Borderlands 2 & XCom: Reasons to Never Go Outside Again

So as the title says it, having a blast with both Borderlands 2 and XCom: Enemy Unknown and trying my best not to get addicted. Borderlands 2 released their most recent dlc: Captain Scarlet: And Her Pirate Booty. I haven't had much of a chance to play it as i've been saving it to play with my gf exclusively. 

In the meanwhile, I've been trying the new Mechromancer class which I believe is the older Tiny Tina from the normal storyline. You may notice how her left arm is robotic and there is a very interesting Echo recording on how that came to be. 

The class, to say the least is amazingly easy to solo. Even with a 60 second cooldown which I thought was too long, it is an incredibly powerful skill; it stays on the field for a good 20-30 seconds, flies, has tons of life (i'm lvl 22 and it has only died twice) and has good dps. It also is really adept at shooting down the annoying Rakks and Buzzards with it's lightning wave.. and gets even stronger with it's laser beam skill: The Stare. Its like having a second person to play with almost all the time, that draws agro better and doesn't die. If you hate pugging but find solo too difficult at times, this may be your class! Countless parts in which I had massive problems with my other classes, the Mechromancer passed it without breaking a sweat.

About 10 years ago, the game looked like this; notice how aliens will be camping RIGHT outside the dropship to get cheap kills.

I played the original XCom: Terror From the Deep (TFtD), which was apparently the worst and the hardest. This (XCom: Enemy Unknown) is an incredibly addictive game; I thought Heroes of Might and Magic where I was going "one more turn" was bad. Or with Skyrim in which it takes forever to log out, b/c there is just one more thing you need to do, put away or explore. You know what hooks you in this game? The missions seem so short.. that in your head, it takes 5-10 minutes, but in reality, it takes about 20-25.. and when you scan and build and research and do all the micromanagement there is in the game.. what you also think takes mere minutes.. whoops, its 2.5 hours later than when you promised to turn it off.

There are many sites and forums with helpful tips on this newest (and best! I say best b/c I can actually complete a mission without having a single agent die) iteration of XCom and I would have posted some links, but I can't find any. So here are a few of mine:

1. Whenever you can, build satellites. Players say to save them for the end of the month and launch them in unhappy countries to prevent them from leaving... not so sure about that.

2. Get medkits. I never bought or used medkits before in TFtD. Mostly because I didn't know how to use them and the alien's weapons were so powerful, they crumpled and died anyways from one shot. Get your support (i'd recommend 2) leveled up so they can carry 3 medkits with them. Alive units means they get more powerful AND less wounded time.

3. Assault classes and Run&Gun skill. Don't underestimate this skill. I normally have 2 assault class units with me which run into rooms and guarantee me two dead aliens. The ability to run extremely far distances and STILL shoot, with 100% chance to hit AND possibly do critical damage, is really effective.

Fast forward 10 years later.. look ma! I'm gorgeous!!!

In my first playthough, I thought Priority missions were .. a priority and tried to complete them right away such as the one with researching the Arc Thrower which is used to capture aliens. I learnt in my second playthrough that the game will wait for you and give you other missions if you choose not to do it right away. There are 2 findings to this though: 1. Although you have more time to research, build and get stronger, you're doing more missions where you have to choose between 3 different countries when there are alien abduction missions. This results in 1 happy country but 2 unhappy countries. I've found in my 2nd playthrough, I have alot more unhappy countries. 2. The enemies get stronger as you get stronger. I may have played the same amount in real hours in my 2nd playthough, but nowhere as far into the story as my first and i'm facing against incredibly strong aliens I never saw in the first. So its my belief, the game can tell when you are getting stronger and adjusts the difficulty accordingly (which I like).

Its on my wishlist that there is some kind of sandbox mode for this game; I feel although I can avoid the main storyline, eventually you'll get to a point where you have to complete it, otherwise the aliens may get too strong or too many countries will abandon XCom. Unfortunately, that is the thing about the game, without there being a story, sandbox mode may lose it's meaning.

Borderlands 2: A Bazillion Reasons

I highly recommend Skyrim to any serious RPG enthusiast; huge wide open world, hundreds of npcs and quests, thousands of ways to customize your character. In depth character skill trees, player housing, a slew of potential followers. Dragons!

