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.

Undying

I thought it was interesting on how my friend texted me the other day to tell me that he got into WoW for the umpteenth time. I was like "again?" How many times will we get dragged into (in particular) the same mmo? Doesn't it get boring? Don't we remember the reason why we left in the first (second/third/etc) place?


I've gone back to WoW myself only once. And that was because it was *ahem* 'free'. But it was exactly how it was X amt of years ago and I promptly quit for the same reasons as before.


This article is more about the creative ways companies lure you (back) to their game. For Blizzard, if you re-sign up for WoW for a 12mth sub, they will level one of your characters to 80 and you'll get a 'free' copy of Diablo 3. Now a free copy of D3 sounds great.. but thats 100$ you're shelling out for a free game. If you count that you're getting 2 games for 100$, yes you're getting a discount.. but not much of one.


I do like companies that lure you with nostalgia by giving you older games with the game you purchase. Say (for example) on Steam, you pre-purchase Heroes of Might and Magic 6, you may get while you wait, a copy of Heroes 5 to tide you over and thank you for the pre-purchasing. Its no more expensive than buying it normally or from somewhere else, but you get the perk of an additional game. 


I recently got an email from SWTOR about how there is a free week (or two) that you can re-install the game, and as long as you have an account, can just play for free without entering any credit card information. Now, had money been an issue for me, this would be a great way to get me to play again and get (for EA's sake) hooked again. That wasn't the case, so I chose not to participate. Having free full game access without the hassle of re-entering credit card information is a new initiative that I think is positive.


I find that bribing me back with in-game items or xp-boosts aren't particularly effective. For those with a high need for instant gratification, I guess it is effective but it can neer be too overpowering to upset the current active playerbase. 


What incentives are effective to pulling you back to a particular game?

SW:TOR Failed

..for me.


But looks like for the rest of the blogosphere, not for you.
Bioware did a great job and i'm just being a bit playful when saying it failed b/c it did a great job.


For an mmo that seemed to concentrate on personal stories with countless in-game conversations and dialogue trees, it certainly raised the bar for storytelling. Probably what I liked best about TOR, it made you care about what your character was about and who you travelled (companion) with. 

As a Sith Inquisitor, there were countless times I roleplayed a kind Sith/Revanite, when it probably would have been easier to be naturally cruel and dominant. My Imperial Agent (Sniper) was all about doing what he wanted, being a flirt and being a space ace. Unfortunately Kaliyo is bi-polar and very hard to read, resulting in frequently failed dialogues. Being impulsive (greedy yet merciful unless being pushed around) resulted in alot of darkside points.. but looking in the mirror scared me to be a bit nicer and appear less corrupted. My bounty hunter was all about honor, mercy and money which was normally about lightside points but I couldn't see my face b/c it was covered by (normally) nice-looking helmets. I showered my heal-bot Mako with countless technology-related gifts which gave me a quest for Nar Shaddaa.. which appeared to be bugged.


I enjoyed playing my Sith Assassin b/c he was able to stealth and will always remember the time I was in a Balmorran droid factory and smartly told my gf to wait while I jumped down a shaft to explore. The place was crawling with high level champion droids. Thanks to stealth, i carefully made my way back up without dying.


The Sniper got the farthest; Alderaan. It was incredibly tough to keep Kaliyo geared; maybe its b/c no one was healing her, but even fights against 3 weak creatures, she'd come away with only a quarter life left. She frequently died, especially when fighting bosses. The only character to play pvp, I could see it being a good class to play pvp when specced correctly, though difficult with the current way the cover system works.


The Powertech bounty hunter was fun, but could see it wouldn't be too good in pvp as it seemed like most abilites required me to be stationary which isn't usually a good idea. I loved Mako, always keeping me up.. kinda found her two speccs (healing or dps) a bit silly as neither gave too big a bonus. Probably the only companion that I associated with; she was loyal to her friends but also liked making a profit. Was specced to lower heat periodically which resulted in never overheating again; best specc ever.


