Move over big brother, here we come. That is what a tiny nation of a little over 5 million people will be saying to the Czechs. In the summer of 2010, Slovakia’s footballers will be in South Africa playing in the World Cup for the first time as an independent nation. Qualifying top of Group 3 in the European zone, ahead of traditional powerhouses like Czech Republic, Poland and Northern Ireland, Vladimir Weiss’s men have done themselves and their nation proud.
There is an immense need in Bratislava to stop being the little brother to the big shot Czech Republic, especially in sport. The two countries used to be one and after their split in 1993, the Czechs have been a powerful force in European soccer. The very fact that the neighboring countries had been drawn together in a qualifying group was an exciting chance for the improving Slovaks. It had happened in qualifying for World Cup 1998 and Euro 2008, but Slovakia was always an also-ran. This time they made sure that things were different. With seven wins out of 10 and the most goals scored (22) in the qualifying journey, the Slovaks proved all their doubters wrong. Not to mention beating the Czechs in their own den, 2-1. A corner had been turned in Slovak football.

They earned their place in football’s grandest stage by beating Poland 1-0, fighting blizzard conditions and fevered expectations of a nation. “I love these players,” said Slovakia’s Coach Vladimír Weiss after the victory, earned after a third minute own-goal by the Poland defender Seweryn Gancarczyk. He said, “In these qualifiers we have played well and had a little bit of luck. Everybody made a contribution and we made the whole of Slovakia happy. This is a fantastic feeling. He added, “Several people maybe didn’t believe in us. But we succeeded. I am proud of these guys and this triumph.” The team’s achievement can best be quantified by looking at the opposition they will now face in South Africa lining up against the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain, England, Holland, Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, France and United States. With not many marquee players in the squad, this team has been a revelation throughout the qualifying campaign. The likes of Marek Hamsik, Martin Skrtel, Stanislav Sestak, Marek Cech and Vladimir Weiss Jr. will rub shoulders with the very best of the world in South Africa.

It has been a qualifying campaign full of surprises and magic. With as many as five debutants in 2010 – Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Honduras and North Korea and countries like Algeria and New Zealand qualifying after long gap -, it will be a tournament to watch. The countdown to an exciting summer in South Africa has just begun.

5 years ago today, World of Warcraft was released. Prior to this game I would consider myself to be a casual gamer at best, never playing any video game longer than a month or two. However, proud or ashamed for 5 years now I have been playing WOW and essentially have loved every minute of it. I’d love to hear some of your thoughts and reflections on the past 5 years and what people’s favorite moments/things/events are. Here are some starter ones:

• Favorite Instance: Karazhan
• Favorite Boss(es): Four Horsemen (lv 60 version), C’thun, Mimiron (Firefighter Only!).
• Favorite Tier Level: T3, best set ever!
• How many legendaries have you seen drop: 3 bindings, 2 eyes, 2 glaives, and a lot of unfinished Atiesh shards/Val’anyr fragments!
• Favorite World Event: Ahn’Qiraj, till this day I have never seen so many people in the same place at one time.
• Longest queue to get into WOW: 3000+ (Thank You Warsong)
• Average amount of time spend per year. (Take your /played  and divide by 5): 272/5 = 54.4 days per year (sadface?)

Feel free to answer mine or make up your own, I’d love to see a long list of memories from everyone.

Busy busy busy busy busy busy busy!

I’ve been having a riot lately, as our little guild keeps going from strength to strength. We’re clearing Totc10 with ease now, and have a few of the more fun (i.e. not the snowbold one) achievements under our belt. We are also, as we progress in a weirdly backwards fashion, making progress further into Ulduar, which is kinda fun, given we’re totally over geared and horribly under experienced. You really can’t blame wipes on the maths, it’s all just a learning curve. Which is sometimes kinda steep.

Still you’ve got to sit back every so often and enjoy the little things. Like, for example, a prank on a hunter friend who brags a little too much about his low repair bills, thanks to his clever use of feign death.

Ahh, good times.