The pc version is unfortunately not very stable which prevented me from adding 200+ (not kidding) more hours than I wanted; my version kept crashing to desktop at a high frequency rate. If this is happening to you, i'd recommend the thing that 'seemed' to fix it *now I cross my fingers this doesn't jinx me*:
Sound settings:
Control Panel>Sound>Playback>Properties>Advanced: Set the default format to: 16bit 44hz

Beautiful Vistas! 

Without much more ado, more Borderlands cosplay to get us more excited for tomorrow's release!

Bandit, Hunter & Siren

Wide Angle lens possibly used.

Borderlands 2: Countdown!

Yep, you guessed it; Borderlands 2 is sneaking up on us.. finally something else besides Skyrim.
Some amazing Borderlands (1) cosplay:

The Siren & The Hunter

If you're getting the game, what class do you think will be your main? I'm thinking probably the Assassin (specced for melee), with my alt being the Commando (dual turret specc).

I've always found it curious how we play our games, in particular mmos.
Customization has always been very important to us to cater to the way in which we play, to maximize our effectiveness.

In Warhammer Online I would end up with 5 rows of action bars to accomodate all the skills and abilities of my character. I would have the UI show all 5 bars one on top of each other in a vertical fashion so that i could have my mouse in the middle of what would look like a square/rectangle. This would allow me to access all the skills easily, going up, down, left or right.

Neverwinter Nights got it right in a way, by having hotkeys via CTRL, ALT or SHIFT buttons for numbers 1 to + (I believe) since there was 'less' visible UI customization.

I look at Thrangis' pictures of the new Guild Wars 2 of what looks to be hotbars. One hotbar and skills changing, depending on what main & offhand weapons one has. Being able to assign numbers 6+ for misc/other abilities.

I truly look forward to a game where I don't have a huge plethora of skills that I need to find a place for quick access to. Maybe something with more strategy, and body placement, rather than pressing a combination of the same keys for abilities. Where a battle will be different each time even if its against the same monster.

This kind of wish, reminds me of one of the best Wii games i've ever played: Monster Hunter Tri. (Granted the Wii didn't really have 'good' games that I liked). It was an single player game that you could play like a mmo, just think of it like Borderlands (drop in, and drop out ability). You battled big monsters all the time, and you had only a small amount of attack abilities (more like different kind of thrusts: high attack, low sweep attack, quick attack, strong attack). It didn't emphasize the many special skills you had or your level, but more of body placement, moving around, dodging and attacking weak points when presented with them. "Mini" boss battles could last an extremely long time (10+ minutes) and we're not even talking about the real bosses. Real bosses would require you to chase them across the map and sometimes require you to run away when you got overwhelmed.

From the videos that you watch in Guild Wars 2 that have released and posted recently on other sites, you see the warrior runs around alot in using his abilities, dodging, weaving, never just standing there and taking the hits except when he actively blocks. Same thing goes with pvp, it looks like there is alot more movement happening.

I'm getting more excited and looking forward to GW2 and even how SWTOR will play..

Short Hiatus

I'll be away for a week or so for a friend's wedding; take care friends.

Recently: during the Christmas Steam sale, I purchased Magic: The Gathering, Borderlands and Disciples 3: Rennaisance

Borderlands
(thought i wasn't gonna blog about that anymore did you, DID YOU??)
Plays fantastic on the pc; I wish I had originally got it for the pc; I have 5 lvl 60+ characters on my 360 account, and I still will play (time permitting) with the pc version; its that good. Easier to aim and control; seems smoother.. feels natural.

Disciples 3
Its a more artistic version of Heroes of Might and Magic. And alot less intuitive; the tutorial sucks. Your army is your lifeblood; if you lose them, its nigh impossible to win. The reason for this is, just like your hero, your army gains experience too. Its a double edged sword; when you're army is high lvled, you're unstoppable, but at the beginning, even fighting 'trash' mobs is a huge challenge. You can res your fallen army at a cost, but if they fall, they don't get any experience if you win the battle.Very few single player non-campaign maps. The inability to pick your starting hero type. Battle is a bit over simplified. Resources collection is a bit convoluted as well.
Its nice; (the price was right at 5$) but only good in small spurts.