Storyline isn't everything though; the same things that bothered be at the beginning, continued to the end without any attention/patching. PvP without tiers was kind of stupid imho; sure it allowed you to play with your friends ... unless they were already lvl 50. The rewards for pvp though good, didn't have a big enough effect; WAR had the ability to take keeps and storm your enemy's capital city sometimes restricting your own access. THAT was interesting. Isn't there supposed to be a war between Jedi and Sith? Sure, but only in instanced areas.. or if you consider Illum's zone control swapping 'pvp.' I think when I saw the youtube video of Jedi and Sith taking turns to be slaughtered to get zone control points, I lost all respect for pvp. Not to mention Huttball... which.. is just silly.


Other things that was too annoying for me for a triple A mmo was the stacking of items and companion follow distance. Seemingly small things, they are actually important to an mmo to me. How does the game not know to smartly put similar items into the same stack? And as I said before, the companions stood too close resulting on clicking on them instead of the corpse to loot. Of course it could be the opposite, like in Skyrim where you are attacking a creature and expect your companion to help when they are nowhere to be found. Or when you lose them completely and can't get them back, the follow distance for Skyrim was flawed as well. Bioware did good in some respects for follow distance but like Neverwinter Nights, I'd prefer to set the distance between close, medium or far. 


So thats it? Storyline-centric, stacking and follow distance breaks the game for me?
I never really intended on TOR to be my main interest; Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be it and I didn't even plan on trying TOR. TOR does a respectable job but 'respectable' doesn't carry everyone's interest forever. 


ps. Kudos for good looking non-human races (Chiss, Twi'lek) but I don't like the jumping puzzles for Holocrons

A day in the life of an Imperial Agent

I was just thinking about last night's game session in SW:TOR with my Imperial Agent and made the connection between the game and real life in whether they got the idea of an elite terror cell that trains in a desert from Afghanistan.


Convenient that in Tatooine there is a terrorist cell who is assisted by the locals to repel the occupying 'invaders.'


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And I hate the sand people.. just because. Giving me a quest to reward shedding their blood is just icing on the cake.


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Modding gear becomes quite involved when a significant part of both you and your companion's gear is moddable. I guess like any mmo, you strongest/highest lvl character will have weaker gear at the same level as newer characters b/c they have to go through the growing pains of leveling their crafting skill. Once that skill is leveled, the gear can be given and used by alts that reach the appropriate requirement right away, instead of possibly 1-3 levels too late.


That being said, Kaliyo really needs better gear.. her armor seems paper-thin and we always need to rest, even when fighting groups of weak creatures.


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I got camped by my first lvl 50 last night while questing in Tatooine. I realize its my own fault picking a pvp server and that its inevitable that ill get ganked.. so I wasn't upset when it happened. I was subsequently corpse camped.. and my intelligence doubted when he tried to stay outside of sight, waiting for me to respawn. I did eventually respawn to finish my quest and knew he'd be hot on my tails so I ran into an exhaustion zone to deprive him of a satisfying kill.

Taxi!

Lets learn something!

Apparently to be implemented into the future: Anti-Aliasing

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I didn't understand when I first read it. A blogger complaining about how much back-and-forth unnecessary walking there was in SW:TOR. I'll be the first to confirm that there are alot of open spaces in the game.. but possibly created to give a sense of size and enormity unlike the cities in Skyrim which are rather small and compact.


Then it happened to me.

My sniper was done destroying the terrorist cell in Nar Shaddaa and was tasked by a dark lord of the sith to track down a man of great importance with connections to her murdered father. From the ship, back to Nar Shaddaa, capturing the person, back to the ship, talking to the Keeper, travelling to Drommund Kaas *gasp* from the docking area, to the spaceport, to the taxi, to the taxi end point, into the capital city, another taxi to the Sith hq, talk to the dark lord. Hand in lousy quest for a pat on the head. Taxi back to main plaza area, walk to next taxi area, take taxi to the spaceport, spaceport to the docking area, enter ship, use the holoterminal to find out which planet to go to next... etc etc etc!


Simply.. too much walking. Fail.


Oh and 40k in credits just to learn how to fly a speeder? Gimme a break.

Invigorate

There can be something to be said that the leveling system in mmo's like Star Wars has it right. In that, your character starts with a small assortment of skills and slowly gains a few skills throughout their lifetime. In not swamping the player with all the skills, all at once, the player will learn to master the skills. 