Anyway, on to resto druid stuff! New patch is imminent and we’re all looking forward to a few little changes. Except me. Why oh why would you mess with Gift of the Earth Mother!?!? That talent is responsible for huge amounts of healing on big aoe fights! Take the Twins for example. A fight where a druid will see veeeeeeerrry high healing per second figures and very effective healing results (i.e. everyone stays alive) by keeping the whole raid covered with at least one rejuv. Seriously, try it next time you’re there, just hit everyone with rejuvs, let your paladins or your shamans deal with spike damage and you top everyone off. In the 25 man version I was seeing roughly 8.5k hps in that fight, higher than anything I’ve achieved before.

That kind of play style then, really makes that talent a god-send, because the faster your GCD ticks round on these hot-casts, the faster you can get everyone covered and topped off nicely. Nerfing this talent is just going to ruin all my fun!

Ok so in return I’ll get 10% global spell haste.

*le-sigh*

My haste is currently 724, giving a total cast time increase of 22.07%.

Add 10% to that and you get 796.4. Given that it takes 32.79 haste rating to give you a 1% increase in cast time:

796.4/32.79 = 24.28%

Thats right folks, a whole 2.2% cast speed increase. Taking my nourish cast time from 1.17 sec down to 1.14 sec. Now forgive me if i’m wrong but, thats not a whole lotta love, when you think about what’s getting taken away.

On the other hand, I can’t WAIT for the ten minute cooldown reduction (down from twenty) on Rebirth. Oh so often i get whispers from idiots who stood in the poo requesting the use of my combat res, who then get pissy with me when I reply, hastily because I’m still busy healing, “sorry, on CD”. Which is usually the case because I used it on someone important like, oh, I dunno, a tank or something!

So anyway. I find myself just a little puzzled as to why the blizz dev team would decide to change this talent. I don’t see it as an imbalanced talent, it’s just part of the defining way in which we operate.

In other, less moaney, news, I threw caution to the wind lately and dropped herbalism in favour of Jewelcrafting. Ok so our other guild JCs weren’t too pleased, they get threatened when someone else treads on their territory, but I’m not in it for the money, I’m in it for the stats! Oh yes, I now have use of three big fat dragon’s eye gems, giving me a much needed (in my opinion) boost to my spellpower and haste. Yay for min/maxxing! Totally worth the entire weekend’s worth of relogging my miner-alt and sitting around the exodar, camping the JC trainers/mailboxes!

Totally worth it!

Honest…

(ok maybe felt a bit over the top)

Good question. Something awful have made a list of jokes pretending to be ‘fake’ answer from Blizzard employes of his email to them.

Here is some of it.

Tom Drivingschool
Diablo III On-Site Anesthesiologist

“Our lead designer locked his keys in the office three months ago and he’s too proud to call a locksmith. I honestly don’t think that wire hanger is going to reach the elevator button, much less get to the third floor.

Until something changes, we’re just camping out front all day with our laptops and playing Torchlight.”

Eric Hiccupcure
Diablo III Speedboat Physics Consultant

“We were actually ready to send the gold master out last month, but it turns out somewhere along the line spellcheck turned every instance of ‘Diablo’ into ‘Dublin’. Right now we’re regrouping figuring out whether we want to start the whole thing from scratch or just roll with it and rework the graphics/story to go all-out Gaelic with what we’ve got.”

Melissa Owlavoid
StarCraft II Sound Unstabilizer

“After we decided to split StarCraft II into three separate products, there was a lot of extra work to make sure things went smoothly. For example, the company’s lawyers have been meeting with all the developers to draw up our last wills and testaments so we’ll have everything squared away when we turn senile and/or expire sometime between the release of the second and third StarCraft II installments.”

