7/28/2010

Nearing the end

Having a hard week? Have a cupcake!

..a hamburger cupcake that is!

7/27/2010

Suckerpunch

Protest against This!

Read up how the Westboro Baptist Church went to the San Diego Comic Con and found a counter-protest waiting for them.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/07/22/super-heroes-vs-the-westboro-baptist-church/







Oh.. and Odin IS the true god :P

7/26/2010

Quickie Monday

Get your cosplay fix here.


Feeling guilty about your jail broken iPhone?
Stop now.

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I've never understood why my melee crazy cleric Capo would let our brain-dead hirelings attack them instead of himself...

but it's something i've learnt to fear for the future:
Oozes

There was an npc on his knees in the city of Stormreach in DDO which when you interacted with him, he spun his sad tale of his damaged gear having fought some oozes. I naturally laughed at the pathetic npc.. frozen in time for eternity to say the same thing over and over.

I jumped into the dungeon that he was facing and naturally faced some oozes. As a drow rogue, they took a bit of effort to take down as I used crossbows as my weapon of choice instead of light melee weapons. My tank hireling would cut into them pretty well so I didn't have to worry much. The rest of the dungeon was a natural cake-walk.
Later on, I created my dps fighter which was a two-hand weapon god, who would crush hoardes of baddies with his giant maul +1 of lesser reptialian bane. I came across the same pitiful npc frozen in time and jumped into the same dungeon. There were significantly more oozes this time, or maybe it felt like more because I took a cleric hireling that polished her armor during fights and was basically only there to heal me. I encountered 2 large groups of oozes and during that second battle, the unthinkable happened: my trusty maul crumbled in my hands! In a state of panick, I tried to punch the oozes ineffectively. I had to find some gear I had intended on selling in my backpack, a slightly dusty +1 axe. It took alot more swings than what my character was used to, but eventually the slimes were reduced to ... smaller un-moving puddles of slimes.

I completed the quest, paid a pretty penny to repair my maul only to find it was now permanently damaged and less durable than before. Saddened at that fact and finding an increase of ooze presence in the dungeons I was in, I went to the broker (auction house), purchased a backup maul, and even kept in emergency reserve a +2 battleaxe and a masterwork towershield for when all else failed.

F3AR the Ooze!!!

7/24/2010

The Earth will be doomed.... doooooooomed!

I dont' intend on playing DC Universe Online (don't like superhero mmos), but this trailer is very impressive.

7/22/2010

TGIF.. in an hourish

Not the biggest (heck I don't play RTS, only turn based) Starcraft fan.. but its a good vid.


Some Dragon Age Origins 2 information
here

7/21/2010

Combating the Zerg

A bit late; you might have seen this already, but here is a trailer on the new Civ5 game:
http://kotaku.com/5565685/civilization-vs-trailer-is-a-love-letter-to-pc-gamers

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What is wrong with zerging?
Essentially nothing; its legitimate, not cheating and is usually effective. Its fun when you roll your enemy because of this. Can be boring at times as you may not feel that you're truly contributing to the whole. And is frustrating by being rolled by one.

I personally dont like it; its usually slow and unweildly. It feels like we're a group of sheep just following and doing whatever the leader says. Because there are so many people, if there isn't sheep, there will be many different voices spamming the channel to get the zerg to do otherwise. I personally like working as a smaller group on vent and ninja-ing objectives or providing hit-and-runs.

Hey Mythic.. where is my stein? :P

My idea to break up the zerg is as follows:
- keeps can only be entered by defenders from the postern if the postern isn't broken
-- depending on the tier, there may be up to 3 posterns (one per side)
== this will force the zerg to breakup and destroy the posterns (there must be a graphic for a broken door though)

- when a keep is captured, the victor's warcamp spawns a npc caravan which transports troops/Lord to the keep
- the keep spawns extra potent oil and all their warmachines which are invincible (though their users not)
- that keep will only spawn 4 champion guards and 1 champ lord, if killed, it will become contested
- the doors will respawn at 1/4 strength, and if there are two doors, then only the one to the keep respawns, if broken again, it stays broken-- the other side has the ability to attack and destroy that caravan from making it to the keep
-- the caravan is powered by the objectives
-- the caravan wheels can be destroyed to halt it and takes a few minutes to respawn and continue
-- the caravan has a dome/something that can be destroyed, though very strong, similar to keep lord strength/keep door, it doesn't attack back
--- if the caravan is destroyed, the caravan will start again from the warcamp, but if destroyed 3 times, the keep will become contested

Contested State
- the weakened keep lord vanishes as well as any associated guards
- caravans from both warcamps spawn and make their way to the keep, both moving at the same speed (hence some keeps will be easier to take than others)
- the side who's caravan makes it there first with the most health takes control of the keep
- if a caravan is destroyed, it instantly respawns and starts again-- when control is taken, normal guards are temporarily upgraded to champion guards for 5 minutes and spawn, the doors respawn, posterns become in control of the victor, as well as the Lord
== this will purge the keep of any enemies

With this in place, it is guaranteed to split a zerg (nearly). The victor will want to both guard their weakened Lord from the enemy at the keep and go protect the caravan to take control of the keep. The other side may be tempted to zerg the keep, but with more warmachines and oil, it would be harder to roll the enemy.