My passion for Star Wars has been rekindled over the weekend when I started playing with my initial solo (vs the one I only played with my gf) character. It had been ages (2+ weeks easily) in which I even did a space mission with my Sniper. I decided with my upgraded pc, it would be a good time to test out pvp. It was a mistake, I didn'remember my skills, how they worked, how my talents were specced, nothing. I'm not a total noob at games though and managed to stay in the middle of the pack and provide decent dps.

Bottom Right area: Datacron!

It took a good couple hours of pve to determine what was the best configuration for my hotbars.. once again it was a poignant reminder that Bioware really needs to do something about a customization UI, as I tend to use 3+ horizontal hotbars at the bottom and don't like using vertical hotbars on the sides of the screens.


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I wonder if dark side characters in the universe that was Star Wars noticed the change in their appearance as they got more evil. 


I noticed to my horror last night, that my Sniper started getting veiny cracks at the sides of his eyes and mouth. It was ugly to say the least and nothing like the scars or facial blemishes you add during character creation. I quickly checked my darkside points and saw that I was less than 100 points from reaching Dark II. Making this connection, my character decided to be a bit less bloodthirsty and a bit more merciful and a few quests later his skin was nice and smooth again.


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There needs to be a bit more variety in armor and helmets in Star Wars. My bounty hunter had the same Cyclops-like helmet for over 13+ levels and only at the end of the Nar Shaddaa quests was he rewarded with a new spider-like helmet. 

I've never seen a helmet drop from loot yet and have only seen one or two other helmets available from different vendors.


Without color dyes, everyone tends to look the same and thats a bit sad.


In a galaxy far, far away.. everyone had the same color clothes.

And the Pendulum swings..

..the other way..

With a simple respec of my Powertech Bounty Hunter, TOR became enjoyable and exciting again, even if it was for a short time. I like it when my games are fun and exciting BUT not addictive; for when its not addictive I don't feel the need to (obviously?) play all the time and abandon other areas of life.


Although there are alot of things that bother me with TOR and thus have decreased my time with the game, it would be unfair to not talk about a few things that I enjoy.


Strong Storyline
Different for each class and i've found, in particular Nar Shaddaa, different quests for different class specializations (ie. Sith Assassin vs Sith Sorcerer). Thats a nice touch.. especially since there is exact class mirroring between factions. Not to give away spoilers, but the Imperial Agent will be searching for terrorists that blew up an Imperial cruise killing thousands of civilians, while the Sith Inquisitor is looking for important artifacts for their sith master.

Something is just wrong with this picture..

Decisions
I think in life in general, people do better when they have a choice. You can tell me to do the dishes right now and ill be a bit resistant. But if you tell me if I can do the dishes between x time and y time, I will choose the time to do it and do a great job and have less resistance to it. TOR does a good job of giving the player decisions to make in the game. Better still, some decisions branch out with different results later. For example, my gf decided to kill a sith prisoner which was the son of an important npc, while I decided to let him go. When we went back to our individual instanced area, the npc attacked my gf for killing his son while he was estatic that I helped his son.


Although a bit hard when only using your first companion (b/c the droid that comes with your ship is pathetic) that may not be of the same dark/light alignment as you are, being able to choose an outcome really makes you care about your character. It makes me think twice when I play my 'light side' sith assassin when people betray me as it makes me think twice about punishing people and instead try to be more merciful and spare them. It upsets my companion, but I follow the type of way I believe my character would act in that situation.


Space combat
Although becoming a bit tedious as there are only 5 different missions right now that are exactly the same each time I play through, it reminds me of the game Freelancer. Good experience and good money, not to mention a currency that can be used to purchase high level goods. 

Friday Musings

Happy soon-to-be Friday!
Here is a nice (if not over-played) MTG teaser trailer to Dark Ascension.




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I haven't been blogging too much about TOR b/c I think I realized i'm not having too much fun with it as before. Just like that *click* and what was very addictive, became 'meh.'


Lets go through the process of what makes TOR difficult to play and may damn the company when people are done with their first month of gametime.