Check it out at Something Awful

“Wir kündigen unsere Spiel immer zu früh an” erklärte Blizzard Vize-Präsident Rob Pardo der Gamer-Seite Techland gegenüber. Beim nächsten Mal wolle man das vermeiden – etwa um falsche Hoffnungen zu vermeiden? Das Spiel werde nun definitiv nicht 2010 fertig gestellt werden. Begründet wurde dies mal wieder mit dem berühmten Streben nach höchster Qualität… so viel Wahres da auch dran sein mag,  macht sich Blizzard dennoch mit seiner völlig fehlgeleiteten Ankündigungspolitik langsam aber sicher lächerlich. Die Unzufriedenheit auf Seiten der Fans ist sehr gut nachvollziehbar, wirken die immer längeren Herauszögerungen seit 2008 fast wie ein schlechter Scherz. Es lässt sich hierbei nicht der Eindruck einer gewissen Arrogant vermeiden – denn dass Unternehmen kann verfahren wie es will, Millionenverkäufe sind ihm so oder so garantiert. Im Interview beschreibt Pardo die ganze Verzögerungs-Sache als “typisch Blizzard” und bestätigt gewissermaßen, dass die Macher mit großer Sicherheit auf das Geld der Spieler zählen.

Nach Blizzards Auftritt auf der diesjährigen Gamescom sah es erst noch so aus, als würde das Unternehmen Diablo 3  spätestens bis zur ersten Hälfte 2010 fertig bekommen. Immerhin wurde zuvor verkündet, das Spiel solle noch vor Starcraft 2 veröffentlicht werden. Vorige Woche kam dann die (nicht ganz so überraschende) Schocker-Nachricht für alle Fans: Diablo 3 werde wohl erst viel später erscheinen. Mit dem obigen Statement ist jetzt endgültig klar, dass es keinen Release in näherer Zukunft geben wird.

Tobold wrote about a week ago about players and their sense of entitlement. Do players have a right to feel entitled to easy levelling, easy loot, and accessible raiding, or is it just as much a sense of entitlement if the hardcore feel entitled to always be a quantum leap ahead of the rest?

The word entitlement implies a sense of  rights. For example,  I have statutory rights as an employee, as a consumer, and as a British citizen. Those rights are enshrined in (local) law. So as a consumer, I’m entitled to buy items that are fit for purpose – and if they aren’t, I can go argue my case in court and the state will back me up if I’m right.

In a computer game, we don’t  have rights in the same sense.  No one is entitled to anything beyond their standard consumer rights when they buy a game. What we do have, however, is a sense of expectation. If I buy a book and I don’t like it, my consumer rights aren’t breached because the book being fit for purpose doesn’t guarantee that it’s going to be a cult classic. It just means that it has pages with words/ pictures on them and can be read (note: insert legal definition of book here if you are feeling pedantic). If the book radically fails to  fit the description on the jacket then maybe, just maybe, I have a case. But if my expectations are shattered then I won’t buy another book by the same author (unless they are shattered in a good way.)

But what expectation do players have from MMOs? The box and advertising will tell you a lot about what it is possible to do in the game, but cannot guarantee that you will be able to do those things, because many of them require the cooperation of other players. That’s  the one thing that no one can sell you, unless the box specifically states, “bring some friends.”

So maybe you go in, sold on the idea that you can create a character of your own to explore and adventure in the virtual world, and meet other people. Those are reasonable expectations. Everyone will be able to do that. But what then? Will the game allow you to finish all of its content, or will some be locked to specific groups of people or need commitments of time or money? If you see someone wearing a cool outfit, will your character also be able to get one? If you read about something fun that another player did, will you be able to do that also?

In a single player game, the answer may well be ‘yes,’ depending on the difficulty and time required. In an MMO, it may also be ‘yes,’ depending on the difficulty, time required, and other players required. But the ‘other players may be required’ is part and parcel of having massive games.

Still, where do the expectations come from of:

1. Hardcore raiders will become the nobility of the game?
2. All players will be able to do everything?

The answer is, those expectations come from within the game itself. No one went into their first MMO with any assumptions beyond, “Cool! I can create a character and go explore this virtual world with other people in it.” The assumption that people who put more work into their virtual characters will become more powerful in the virtual world is just a case of people mirroring real world assumptions – that’s not really surprising in itself, but it is the game play that determines what forms of  ‘virtual work’ are most valuable in the game. In a strongly social game, that would mean time and effort spent in politicking and socialising. In a WoW-type MMO it could mean hardcore raiding, or beating the economy.