7/19/2010

http://www.windmobile.ca/community/WIND-news/detail/data-dont-leave-home-without-it/

Its always interesting looking at all the trolls write their own flaming opinion. I like how they are telling the original poster how to run his business as if he doesn't have a clue nor highly educated and informed people working for him to think up ways to be competitive in the market. If these people are so smart, why don't they work in that business themselves? No. People just want to be heard and acknowledged but not proven wrong as they can't handle it. And if other company's services are so much better, do they have nothing better to do than go on competitor's sites and flame-on? I guess not.

Much farther than I ever got..

It seemed to take forever, but my good friend Fefe finally hit 80 renown in Warhammer.. but what surprised me was she finally passed some pictures of her in her highest end gear (whatever name that is lol, soveriegn?)

Her guild, Black Death is on Iron Rock server, part of the Army of Death alliance. She's a great healer XD

I dunno why she's puking here tho..

7/15/2010

DDO Greatness



Borderlands Game of the Year edition announced here

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I'm gonna convince you all to play it, then ill be depressed that you all don't like it and leave. lol
Btw.. sorry, can't find my screen shots.. anyone know where to find them?

Have I gushed enough about the chests and how they reserve items? Yes **everyone sighs in relief**
Did I fail to talk about the drawback? Yes **gasp**

The chests doesn't seem to know what class or proficiencies your character has. So my rogue gets two-handed weapons, reagents for spellcasters, while Capo who plays a cleric gets leather armor (they can wear plate), arrows and bolts (which my ranged rogue uses). In other D&D games, such as Neverwinter Nights in particular, the system knew your class and proficiencies and tailored your chest so it always had something you'd need. Granted it didn't reserve items, sooo.. Capo would get it.

Pictures i took last weekend to keep you interested.. lol

Apparently there is in-game vent in DDO.. i haven't really searched too hard for it since I use a friend's vent, but its critical; DDO is a much faster game than traditional rpg games and requires quick responses that can't be conveyed via the chat box. To activate vent though, I press CTRL and i tend to move alot as a ranged rogue and pressing CTRL-S pulls up the DDO cash shop.

Kiting mobs. I've never been able to do it in an mmo. Usually they're too fast.. or the system doesn't really allow for it in some way or another. In DDO, its the only way I survive as a rogue, especially when soloing, when I can't summon a hireling (best idea ever), or face multiple enemies. There was one solo dungeon that required me to kill groups of 5+ spiders at a time. One would think ranged would be over-powered, but Turbine smartly programmed it so your attack bonus (chance to hit) was decreased while running. So to hit consistently, I would run back 5 steps, the time it takes to reload, pause to shoot, rinse and repeat to infinity. Boss fights are more frantic as they're generally faster, do more damage and have more hp.

Money system. Platinum, gold, silver, copper. At first gold is hard to come by, but soon you'll need thousands of platinum to afford items. There is a special type of currency called Astral Diamonds which are only obtained by using money at the cash shop. It feels like looking at pennies, nickles and even dimes.. useless money that takes up space.. the only time I use that small change is for the parking meters.

There is some festival going on, where you'll get festival coins which you can trade in for special items from a specific collector. It seems to be a 1 for 1 trade; if you trade a copper festival coin, you'll get a copper lvl reward.. like a health potion. I traded in a platinum coin and got a +5 Green Greatsword... on my (at the time) lvl 2 rogue; it had a lvl 13ish lvl requirement... wowzers.

Repeatable dungeons. Don't have anyone to play with/like to solo? Play solo mode. Want to get better loot? Get a party going and do a harder mode. Like a certain quest b/c it hard the perfect mix of story, enemies, loot? Do it over and over.

Hirelings. Best. Idea. Ever. Well actually not ever.. and maybe not the best idea implemented in DDO, but a very good one. Capo and I had a very tough dungeon, and only with the help of 2 hirelings and a summoned creature were we able to squeak by. Without the hirelings, we couldn't have done it, even on lower difficulties. We'd have to find 2 other people to join our group.. which as we know is hard sometimes. Relatively cheap; they last generally for the duration of a quest. Depending on where you are though, the hireling contract may stay with you and only expire in 1 hour, giving you multiple uses and better bang for your buck. Drawback, is they're normally slow, unresponsive and like to watch fights instead of partake.

7/13/2010

Real Id Question..

