As a counterbalance to my previous post, I want to talk about the good things coming down the pipe for WAR, and don’t worry Frank, I’m still leaving the perpetually-upbeat, sociopathic-bordering perkiness to your purview. After all, I’m not just some curmudgeon critical of every move that Mythic takes. They’re a great studio and I still really enjoy their game. I also believe that what they do, they do with the best interest of the game in mind. More than anything, we should laud their efforts to try and provide some relief from the current city situation, and they are doing it quickly. So, let me turn that valve, and tell you what relief I hear as the pressure leaks out.

First and foremost, we’ll all be spending less time in a city siege.

Wha? “But Andrew (that’d be me for the uninformed), you said that less time was a bad thing!” Well, yes and no, I said trying to complete the various tasks with their current settings in less time is blatantly retarded. It should go unsaid, but Mythic needs to make sure they adjust VP gain, difficulty, relative contribution of various instances, and all those other little things to make the shortened time not be a hinderance. I say should, only because they obviously forgot to adjust stage 2 with the last changes down to a 24 man encounter from a 48. Regardless, spending less time in the city, means more time fighting out in the field. It doesn’t address the issue of frequency of city sieges, but it does keep us in the field more often. Still, when the inevitable speed bump arrives that will make these occur less often, I’m interested to see if it will revert back to the old time-frames or if the new shorter-intervals will remain.

Scenarios are scenarios and who am I to complain.

Eventually (third time?), I’ll get sick of stage 2, or be all geared out with warlord items. And at least, I’ll have a scenario to do. Here’s hoping for more attacks on IC. Not because I want to kill the enemies city, but because I hate Reikland Factory, with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns. It’s almost as bad as Thunder Valley.

Hopefully all of the other issues can be addressed with future changes, but there are positives here, and I felt it was only fair to address them as well, and give credit where it’s due. Mythic definitely does not get enough love from the many players who enjoy the game they’ve created for us.

To the families of the wounded and the killed out at Fort Hood yesterday. The tragedy committed by one of our own military men on your loved ones bites particularly deep. The betrayal of a brother is the worse kind, but know that the Country extends its hearts and prayers to you in this time of deep sorrow.

Well, Mythic released “short term solutions” for the city siege. They do qualify the statements and ideas with them being only “short-term” solutions, but I think they still fail to properly address the issues people are having. Obviously, I have no idea what the long-term plans are, but these solutions don’t seem to be fully thought out. I really do appreciate them trying to improve the encounter and increase the fun, but these changes don’t really seem like they are addressing the main issues people are having. I would have rather they took a little more time to address the main concerns and issues that people are talking about on the forums and in-game.

Problem: It’s impossible to flip a city raid to stage 2 with any reasonable defense.

Solution: Possibly coming, playtest please.

Problem: The cities are being raided FAR too often. Multiple times a day.

Solution: None

Problem: Stage 2 is a wildly unbalanced PvE encounter that is nigh-impossible to get a properly organized warband into if you weren’t formed ahead of time in stage 1 (the hour previous).

Solution: None

Problem: Stage 2 is so insanely difficult currently, that it’s impossible to advance the attack past that point, and get the various instanced PQs done.

Solution: Now do it in half the time!

Problem: City Siege’s feel pointless and inconsequential.

Solution: City ranks mean even less now.

Problem: All RvR other than the city is killed dead for the entirety of the city siege.

Solution: Still leave a (newly) one hour gap of time where there is no RvR other than a city instance, which often ends up as player vs. objective. But for the remainder you can do the exact same SC over and over again, with no change.

Did everyone but me get their copy yesterday?

Bastards, I want one. Don’t hesitate to send me one, for free. I’ll review it, and even tell everyone I got it for free!

Hudson’s Hideout has closed it’s doors.

Farewell, and happy gaming.

Hitting that wall is a bitch.

I’ve got a pair of different topics I want to talk about right now, one is about the current state of the game in Warhammer. Specifically, the campaign and the road in general to stage 2 of a city invasion. The other, is a juvenile desire I’m strongly trying to suppress. So, I’m going to go with the WAR topic in hopes of being a better person for it. Come back later for the scathing, petulant, adolescent mud-flinging.

The big topic of discussion for those playing in the Warhammer world right now seems to be city sieges and realm balance. In particular how people are doing with the sieges and in large part how the realm balance is affecting that. My home server of Gorfang is interesting in that we’re the only one with Altdorf still at 5 stars, while IC is down to two. However, the vast majority of servers have Destro as the clear dominant faction in the eternal struggle of WAR.