Expectations can change, or be changed. In Warcraft, each patch has changed the expectations of the player base for the future of the game. If casual players feel more entitled to raids, loot, and achievements, that’s because Blizzard has indicated that this is how the game is now played. It isn’t a sense of entitlement that came out of nowhere. Back in the days of Vanilla WoW there were complaints about raid inaccessibility, but I don’t recall anyone ever expecting that the majority of the player base should or could raid. Similarly, if the hardcore players feel a sense of entitlement, that didn’t come out of nowhere either. The first few years of the game indicated that Blizzard intended a class based playerbase with hardcore at the top. They put dedicated hours into the game on that understanding. Both parties have good reasons for their expectations, but they cannot both be met at the same time.

The developers decide what players are or aren’t entitled to. So when a game changes to the extent that Warcraft has, it isn’t surprising that everyone is on edge. No one knows what their assumptions should be any more. People cling to the last patch as either an aberration that will be fixed in the future, or the shape of things to come. And so we pick apart the discarded musings of the blue posters (official Blizzard posters) as if we could divine the future from their entrails. Our rights in the game may depend upon it.

Blizzard is celebrating an anniversary.   Tomorrow, November 23rd, it will have been five years since World of Warcraft went live.  And this year’s anniversary gift is an Onyxian Whelpling.

The Whelpling

As usual, Blizzard is including the nearest weekend day as part of the anniversary celebration, so when we were on last night and the server close rolled over to midnight, we all go the message.

And that meant that in all of our mailboxes there was a surprise waiting.

We were a little busy to go check our mail at that moment, being five low level horde players in Alliance territory, but mail keeps and we were eventually able to pick up our new pets.

Like other recent special pets (Mr. Chilly, Grunty the Murloc), the Onyxian Whelpling does not go away when you train it on your character.  It is a bind on account item that you can send to your future alts (on the same server/faction).

However, the feat-of-strength achievement is not tied to the pet, so you have to log on a character today or tomorrow in order to get that.  I’ve been through all my key characters this morning.  They have all been logged in, gotten the achievement, and claimed their pet.  Several still had Mr. Chilly waiting for them as well.

So now you’ll be seeing this guy all over Azeroth.

Onyxian Whelpling

Fortunately, the whelpling is pretty small, so it won’t be too obnoxious with hundreds about.

My own five year anniversary with WoW is still a few months off.  I wasn’t there on day one, but showed up about four months later.

“We are looking into the usage of levitate during the Gormok encounter. We advice you to not use this tactic (anymore), because it could be seen as exploitation of game mechanics and could have the consequences of our guidelines”.

Guess this means I’ll have to learn how to move
Seriously, we’re not particularly bad movers in my guild, but we’ve gotten used to the levitate trick. If you’ve read my post on how we finally downed Northrend Beasts in 25 hc the other night, you’ll see that this plays a part. This might set us back, no longer being able to use levitate, now having to move. Not the end of the world… but still *cry*

Source (original blue post in german, so I found the english translation): Gormok+Levitate is considered an exploit

Миналата седмица финансовият директор на Activision, Томас Типл разкри че, Активижън се “ослушват” за нови начини за “издояване” на големите си франчаизи като Call of Duty.

Определено виждаме потенциала в това, и разглеждаме различни бизнес модели за “осребряване” на онлайн геймплея… Нашият онлайн екип обменя доста знания с хората от Blizzard. Също така натрупахме доста опит, с успеха на Call of Duty в Xbox Live и PlayStation Network. В интерес на истината голяма част от нещата които научихме се вгражда в Battle.Net платформата…

Мисля че всички страни ще бъдат облагодетелствани от това, и трябва да очаквате, че ще започнем да тестваме допълнителни платени онлайн модели за някой от големите ни франчайзи като Call of Duty.

Да, разбира се, до тук всичко звучи логично. Имаш крава пиеш мляко… и търсиш различни методи за нейното по-качествено издояване.