Lack of money
Playing solo with my Bounty Hunter, I never truly struggled making money and surprised myself when I finished some quests in Nar Shaddaa and had 61k in credits. The problem i've seen is that crafting is a huge money sink especially when you're not doing Slicing as any gathering missions become very expensive. Second, skills become hugely expensive to purchase as you level. Crafting skills and class skills become very expensive; at level 23, although my Bounty Hunter had 61k, one class skill at that level cost 4k; I actually dread leveling up for fear that it'll cost me an arm and a leg, not to mention having to save up 25k for a mount.


Modding
Although I like the idea of modding your equipment to stay up to date with your level and not having to rely on drops to have the near-best gear, modding is a big time sink. I waste spend alot of time with two crafters just making items and breaking them down to level their skill. Then I need to make sure the proper characters with the correct gathering skills are gathering unique metals/fabrics/etc. Then I have to ensure that I gain the blue/purple recipes for the mods. By that time, my character is 2 levels higher than the mod I need and I can make the next version of the mod. This process seems slow, inefficient and tedious.


Companions
Simply: they stand far too close to you.
Always. Always, they're standing on your lootable corpse. 


Travelling
I appreciate the functions of Quick Travel, Imperial Fleet Pass, and tons of taxi waypoints, but there is alot of travel to get to things I need in the game. In Nar Shaddaa, the mailbox is so far away from the Cantina; I honestly don't see a problem with it being in the Cantina or right outside. In Balmorra, there are no crafting skill trainers, so a person would need to go to get to the Imperial Fleet. Sure you can use the Imperial Fleet Pass, but then what? You need to go to the spaceport hanger, jump into your ship, go to the holomap and select Balmorra, travel there, exit the ship, take a shuttle to the spaceport, go through the spaceport THEN take a taxi to wherever you last needed to quest. Thats ALOT of unnecessary travelling.


Stacking
For the love of god; when you get similar items, or move them from your inventory to your bank and vice versa, it should stack appropriately. Why would the game put it in a separate stack? Another time sink, if you care about organization in your inventory/bank.

PvP
Disclaimer: I haven't done pvp yet, but I reserve the right to comment about it.
No tiered pvp? 
Seriously what mmo does that? stick level 10s against level 50s?
Sure, one will argue that everyone is leveled to 50 to create a more balanced playfield and allows you to play with your higher lvled friends, but is that really the case? No. Higher level players will have higher level skills that lowbies won't even possess. Higher level players will also have talent points that lower level plays won't have either. 
Yes yes, skill and teamwork will triumph over these imbalances.. but it makes a big difference to me.

Status: SW TOR

Gone fishing gaming

TOR - All Caught Up

See: found some time to write ;)

Some things i've noticed today while playing TOR:
- my computer plays the game, encounters little lag, but chugs.. I need an upgrade to my pc

- I love crew skills and sending my companions out on missions while i'm doing other things (handing in quests, organizing); its like a little mini game and very satisfying

- I panic when my sniper is overwhelmed by melee enemies... dunno if this is my class..

- I like the idea of a lightning magic caster.. but I don't do as much damage as i'd like.. maybe its the drawback when you can heal as well

- why can't I craft myself? I'm too good to sully my own hands with crafting!

- I miss public quests; even with Heroic areas, people don't really group or work together.. i'd really like some better gear

- Sith Sorcerer at lvl 14, while my Sniper is lvl 12..

- Slicing (stealing & thievery it seems), is really cool; getting stuff for my future ship; though Cybertech (the making of modifications for equipment) isn't that interesting b/c not many gear can be modded so far

Its a bit hard to see, but I looooove Biochem.. a REUSEABLE health pack!
BUT. You can only use it IF you have the Biochem skill...
Totally didn't read that part :(

Merry Christmas everyone! =)

Catching Up - TOR Day 2

SW:TOR Day 2 Impressions


Had my bro run my Sith Inquisitor through the two Heroic instances.. the loot was good, but not outstanding. The cutscenes when handing in each quest makes you feel like you're part of something really important. Its a double-bladed sword b/c it makes me think that there is something special I may be missing out on if I don't do the heroic instances. It was unfortunately not the case and just some blue loot. I'm guessing at higher levels, these heroic quests will be chained and lead to better rewards.


Got my first follower, a tank, which I can equip with gear. I love that; the ability to equip my companion. I got to customize him too by picking a custom skin for him... unfortunately.. I picked red and the game gave me green instead. RED MEANS STOP! I guess alot of people will pick red anyways... so my guy will still be unique.