Magic: The Gathering
I gotta ask myself this question: why do I keep purchasing games for my pc that I already have for the 360? (Magic, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2)Because it plays better on the pc.
Except for the constant crashing... *cry* This game makes me want to buy the cards (second hand, b/c i'm not paying gobs of money to start fresh) and play with my friends, who I think will actually want to play (we play Munchkins).

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Question: What kind of OS do you have for your pc?
Reasoning: i've been encountering massive amounts of crashing with most of my pc games, including Magic: The Gathering and Fallout New Vegas, even Borderlands

Quest Implementation

Its been less than 24 hours and I see my brother playing against lvl 35+ people in the new Call of Duty game... o.O;;

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How should quests be implemented?

I think it's convenient, and in a way makes sense the way it was implemented in Borderlands; you'd pick up a huge list (8+) of quests, and they'd all be in the general area, if not each major area had an associated quest attached to it. It makes sense that they don't send you to tim-buk-tu (why would they need something from so far away?), and its convenient is you can start in one area and just adventure on to the next without long time periods of inactivity.

At the same time, I think its wrong; should there be THAT many things in the world that needs to be done? Can't anyone do anything? Are npc's so useless that they are literally rooted to the ground (and normally they are sadly), that even when you're not looking, they can't move? Or that there isn't any other adventurers that are up to the task; that no one is capable of shooting a gun or swinging a sword that there are so many things that is wrong/needs to be addressed?

Its a mixed bag on chain quests; sometimes it makes sense that there should be a quest immediately after the completion of one quest, but it makes the quest seem inconsequential if you complete a major milestone in an hour or two? So you, the npc, has been waiting for days, months, maybe years for someone to complete a quest that takes only a few minutes? Weak.

Also with Kill Collector quests, I want to see item rewards in relation to the item you're collecting. In Guild Wars these collectors give you (atleast) a wide variety of item rewards, but wouldn't it be great that if you collected bear pelts, that you'll get a bear pelt backpack.. or cape? Collect skeleton bones, get bone armor (sighhh Ultima Online) or a bone weapon a la Monster Hunter.

I like how public quests are built in that depending on the situation, there may be a quest available, and not always the same one (b/c it might be in a different stage). I also like how it progresses in that its either different, more complex, harder or a combination.

I guess the question is, what other ways are there to implement quests?

Epic

I'll say one thing about the new Borderlands DLC ... its chock-FULL of epic loot. There are certain lockers that 95% of the time has a small money drop or 1 reload of ammo. There is less than a 5% chance of it containing a pistol or class mod (which boosts your talents). After a boss battle, the treasure room only has 2 major red chests (which can hold a combination of weapons or mods plus grenades and ammo) and tons of lockers.

Every single locker contained a rare (blue) or better (epic or legendary) weapon or mod. The following screenshots was my inventory AFTER i dropped some rares and even some epic items..

EVERY. SINGLE. LOCKER.

It was sick.

1 major complaint; my lvl 61 hunter is not getting any experience at all; not because he's defeating really weak enemies (they're about lvl 55ish), but b/c its glitched. Fix plz Gearbox.

It's your call

Lack of posts last week due to some good work related happenings; basically chosen for a product development group that is actually rolling out next week. It was very thinking-intensive, so i'd come home mentally exhausted; it was great though.

Been basically playing the new Borderlands DLC (great to play again, but I have too many alts and all above lvl 50). One of the biggest problems in the new dlc is that there is no rocket ammo at the vending machines!! WTF is that?

I'd insert a picture, but the game is proving me wrong with my lvl 61 that it's probably just a level requirement... bah! You won this round Gearbox!

Haven't played Civilization 5 for quite a while.. don't get me wrong, its a fantastic game; its just its too addictive. You'll be stuck there staring at the screen for hours on end instead of getting anything productive done!! Its VERY hard to just jump on and play for an hour. VERY hard.

Very excited still for Guild Wars 2; i'd post some links, but running out of time; check out Hunter's Insight on the latest and greatest.

It wasn't too bad a monday.

You know you've play too much Borderlands

When you see the CN Tower lit up in purple and think:
"Epic loot drop!!! Mine!!"

I've been playing the new DLC (sorry; its actually 800 points) for Borderlands.. its pretty good. Great drops; with my lvl 61, i've got 2 gold drops every 15 minutes. My lvl 11 character opened a chest there, and out popped a blue and a purple. Sick. I'll provide a better review soon; haven't had much time to play through it (i like to play with friends).