По интересен обаче е един материал от 18-ти на които попаднах благодарение на RPS. МатрЯла се намира в latimes.com и е още един по темата за това колко голямо е било пускането на Modern Warfare 2 и как за пореден път игрите конкурират холивуд и т.н. Това което е особено интересно обаче е края на матряла:

Човек близък до компанията е казал, че обмислят да адаптират Call of Duty в MMO. Жанр в които Blizzard са лидер, и които изисква огромни инвестиции но може да бъде много печеливш защото игачите плащат месечна такса.

Уж още го обмислят, но нека да погледнем фактите:
- Вече има трети екип които работи по Call of Duty вселената;
- Самият Bobby Kotick (CEO в Activision) още миналата година спомена, че обмислят Call of Duty MMO;
- Activision все пак не са просто Activision а са Activision Blizzard. А Blizzard знаят как се прави качествено MMO;
- Дали играчите биха плащали за CoD MMO? Ако се направи както трябва – определено!

Тъ, какво мислите вие по-темата? Бихте ли плащали за такъв тип игра?

A day full.  A day full of living.  Love it!

Let’s see, woke up early to ride my bike, do some TKD and clean the kitchen.  All necessary things to make me feel like I’m getting things done and moving.   Then we hustle up to teach some TKD to those remarkable little people who give up Saturday morning cartoons to come and learn some self defense and self growth stuff.

Oh, and before I get too cheeky about my busy and happy life…it is made so by those who help me out!  I had two parties to tend to today and did I get the shopping done for it?  Criminy no.  If you know me you know I do not like shopping much.  Okay, not at all.  So if you don’t know me, you now know this about me.  Thanks MAGGIE the MAGNIFICENT for saving me!

So back home from class  we go.  Grace O’Malley is there which is always a pleasing sight.  She comes over to me as I sit down and starts singing Twinkle Star to me.  Be still my heart.  So I had to play this so she could sing some more.  Nothing better than a small child singing her little words with her little musical rythem.   I get a few minutes of the Queen’s attention and Mamo’s heart is full.

We pack up the gifts MtM had delivered to my home.  Yes, DELIVERED  to my house.

While I’m waiting for David to get ready I get a SKYPE call from Ireland!  Cousins from the Motherland are calling.  How awesome is that?  I got to talk a bit before running.  Though Ireland is being deluged with floods, the family, our family, is doing okay.  One benefit of technology these days, it takes the worry out via instant communication.   Stay safe Ireland!

But we had a bit of a dilemma today.   I had made commitments to attend two different parties, in two different towns, at the exact same time.  And we had told MASHLEY we would take them with us to one of the parties.  So we hurried over to JC to take baby shower presents to a family shower.  It was nice to have a few minutes to talk to family, but I felt like a heel walking out five minutes after it was to start. We went early so we could spend some time with them.   Still had to leave.  We didn’t want to miss it, but couldn’t stay for it either.   But the second party we got to with a half hour left.  In time for cake and presents.  And to meet our friend Stephy’s beautiful family.    Stephy and Taka treated all the party goers to Japanese candy and soda.  Old friends, new experiences.  Good life!

But when MASHLEY, David and I left World of Bounce I had a BRILLIANT idea.  We should have Nessie and Hoochie’s wedding there.  Wouldn’t that be FUN.   As in AWESOMELY FUN!  Come on!  Anyone can have a regular old wedding where everyone is all formal and proper and all.   No offense formal and proper wedding preferer’s.  I just think a World of Bounce wedding, or was it Bounce World?  Whichever,  would be FUN.  And who doesn’t need fun in their marriage and in their life?  Get married and bounce for joy!  Get married and bounce for love.

I still think it would be a great idea.  When I called Nessie to tell her I put a deposit down on the place, she didn’t think it was too funny.

THEN we went to Half Price Books.  And come on.  Who WOULDN’T be totally thrilled to go to a store where all the books are HALF price.  Or less?????  I’m assuming if you’re taking the time to read blogs, you love to read.  So all of you reading this should understand that kind of happy.