This dominance is most likely due to a number of issues. Firstly, Order had become lazy. Just like Destruction had become after their clear superiority until December, Order has been the dominating force on the field for the last four to six months, and it means they haven’t had to work as hard for victories. Secondly, Marauders. This once-maligned class has seen a significant uptick in their viability. The focus on the class is really apparent. I’m seeing more of these mutated freaks on the battlefield every day, and they have become devastating. Between the unequivocably powerful pull, and their strong AP drains, coupled with better than average damage and survivability, Marauders are well to be feared. Thirdly, and to a lesser degree, the change in how stuns function. You can look to the specifics of it when comparing the AoE stun of BW to that of DoKs. BW lost relativistically more power as they are a class that heavily focuses upon AoE damage and will break their own stagger, whereas a DoK deals mostly with single-target damage, further increasing a DPS DoKs ability to lock down and dismantle groups of people at a time. Lastly, a population imbalance has been the result of these change, and as we all know, the zerg always wins in the end.

Now, why has Gorfang not fallen prey to this like the other servers you may be asking. Well, in fact, we have as well, but we’ve been more succesful in defense during primetime as well as in offense during off-hours. It seems that our server has a very healthy Pacific population, and they are very good at flipping zones and setting up the pins for the daytime crowd to come in and bowl over the city. During primetime, Order has stepped up and resolutely defended the city, denying every encroachment, and have walked away with Destruction never having flipped the city to stage 2.

Perhaps I’m too fatalistic and pragmatic, or perhaps I’m just biased in regards to this, but it amuses me greatly when I read a denouncement of the validity of an A.M. city raid. War is best practiced when the enemy expects it least, strike when they are ill prepared. If an objective needs to be captured, make sure as little of the enemy is there to stop you. Strike hard, strike fast, and be decisive in choosing targets. Success is success, and while these strictures of warfare may seem silly when applied to a video game and leisure activity, it still can be applied. This is where my oft-talked about gaming-ethics comes into play. As long as you are operating within the laws of the game, then all accomplishments are valid. There is only success and failure, everything short of success IS failure. If you don’t flip the city siege into stage 2, you failed. If you didn’t flip it to stage 3, you failed. You lost the scenario 499 to 500, you failed.

If the ultimate goal is to own zones, win scenarios, attack cities and kill the enemy King, then the requirement of competent opposition is not necessary, in fact it is more of a hinderance given the current game design. Now, keep in mind I said “if”. I highlight that qualitative statement because the premise itself I think is where the game is running into problems.  To more readily reach the “end game” of Warhammer, it is desireable to have the weakest opponent before you, if you are to have opposition at all. I understand why some people are motivated in this fashion but it’s not what drives me to play, so my gameplay doesn’t reflect this. Still, people are surprised when gear-focused, progression minded players actively seek this optimal situation. Why is this the case?

"Look at this fucking clown."

Just going to give a quick explanation and impression of my gaming over the weekend, some real-life activities, plus a quick comment on a movie, so if you’re looking for a full post related to WAR or MMOs in general, this is not the post for you.

Halloween weekend came, and I really was not up to sitting around in front of a computer playing any MMOs at all. Can’t tell you exactly why, I just didn’t feel it. Maybe it was that Fall whether finally hit (Fall is my favorite season), or that Halloween was here (favorite Holiday), but all I really wanted to do, was hang out, be at ease, and enjoy what was going on. Too often, I seem to log into MMOs because I feel like I have to, like it’s a perpetual rat-race that I’m always having to keep up in, and I’m not liking that. So, my goal for the weekend, was to just enjoy it.

Saturday, I woke up, did a few chores around the house, then sat down to pound out a few chapters of book 10 of the Wheel of Time series. Friday night I had purchased book 12 after my birthday dinner with my wife and mother-in-law (Cheesecake Factory’s beef ribs ROCK). My wife had to go help her mother prep her house for a baby-shower for a cousin, so I had a short honey-do list, and had the day to myself.