Change is Challenging

Borderlands 360 Avatar items available on the marketplace.
Its easier to go to the avatar customization screen to find them as they show what they look like instead of the game download screen.

New Borderlands patch out tomorrow. Its free, new content, the baddies/game should scale better for more replayability. Can't wait!

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I was thinking about it at work the other day.. when Arenanet says they intend on removing the standard quest options that every mmo employs, will that not remove alot of 'content' from the game? (also be an incredible challenge for them?)

If there is not going to be the traditional quest givers and there is only dynamic events... doesn't that eliminate alot of direction and content that people can experience in Guild Wars 2?

Sure it removes the grind, the text boxes, the journal full of quests and static monsters who respawn in a few minutes. But if they're not there... what else are you supposed to do other than go to the areas that have dynamic events? Will there be alot of wandering monsters then? How will they tell a story? Wandering around provides only so much fun, its nice to have a path to follow.

In my mind, i see a world like Warhammer Online, but every space is filled with public quests. Will there be incentive to stay in a certain area and grind... will there be incentive to go exploring? Will the scout system take away the discovery process, or will it facilitate getting into the action faster?

Civilization 5 is some Awesome Sauce

I would just like to say: Civilization 5 is amazing.

They're right; you're always saying "just...one...more...turn..."
And then you're late to leave to work. Or its 2am... and you feel like another 'short game.'
I'll write up a review on it, but if you don't like wall of text: Its different, but only in the super fantastic way. Its easy to pickup, even for people that possibly haven't played it before.

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Guild Wars 2 Concept: Downed-state

I like this concept of the downed-state in Guild Wars 2. If you're too lazy to read the link, it works like Borderlands; if you lose all your health, you'll go into this state in which you're immobilized but can still fight. In this state if you defeat a monster, you'll get back up with 3/4 health and shields. You have approximately 10-20 seconds (depending on talent perks) to defeat a monster, otherwise you'd die and res at the nearest save point. If you can't defeat a monster in that time period, a team member can run up and manually res you which takes approximately 5 seconds.

I remember playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein on the internet ages ago, in which i'd rack up points playing the medic by running around using the syringe and ressing anyone that had fallen. Fun times; I still had a good weapon to defeat enemies, but had the ability to heal people too.

This will really make a difference in the experience of an mmo I believe. Its not good enough to defeat your enemies in pvp, but anyone has the ability to res a person and come back to life on their own. Though people may not be used to not having set classes that heal, they may find being the support-heavy class instead will be just as satisfying, b/c in their own way (not disclosed yet) they'll be able to keep their teammates from falling.

I hope this downed-state is balanced in that, just like Borderlands (b/c Gearbox nailed it), it would be horrible in (say) a game of Capture the Flag, if half the team was in downed-state and the enemy was capping the points needed. What Borderlands allows you to do is to choose to res while in the downed state if you don't think you can defeat the monster, or if its just more convenient to go to the last save point. This would be good if you lost a skirmish and all ressed at the same time to be able to full coordinate with a stronger group than slowly filtering into the fight (and thus getting demolished 1 at a time).

I'm kind of on the fence on whether doing damage to the downed-player should make the downed-time bar go down faster. In the original Borderlands, damage didn't affect the time of the downed-state bar, you always had the same amount of time to defeat a monster. But in the Zombie DLC for Borderlands, if certain zombies (the slow kind) hit you while in that state, your time bar rapidly diminished. I liked that (some monsters cause the bar to diminish faster) b/c you'd have to be very careful when playing against that kind of enemy.

Welcome back Monday....

*slap!*

The only good thing about this Monday is that its the day before the release of Civilization 5.. so i'll forgive you this time.

Tokyo Game Show cosplayers here

And to poke fun at those Westboro Baptist Church fanatics:

The Best Friday there can be!

Your day just instantly became better:

Your future Bloodelf hottie, Alodia Gosiengfiao for the possible future World of Warcraft movie wishes you a happy Friday.

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For a rather good Civilization 5 preview from Kotaku, go here.

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Aha! I shall be able to continue to write more entries on Borderlands as there is apparently a new dlc in the works. It seems to heavily favor the Claptraps.