I found my Inquisitor would run out of mana/Force after fighting 2-3 enemies at a time.. so when I picked my advanced class of Sorcerer, I was surprised that somehow my mana/Force had increased 5fold. So it was a bit disappointing when I realized I may have wasted my initial talent point in getting 50 more force (can't find the screen/area that tells me what my total force was).


Travelled to and got lost in the capital city of Kaas City. An initial quest sends you to each corner so you know where certain things are (cantina, vendors, trainers etc).


Picked up crew skills of bioanalysis, biochem and diplomacy. My tank failed at his diplomacy quest, but brought back some nice biological compounds that I used to make medpacs. Reverse engineered one (to get mats back and to get something special).. just got mats back.. dunno if i want to spend the time to reverse engineer it. BUT this is the best time in the game: when you don't know whether reverse engineering the medpacs will yield something special. Most people don't know that answer without them trying it!


I found.. that once you left the starter planet, there was very little direction as to what you're supposed to do and where you're supposed to be. I knew I had to get to my Sith Lord in the capital city.. but there was a space station, a town and a heroic area between there. I got so lost, I just took a speeder to the capital city when I hit the heroic area b/c it was too dangerous there!

Revanite

My Twi'lek Sith Inquisitor confuses me. 

He's supposed to be evil but is nice to mostly everyone. He normally doesn't provoke people, but does lose his anger and kills without thought. He's supposed to be on the Empires side... but actively does things that undermines it (ie. telling a brainwashed jedi that its a trap).

I can only imagine he does this because the Sith treats him badly, always calling him a slave. What they don't know is while one hand is entended in friendship, the hand behind his back holds a dagger.

The game at first seems pretty linear and doesn't reward you for exploring; I decided to prove them wrong and investigated an elevator in the dig site of Korriban. As it climbed, I was disappointed to not see any people on the platform, but THEN excited to see an openable chest. Inside the chest, a magic item. Nice.

When you "hearth" in TOR, you actually pick from any save point that you've located in the area. VERY useful. No longer do you have to go to the original 'inn' to save.

An acolyte was spared force lightning interrogation with kind words.

Somehow got Lightside points by sabotaging the research of a Sith lord.


This Inquisitor helps everyone.. even if the task can be considered 'evil'. Because of his past, he'll normally try to minimize any pain inflicted on others.


Realized mid boss-battle that this was a Heroic quest requiring more than one member and saved myself by putting a medpac in my hotbar. Ressed a player that was trying to run in and out of the instance instead of getting help.


Helped a new player discover the way to collect artifacts is by right-clicking on them.


My Sith Overseer has it in for me; so while his pet sith apprentice is sent to the library in the next room to translate a manuscript, I'm sent to a deathtrap. Even when I bring the holocron back to him, he insults me, suggesting that I stole it from somewhere else.


He's on my naughtly list.

SW: TOR Catch up 1

My SW:TOR Day 1 Experience

My brother picked the game up for me while I was at work (thank you thank you).

Came home.. took an hour to install the game; the problem stemmed while talking to my girlfriend on msn, RIGHT when I pressed enter to send a message to her, the pop-up screen came up telling me to enter disc 2. By pressing enter, it made the pc think I just put the disc in and it forever reason couldn't proceed further. Had to turn off the pc fully. 

No problems making my TOR account.

Tried to log into the Launcher... annnd it kept giving me an error that I wasn't in a registered country... I know some Americans don't like us, but come'on we have Canadian bacon! 2 beavers are better than one!

When I finally got that working (somehow), it went to the opening trailer, which i've seen a few times, so I pressed the Escape button.. wrong move. The game crashed.

Ok. Lets reload, but no skipping the opening cutscene.

Crashed before it even got there.

Crash.Crash.Crash.Crash.Crash.Crash.Crash.

GRRRRRRRRRRR

My skin was turning the same color as the pureblood Sith.

Ok. Canyourunit.com

Tested it... and its all the way to the right. Thats a good thing.

 
Run as administrator?
Crash.


Repair button/function?
none.
Crash.


Turn off anti-virus temporarily?
Crash. Crash.