After lunch, I ran off to run some errands and price out some video cameras that I’ve been saving up for (for the baby on the way). I’m currently on the fence between two right now, one, a Cannon that feels great in my hand, and I love Cannon when it comes to cameras in general, so I know it will be a sound product. The other, is a Sony (though sonystyle is broken ATM), and while it didn’t feel as solid in my hand, and I don’t know much about Sony and it’s relation to cameras, it’s a sound product in almost all other electronics, and from what I can tell from the hard specs it’s a solid purchase. Still, I don’t know a whole lot about video cameras in general, and I have a lot of reading to do and questions to be answered. Is the quality of video on both of them good. The MegaPixel rating on them seems frighteningly low, in days where 10+ MP is standard in regular cameras, having one with 1.07 on video seems like it will lead to terrible quality. How long can I record on the built in 8 GB of memory on these? If I have to utilize the hybrid option of them with the expanded memory cards, will the jump-over be automatic? Will it cause an interrupt in filming? Lot of stuff I don’t know, I’ve found some cnet reviews for the two, and will watching them to hopefully answer some of this. I also priced out some TVs. The one I’m currently liking is a 1080p, 60hz 40″ LCD Sony. I don’t like Plasma, I just don’t. Too many complications, too heavy, and I don’t watch enough sports for it to be necessary, and the TV will be going in the bedroom, so there won’t be any gaming on it.

On my way home from all this, I stopped by GameStop to check out their used section of PS3 titles, and chatted with one of the managers there. He’s a good guy, and always friendly when I go in, and recognizes me, he plays WoW from what I have gathered, so we usually can have a bit of a chat about MMOs or consoles in usual. Nothing really popped out at me to pick up that day (I forgot how expensive even used titles can be), but I was happy to see that Katamari Forever was out, and will be hoping to get that for the wife (no, not for me at all!) for Christmas. Still, I dropped into the local rental store and got a copy of InFamous to play through a bit. I’ve been having a blast so far. The way powers work is familiar and easily accessible, and I like the good/evil dichotomy that your choices bring, even if it is a bit seemingly simplistic. I haven’t made it too far in the story, but so fave I’ve met up with the FBI chick, and made it back to town under the bridge, then done the mission to pick up some drop-offs from the black agent that is missing. After that, I ran around a bunch, picking up more of the 32 drop-offs, and collecting battery shards. It’s fun just doing crazy wall-climbing and fighting some of these thugs.

Eventually, night fell, the wife came home, and we were hunkered in for our first Halloween in the house. We’d always been in an apartment complex before this, and never had any trick-or-treaters (we even prepared our first year, but none came). So, we had a big bowl of candy ready (wisely picked up an extra bag on the way home), our lights turned on (damnit we forgot to carve pumpkins!), and eagerly awaited the arrival of children (will there be a lot?). Well, it turns out, our neighborhood was a hot spot. We easily had 50 plus children, come to our door,  and if I were a betting man, I’d say closer to 100. It was great, and it was heard how much of an adult I felt like. I remember when I went out on Halloween in costume damnit! The nostalgia was strong in me, but was fended off by an overly-rambunctious and friendly dog who wanted to go lick children’s faces with each doorbell, a pair of friends that came over to chat with us, and watch bits and pieces of the Yankees-Phillies match (damn Yankees), and multiple classes of Jim and coke. Around 8:30 – 9:00 PM the children stopped, then our friends eventually left, and the ball-game was forgotten. The wife and I cleaned up a bit around the house, shook the near-empty bowl of candy remorsefully, and I went to the computer room as she had already claimed the couch (no InFamous for me). In a spur of unusual impulse for me, I downloaded Torchlight, and browsed the web a bit, surprised when the game was finished so soon.

Torchlight is fun, easy, and a good source of light entertainment. It’s response is crisp, and the gameplay is good. I am playing an Avenger right now (shocker, the archer), and she really is a fun class. It’s very reminiscent of Diablo, as most games of the genre are, but it’s a much lighter experience. The pet is a great addition, and saves me a ton of time with going back to town to empty my inventory out, and I hope to god that all of these games have this type of addition in the future. If you’re looking for a fun, easy dungeon-crawl game, this can’t be beat right now. Diablo III is on the way, I know, but who knows when it will actually hit, and this is 20 bones, worth it.

I’ll close with the movie topic, as this has gotten stupid long. Zombieland is extra g00d. Honestly, one of the best movies of the year. I laughed so hard through this, it was great. The guess appearance was brilliant and a lot of fun. Also, I’m scared I’m turning into a 14-year-old girl, as I one of the previews was for the second Twilight movie, and it actually looked good. I don’t want to admit it, but it looks great. If I can just get over the hyper-dramatic bullshit of a highschool girl who is all psychotic because her vampire boyfriend broke up with her. Still, the werewolves look bad-ass.