21 quests apparently in this one; 9 Main story, 12 side quests. No word on lvl cap increases or what lvl you need to be to access this area.

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Below is a giant touchscreen version of Catan... looks really cool :D

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.

Happy Friday

I never realized how popular the Little Big Planet was on the PS3, but 2 million levels? Thats pretty impressive. I probably shouldn't show this, b/c the gf is going to really want this game, when it's full priced at 69.99/79.99$ at EB :P Some really cool looking games in the number 2; especiall the top down racers! Loved those kinds!

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I want to see more games in the future which has more realistic elemental effects.
Fire should cause a chance to burn via a dot.
Ice should either cause a slow down of movement of limbs (decreasing speed or attack rate)
Acid should burn through armor or weapons (decreasing defence or attack).
Explosive should explode (knockback or extra damage?).
Lightning should cause a chance to disable a certain function (versus ice which just slows down)

In Neverwinter nights, these elemental effects were just an added type of damage which may be a good choice if they are resistant to other forms of damage. Mass Effect 2 had more elemental realism but was also more limited, as you could either light your enemies on fire, or turn them into ice. The buffs that did more damage or shot through shields weren't too graphically impressive.

Borderlands (yes, Borderlands) seemed to have this down pat, except for the lightning part (though the ability to reduce shields quickly is helpful). It is missing the ice elemental ability.. which i'm hoping for the future.. (come on, more DLC!)

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Does this screen look familiar?

Its Syndicate and looks like we're in for a remake!!!! Woot! I really wish the new XCOM game that is being developed stayed true to it's form and was a turn based strategy game (when was the last good one?)

Busy busy

The next Borderlands?

In development by Id Software, the same makers of Quake and Doom...
Read more here

Added my Deviant Art link, Pat's and Soto's website links. All great photos found on each site. Give it a look if you have time =)

More cosplayers!

Get your fix =)

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This is another pay plan I was thinking that you don't see... or atleast that I haven't seen yet.

Pay-as-you-go:
1.50$-2.50$ an hour
To the normal 15$ a month

So that comes out to approximately 6-10 hours a month..For people with limited game time; they can pay per hour they play. Great if you don't think you're getting 15$ dollars worth. Obviously the more hardcore players won't even need to look at this option.. though if the company wants to be flexible, they might work out a deal that a specific month they can change from subscription to pay per hour if say they know they'll be busy or on vacation and not have access to the internet/game. Also great for Weekend Warriors who save rest xp for when they have time to play.

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Warhammer Online - Cross Faction Announcement

I'm a little late on the subject, but I did write about it as soon as I read it, just too busy these days to get everything done at one time. I now have a Deviant Art account.. soo i'm gonna be even more busy ;)

Bad. Idea.
I generally would like to think of the positive side to new ideas/concepts.. but I can't really think of how this helps anyone..

Concepts:
More traffic on lower tiers
+ people would re-roll on the same server instead of taking people away from the server
+ these maxed out people won't be facing off against newly maxed out (lvl40) characters, making gear a bit more balanced
- T4 might not be as busy anymore.. possible more server merges?

Balanced servers
+ if a side is too dominant, the dominant people will go over to balance it, while the weaker side can go to the dominant side so they don't lose interest
- communication; there WILL be spying which kind of makes it unfair.. sure there may be spying anyways, but it will be more prevalent (even with lockout timers)
- if you have many characters, you may not have enough character slots

More interest in the game overall
+ losing all the time sucks, going over to the winning side is always nice, having a challenge is also fun
+ no one likes to move (servers), now you can stay on your familiar servers
- its cheap; you don't like losing, go to the winning side :P
- when I make alts, i tend to lose interest in my older characters, I have 2 DoKs, 1 Blackguard, 1 Sorc, 1 Magus and my current favorite: Squig Herder.. add some Order guys.. and i'll losing interest in playing Destro

After re-reading what I wrote.. there seems to be more positives to this than negatives. My main argument is that some people (ie: me) see's this as a cop-out/catering to some whim or just wasn't explained fully and I cross my fingers that it is implemented correctly. I've seen fantastic ideas poorly implemented all the time which resulted in catastrophe and this is not something the Mythic should mess up on. Yes, it sounds fanboi-ish but it isn't meant to; its mostly because a concept such as this cannot really be reversed. People will scream bloody murder if characters need to be transferred or even deleted.