Turn off need for pc to notify when doing updates?
Crash.Crash.Crash.


Install newest version of Quicktime?
Requires a restart...ok.
...
About.. to .. crash..
wait!
EULA and Terms of Service in the launcher.. well thats new.
Crash?
nooooooo...


And thats how you fix a crashing Launcher!


Oh wait... there is my server...


Annnnnd i'm in queue... with 990 people infront of me. WoW


Over an hour later i'm still in queue, but I eventually get in, get ALL my names for my characters with no funny spelling (actually, I won't make a character with an altered name). Happiness meter is filling up.


Playing. Taking Screenshots, because everyone likes screenshots.
Enjoying zero lag, no crashes.


I stop when I tell myself to stop (playing)... instead of when I tell myself to stop when I'm playing Skyrim.


Dreams of SW:TOR.

Three Days of TOR

I have tons of entries saved up and it would be nice if I could post them, but its that, or finish off the gifts for my co-workers for Christmas...

Coworkers win.

But I know you're all too busy playing the game anyways. Entries to come today after work!

Secret Weapon

Normally MTGMintCards.com is pretty good with their shipping to Canada. Normally only 1 week, even though they say 1-2.. but come Monday, it'll be going into 3 weeks.. hoping it comes before Christmas..

Got to try a bit of TOR on my brother's pc today. Not bad... saved 2 names which is one of the most important things when playing any game.

Love the cut-scenes whenever I talk to npcs and hearing my voice when I choose my dialogue. Looking forward to playing on Tuesday when it releases. 


Though, i'm not looking forward to the 15 min queue I was in...

SW:TOR Quick Question

Once again, will be joining the hordes (if i can get two copies) on the 20th to play TOR, had a question for those currently or soon to be playing:

1. The specializations(say Sith Juggernaut and Marauder); is this a one time only choice and you can't change your choice, or is it similar to the soul system of Rift, where you can easily switch souls?

We only need to wait 3 days..

Getting mentally prepped for TOR; just finished Star Wars, episodes 4-6... been watching the animated Clone Wars series.. and here are some official vids to keep up going up to the 13th (for early access people) and i'll probably see you (& blog about it) on the 20th!

TOR and Mirrored Classes

I don't have any real SW:TOR beta experiences or blogs b/c I didn't apply nor got into it and could only talk about what I saw briefly from watching my younger brother play. That being said, I have been reading your blogs and something I read was unsettling: Mirrored Classes.

Something I detest is classes that are shared against enemy factions. Especially when there are only 4 classes in TOR. Yes, there are specializations, but aren't they mirrored too? Once again, haven't done much research and haven't really read it on any blogs, but i'm quite sure its just another name for another class. If you have mirrored/shared classes, make sure you have 7+ classes. It was a bit odd to see my brother in Flashpoints/instances that consisted of just one class.

I did enjoy the fact that although there was class mirroring in WAR, Mythic did it right. The racial pairings had different class mechanics, so technically 10-12 different classes. Even then, the talents were unique (thinking about Pounce).. the pets were unique..the armors were different. You knew your opponent was a Black Orc, or a High Elf Swordmaster. Similar but not exactly the same.

Before I nitpick about Skyrim, lets just put it out there: Its a great game. I would seriously argue it is a GOTY. If I had it for PC, I would be able to tell you how many insane hours i've logged in just two weeks, but i'm guessing about.. 50+ easily.

That being said: I don't like how there is a high amount of invincible npcs in the game.

There should be some way to determine whether a character in Skyrim is killable or not. I'm already pretty paranoid (due to initial 360 data corruption issues) and save often, and this has saved me lots of fines and prison time, as i've found out the hard way that some seemingly innocent npcs are unkillable. It feels like a good 25% of them have this VIP status which takes away from seamlessness of the environment.

Dragon Con 2011

It just came to me, that the other pictures of cosplay wouldn't really interest most people, since it dealt with non-mmo games. Here are some Star Wars cosplay shots that I took from the Fan Expo, 2 weeks ago.


Here is a link to some Dragon Con photos.

And another one here. 

I'm happy to report that these shots look better than the photos on those at Kotaku =)

Alot of my shots that i've reviewed can be found on my Deviant Art site.

This girl was a fantastic model; great facial expressions!