Werewolves > Vampires

I don’t know how many of you are readers, avid or otherwise, but I am. Ever since I was a child, I’ve devoured books I come across, intrigued and amazed at the worlds created and the stories of people in settings beyond my reality. From Science-Fiction and Fantasy, to Military and Spy, I enjoy all sorts. Of course, like many of you probably, my main focus has always been the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre. Novels of my youth like Lord of the Rings, Deathgate Cycle, the Wrinkle in Time and the Ender series drew me in completely, and had me bugging my parents for frequent trips to the library and the local book store.

One particular trip to Books-a-Million with my parents through the check-out line sticks out in my memory. I was in fourth grade, and my eye was drawn to what looked like a normal-sized paper-back book. The book was blue, had some interesting art on the cover, and on the bottom right corner was a large orange circle, spiked around the rim, that said “FREE” in bold black letters. I picked it up, and asked the female cashier, “Is this really free?”. I was a polite child, and even then, I didn’t like to presume things (or I knew most free things have a catch), she nodded at me an affirmative, and I walked out with what I thought was a full book. That book was called The Eye of the World and it was actually only the first half of the first novel of the series.

I remember going home that night, and going straight to my room to lay in my bed and read my newest acquisition. The binding was still stiff and firm, and the pages a clean white with the dry scent of freshly printed paper wafting up to my nose every time I turned a page. That night, I sat on my bed, on top of a black comforter, with fluffy pillows the color of light coffee, transfixed by the words that came in front of my eyes. The story unfolding in front of me was captivating and engrossive. I was always a child that could easily play by himself, and was pretty quiet when doing so, but even for me, I spent more time than usual out of the path of my family, and I remember my parents checking on me to see if I had fallen asleep. But no, I was riveted to my bed by words of steel that held tighter than any other contraption. I believe I got through 150 or so pages that night. Within the week, I had consumed the entirety of the book, and was dismayed to see that the back half of the book was stashed away elsewhere, and that only a purchase could bring me satisfaction. I had found the catch!

So, I set to bugging my parents and eventually got the entirety of the first book. I systematically ate up each subsequent novel in the path until I hit the current newly released fifth book named Fires of Heaven. After that, I found out what it was to wait on Robert Jordan, and his release of books.  He was an author who took his time, and was detailed in  his writing. I have spent the subsequent 15 years reading his books, and before each new book was released, I would re-read the series. I have also read the series a smattering of times extra, so on the whole, I have probably read books one through five a total of 10  times, and each following book once less. My repeated readings has resulted in three extra purchases of the Eye of the World in paperback, two extra of The Great Hunt, two extra of the Lord of Chaos, two extra of A Crown of Swords. These books can only take so many readings between myself and friends before they fall apart. Obviously, I have been a devoted fan, and these books have been a staple of my life and entertainment for more than half of my life.

Like any good fan, I have shared my passion with as many people as possible, including my wife’s best friend her husband. We will often talk about the series with each other, much to my wife’s chagrin (she dislikes fantasy), in what probably sounds like a foreign language to any outsider. The world Jordan created is so vast and robust, that it truly does have a depth unlike the majority of other novels or series out there, and lets fans discuss it ad-nauseum.

However, back in 2007, James Oliver Rigney, Jr (Rober Jordan as we knew him) passed away after being diagnosed of cardiac amyloidosis in March of 2006, and fans across the globe mourned the loss of one of the greatest fantasy writers of our time. His novels were unfinished, at book 11, but the series was not over.

Rigney kept extensive notes and studies, and the wonderful bard who had spun a world so many of us loved, had told the remainder of the story, verbally, to a small group of lucky listeners, and his wife, his constant companion Harriet, worked to see the completion of her husbands work. A new writer was chosen to carry the torch left by Jordan, a man named Brandon Sanderson.

On October 27 (my birthday for those paying attention) of this year, book 12 was released. Originally, book 12 was meant to be the last of the series, and Jordan had been quoted as saying something along the lines of, “I don’t care if it’s 1500 pages, book 12 will be the final in the series”. Well, as it turns out, it would have to be 1500 pages or more, so the series is being carried out to 14. My current re-read of the series has me on book 10 right now, with only a couple hundred pages remaining. When I finish, I will be picking up my copy of The Gathering Storm, to read, and add to my collection.

edit: Jordan died in 2007, not 1997 (an impossibility since he was diagnosed in 2006). Doh!

And not generating any real content. But hopefully I can at least point you to some cool stuff.

Like this!

Someone at Darth Hater linked this. Pretty good. Jedi are win, and we knew they were going to be in game. Still, it’s nice to have visual eye-candy confirmation.