//in a totally non-confrontational way//

For those that don't support it (i'm on the fence, and haven't thought about it enough).. I ask the question: Do you have facebook?

B/c its kinda the same.. social community.. where you can actually do more but shows your real name IN MOST CASES (I have to bold it b/c I do know people who don't have their real name or have it abbreviated).

And is there a difference?
- I think so, b/c you don't 'have to' use facebook, whereas you have to submit to the RealId features if you use the product.

7/12/2010

Constructive Mondays

Lots and lots of things to do today...

Played DDO with Capo last night over vent; tons of fun. Still loving the reserved items in all chests; Capo gets his designated stuff, and I get mine. No fighting, no ninja looting, or looting during battle. The hirelings in the game is iffy; sometimes they know where to go, othertimes they wait in the back ranks watching the combat. Got my Drow Rogue to lvl ... 3... last night. Lol. It seems (and i love it) that it is gonna take ages to lvl up even with consistent gaming. But thats the charm of DDO and D&D in general, there is no rush to lvl 20; its the journey not the destination.

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Next Fan Expo is coming up...
http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103544925906&s=21924&e=001RCmldLFbpwhaC6wwH3CyzMEJjoaA3FIPejeQDN9zIgU_s_bYYn6EpNV9CWCbneNbHDDlwnPQbEDR3HmHw8yBjM6nrwEChtw-98MXpwdl4mpFp7UEcfNuqw==

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Cosplay fix, right
here

7/08/2010

No i'm not talking about Real Id

Everyone is writing and reading about it, so I won't bore you and go into detail.
Only that.. its a good idea.. but the way it sounds like it's being implemented doesn't sound correct and should be implemented differently. You can't stop the signal (a la Firefly) just like you can't stop people from trolling.

I've read only half-heartedly into why Blizzard is doing this and am not too interested right now, but if we're talking about how to stop trolling my solution would be:
- you'd register you product id and acct id to create a forum acct
- it would show your highest lvl character
- the system would allow others to view all other characters that your account has
That last part seems a bit intrusive, but its not giving away your actual name.. and i don't even want to know how people are finding one's home address via a first/last name search.

I understand FB is really popular.. everyone and your mother is on it, which is amazing.
Social connectivity is important and probably would boost a product's sales.
But I think we need to leave our in-game relationships separate from our real life relationships; I may have friends that I play with every day, talk on vent, share laughs, and personal stuff about ourselves, but that is at our sole discretion and generally only at one time. To get that same information, one would have to ask the person to repeat it or ask someone else who may have remembered.

I found this Venn Diagram on
Gizmondo the other day on social networks and how they apply.. and RealId seems to foster those kinds of behaviors...

Last time I checked ADHD and Stalking aren't good things..

I want to give information about myself only at the time of my choosing and only that one time, unless that person is a good friend who has the ability to ask me at that time. Personal information should not be floating out there as there can be truly nightmarish things that can be done with it.

so much for not writing too much..

7/07/2010

Dr. Horrible is Great & so is DDO



Edit:
I've been playing DDO with my friend Capo and its very enjoyable:
- its different than your normal mmo; like i've read before, instead of an open-world small number of dungeon format, its the opposite with confined world with many dungeons

- don't have to worry about loot; Capo likes to loot.. and loot fast and first leaving me normally with alot less; in DDO the chest reserves items for each of us individually so I can open the chest at my leisure

- its complex; just like how D&D is complex, you have to plan your character out at the beginning, otherwise you'll be seriously gimped

- no wrong way to play it; make your wizard wear plate armor? sure, you won't be too effective, but its fun and a different way that the game allows you to try out

7/05/2010

Wasted Money

If you remember a long while ago, I got Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 b/c the gf wanted to play it together, but wasn't impressed when Microsoft/Activision removed the dlc for some undisclosed reason besides it being unpopular. Maybe if it was worth the money, people would get it.

Anyways; they apparently are bringing the dlc back for a limited time.. so get it if you're interested.

http://kotaku.com/5577517/ultimate-alliance-2-dlc-makes-a-comeback

But they lost my money.
I was ready back then, but now its too late; first thing: make worthy dlc. Don't just make it for the ignorant and make us hate you for wasting our money. Second: pulling it should only be because its not worthy and don't put up more dlc that is just the same.

7/01/2010

The near fatal stubbed toe..

People get really riled up when they talk about the World Cup.. especially about their teams and national pride... I get passionate when I talk about how much I hate the spectacle..

http://tv.gawker.com/5577013/jon-stewart-takes-on-world-cup-refereeing-diving-and-americas-problem-with-soccer

I just hate how these soccer players act like such babies and cry "oh my leggggg!!! you cut it off!!!" And after the call, they dust themselves off and are miraculously healed! Give me hockey any day of the week.

http://tv.gawker.com/5577013/jon-stewart-takes-on-world-cup-refereeing-diving-and-americas-problem-with-soccer