If it has to be done, it has to be fleshed-out and implemented smoothly. Its never good to criticize without giving solutions, so this is my solution, Shadowar is more knowledgeable in timer-lockouts than I am, but i'd go further and say 2 weeks, 14 day lockouts. If you really want to move over, you must stick with it for 14 days; no spying, no just-b/c-i-can-or-feel-like-it, no messing with the opposing faction. Make a commitment to your choice or either play on a different server or get another account.

Update

**Sniff sniff** Possibly last entry on Borderlands...
Go to Keith Thompson's site, he's an artist for Borderlands.

Super talented!

Need a cosplay fix?

Go here

And here is another photo I took..

This is the end of one of the major streets in Toronto's downtown district, called Spadina. I took at the end of the street right at the waterfront and was able to capture that man right in the middle. =)

Lastly.. removed a blogger that updates only once a month... blah.

Happy 150th Blog Entry!

I wasn't paying attention, but I've apparently surpassed a set milestone of 100 entries earlier this year, so I figured we can celebrate my 150th instead, cake and kahlua for everyone!
Its interesting at looking back at what i've written. I'm extremely proud of the site and love the blogging community and found that blogging is my passion, with this first entry quote being the heart of what my blog is about:

//At one employee meeting, there was an anonymous comment that everyone was up in arms about (that they disagreed with). I couldn't stand it.

"Hey guys, first off, I'm not the person that wrote that."
/everyone laughs
"But why not try looking at it as ____________ ?"
/some agree and the tense situation is averted

I've found that my site has grown and developed from a tome unlock help guide to a diaspora of:

off-topic ones, as they are always a fun distraction http://justonemoreunlock.blogspot.com/2010/03/off-topic.html

guest entries as they are always an honor to show http://justonemoreunlock.blogspot.com/2010/03/guest-entry-ffxiii-indepth-review.html

guest entry collaboration
http://justonemoreunlock.blogspot.com/2009/12/dao-lasting-impressions.html

combination of off topic and guest entries http://justonemoreunlock.blogspot.com/2009/12/mini-gift.html

many entries of the great times with Borderlands http://justonemoreunlock.blogspot.com/2010/03/its-miracle.html

ones which showed dlc and the review of it gear.htmlhttp://justonemoreunlock.blogspot.com/2010/01/mad-moxxi-review.html

many many many indepth game reviews http://justonemoreunlock.blogspot.com/2010/02/mass-effect-2-finale.html

counter-arguments for a different perspective
http://justonemoreunlock.blogspot.com/2010/01/counter.html

my love of anime
http://justonemoreunlock.blogspot.com/2009/09/anime-related-art.html

Thank you very much gentle readers. I hope you've enjoyed and taken something away with what i've written and here's to another 150+ entries! Cheers!

Countdown: Three..

Official Mortal Online Vids

The mmo's i'm looking at these days Darkfall and Mortal Online seem to be going for a more realistic feel; a more in your shoes attempt a la first person view. I wonder from the screens I saw in the most recent Mortal Online video whether it is fully in first person view or not. I like FPS such as Borderlands (woo!) and they are great in rpgs such as old favorites like Elder Scrolls: Eye of the Beholder, and it even worked well in Elder Scrolls Oblivion.

But an mmo, fully in first person view? I'm not too sure on that.

Games such as Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights and even Mass Effect needs a different camera angle to fully view and experience the game (hence why I got DA:O for high overhead camera angle), and would be a travesty if they were only captured via first-person view.

I like to look at how my character looks by itself, or with the landscape, or in relation to everything else in the game. Though I played Oblivion mostly in first person view, when it came to melee fighting I thought it was best to play in third person view to see what was around me. Casting and archery was best in first person view as you were more accurate. Oblivion didn't seem to have as many traps as you'd think, but that and jumping puzzles make 3rd person view essential (for proper footing). Not as 'realistic' but it was more fun.

Ghost Recon Vid

Now that April Fool's Day is out of the way, we can blog and not have to think about whether the source is true or not :P

Pretty cool vid; never been much of a Ghost Recon/Rainbow Six fan. I've watched my brother play other other series and it seemed too tactical (see: slow) and not as fluid as Modern Warfare2 or Borderlands.