey of doing the quest too which is great. As well as the 'Tome of Knowledge' unlocks we get that we can refer to in the future when we encounter the same 'quest' or 'boss.'


The biggest thing when completing real life quests is that because we're focusing on the boss fight, we ignore the rewards. By getting hyped on the fat lewt, it'll motivate us to accomplish it faster, instead of dragging our heels. Sometimes we need to spend that extra couples seconds/minutes thinking hard about what that reward is and if you somehow can't think of a reward tangible/intangible, then we should find something we can reward ourself with. Whether its a new video game, our favorite treat or something we've desired. I've never understood it until I just wrote this, but another quote: "always pay yourself first, then pay everyone else." Meaning, make sure there is something you benefit from by completing the task so that you have that motivation to complete the goal.

NBI: Opportunity

Blogging is just like photography; you always want to be ready to take it, otherwise you'll miss the opportunity.

Countless times I passed by my neighbor's property and saw a tree that reminded me of the Japanese cherry blossoms and thought in my head 'oh that would make a pretty picture.' I would then procrastinate b/c 'it would still be there later.' 

WRONG. Photography and blogging are the same in that, the opportunity will be there for only a brief window and eventually it'll be gone. Those blossoms were only available for another week and one day, the day i intended on taking photos, they turned an ugly brown from a snowflake white.

While you may write it differently than other bloggers, if you wait, most of your interested traffic will be gone if you wait too long to articulate your thoughts. Just like how today is the Diablo 3 launch day; its best to talk about your launch day experiences, the day of, not one week from now. 

I'd always recommend to be ready for either (writing/photography) opportunity. Carry your camera with you everywhere.. something I still don't do. Bring a notepad with you everywhere.. or type the thought into your phone.. or have a pc notepad window open and (if you're allowed to, of course) write your thoughts out and forward them home. 

P.s. I dislike how Instagram makes people think they're now photographers.. :P

                                                           Newbie bloggers! Join us! 

Feeling Alive

I was reading Hunter's entry on his first impressions of the GW2 beta and he commented on how "Cities feel more alive than SWTOR.." I want to understand that; most capital cities are seen mostly as a hub for people to meet up but doesn't do very much more. You don't go because you want to, but because you have to.


I'm going to brainstorm on some reasons to make a city feel more alive because currently in more mmo's imho is for:


- skill trainers & crafting trainers; possibly making them have special skills/recipes/discounts at certain times


- capital city leaders; normally infrequently used, even at high levels


- pvp npcs that teleport you to the battlegrounds


- show off your gear/mounts


- banks and auction houses; probably 95% of the reason why you're there


So what other activities can make a player want to go a city and make it feel more alive?

- public quests built into the city; similar to WAR's system, Mythic had quests and public questing areas (arena) built into the city. Making them accessible at all levels is sometimes hard, possibly making it a daily activity with fluff rewards can work here


- a relatively cheap money sink via mini game/luck-based game. I know WoW had the bejewelled game built into the fast travel, this could be implemented into future mmos as well but only installed in the city instead, kind of like WoW's Darkmoon Faire, but year round within the city.


- I believe a 'more alive' feel for the city was partially b/c of your personal story area in GW2. If only there was a way to be able to affect more of the city and see an actual effect; now that would be engaging.


- more puzzles, easter eggs and special achievements for exploring the city. From the looks of GW2, the city looks huge; there ought to be many different places to explore for background lore.


- guild housing; GW2 takes care of personal housing via the personal story instanced area, but guild housing would be a nice touch too, preferably farther away; what benefits would guild housing be? Possibly fast travel to dungeons, other cities, or pvp areas.

Reflection

What does Easter mean to you?


I've seen alot of zombie Jesus cracks, free long weekends, bunnies, chocolate, and excuses to get drunk. Its an important weekend for believers and also one where we have to ignore alot of tasteless humor.


Lets be a bit more respectful.


Anyways; while cruising on Kotaku, I watched this amazing Skyrim music vid



I looked at Lindsey's Zelda vid as well and then kept watching her list; very talented and violinist and dancer atleast.

Cowardice

"Ya only when someone starts a viral vid but why does everyone have to wait to show they care or even know about it..why not start awareness yourself and not wait to jump on the band wagon...better uses can be to show rapists and child molesters in your areas..not to fix other countries problems that don't do shit to fix it


Its other countries problems. You can care to a point but when did that country care about what happened to you or the family down the road...care for yourself,family and community before you try any harder for people in other countries that wouldn't give a shit about u in the first place


I only originally said I hate people that jump on the band wagon to make it look like they care but they really don't...if u do be original, don't use a social website to show u care..go protest, write a letter to your local MP. But don't think "like" is doing anything that will really stop it...go kill the dude if u wanna make a diff or arrest him yourself"

Wow.. just wow.
So... because its happening somewhere else.. you should just ignore it. What happens if you were in the same situation? How would you feel if that was their attitude.

I love "go kill the dude if you wanna make a diff"... that.. was... touching..
More like touched in the head.

Caring only about what affects yourself and not caring about the plight of others shows the type of person that you are.

Always Learning

My coworker had a good philosophy about buying booster packs for MTG whereas I prefer to prebuild decks via various websites. There was not only the excitement of opening a new pack (like gifts of Christmas day) but by getting cards you wouldn't normally look at..

..later down the road, you may find a use for them.
I had created a douche 'permission' deck which totally frustrated my gf the other day, but after a few games I realized that I was really lacking in the department of creatures as it was a blue control deck who's monsters were only ones that garnered cards in which I could draw.

Then I read a recent article about a white-blue aggressor deck.. and looked over that card above.. never really thought it would be good.. and then *lightbulb*.. YES. It will work for the permission deck. Nice and cheap to bring out without leaving you without mana. A creature that gains evasion on turn 2, and hits for 3.. pretty good.

The Return

Wow; does this guy blog anymore these days?


Makes me wonder if I really want to be a technical writer or business systems analyst anymore.
Its probably just the fact that I've picked up and replaced one addiction for another and neither allows time for writing.


People attribute New Years with changing themselves and making resolutions.
I personally don't like "new years resolutions" b/c I feel its set to just one day and something that usually isn't successful.
And because of this, they usually end up being the same ones as the previous year.
That it is better that when you think of a way to improve yourself, to just start that day and not to wait any longer.
Do little baby steps and make it a habit; by making it a habit you will become successful. Force yourself to do it and it will become harder the longer you try.
But then one day it will just become second nature and then you've succeeded.


What kind of resolutions did you have this year?