THEN we went to Chipotle.  Yeah, we DID.  I was disappointed with the bitter onion.  But otherwise quite pleased with the spicey steak and tomatoes on my salad.  I can’t speak for MASHLEY and David, but I will anyway.  David was fine with the cheese/chicken/burrito.  MA was not tickled with her taco, but she was a sport with the chips.  SHLEY loved her tacos!

THEN we went to Dairy Queen.  For those in this world who don’t think I ever stray from my attempts at healthy eating.  THERE!  I did, have a Blizzard.  The second one in TWO weeks.  Now how is that for living?  Yeah, great life.  I know.

We talked to different friends about our cabin today.  And the nice part about that?  They are all excited for us, and for our vision of our little home to be.  They see the charm of it, the fun of it, the chance to create something special for us.

Any time we spend with MASHLEY makes us happy.  Makes us laugh.  And we usually make plans for many more things to do.  And of course, we did.  Musical Christmas will be on the agenda.

It makes me so happy to know that people want me in their lives.  How can a busy day going from friend to friend to friend, with the best husband in the world by my side,  be made better?  It can’t.  But it’s good to go home and relax and feel like a day was spent well.

And it was.

Well done!

Both of my World of Warcraft accounts were hacked last night. Everything I had is gone.  I’ve been playing for four years and had 6 level 80s.  Four years gone in the blink of an eye.  They stole it all.  And what they couldn’t sell they deleted.  It’s like I’ve lost a part of myself.  Most people won’t understand.. to them it’s just a game and I should just get over it, it’s just pixels after all… but while this may be pixel theft, it’s still theft and I’ve really lost something that I put time and effort into.  I lost gear that isn’t even attainable any longer….  I lost all of my gold… all my vanity items..  Everything.  I’ve been crying for hours… I’m truly heartbroken.  I won’t know until Monday if there is anything that Blizzard can do to fix this.. but  if they can’t fix it, I don’t think I can bring myself to play again.

NewYorkStateofMind

The tide of the gaming industry is at it’s peak as winter is nearing and special treats are coming. On this week’s issue we have Microsoft denying the massive ban implementation on Xbox Live accounts, some hot Ninja Gaiden costumes & Some Starcraft 2 news.

Ninja Gaiden Costume DLC

One of the most recent updates for Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is a brand new wardrobe for the characters which will surely make players enjoy their gaming time to the max. Costing only 4USD, the said extravaganza is one thing that i can consider “Money well spent”.

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Microsoft denies the Apocalyptic move over Xbox Live.

Microsoft’s XBOX Live last action sent a huge tremor all over the world. Apparently a huge amount of Xbox Live enthusiasts ended up getting their accounts banned from the said network. The said banning was under the move “To eliminate piracy”. Although the story still goes on but this time around, Microsoft denies that such incident occured. Entirely, GM Marc Whitten made the statement “I cannot explain to you why people would think it was a million people. It wasn’t a million people”. SO yeah i guess in total it may never be a million, just 999,999 users.

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Starcraft II Updates

Blizzard all time favorite game, STARCRAFT which is getting a sequel coming this first quarter of 2010 known as Starcraft II recently had it’s a site update. THe updates includes a peek on S2’s single player modes, campaigns and some added details to the Zerg’s Changeling and other cool stuff. You can drop by their site to see it for yourself.
http://www.starcraft2.com/community.xml

has uploaded the very first gameplay footge of Starcraft II latest Zerg unit addition; “The Changeling”. This new Zerg unit can infiltrate enemy units by disguising itself as one of them. To watch the footage, go here:

The Game Eye/ Starcraft II – “Zerg Changeling” Revealing Gameplay

There’s nothing like snow skiing in the Rockies.  My friend and I had so much fun on our first ski trip to Colorado, that we decided to go back a few years later and ski Breckenridge.  It was the middle of April when our flight arrived at Denver International around 11:00 pm that first evening.  By the time we got our luggage and stood in line for the rental car, it was well after midnight before we hit the road for Breckenridge.  We quickly realized that this getaway was going to be just as memorable as the first.  All we cared about, though, was…the girls were back in town.  And this trip was going to be a blast.

It all started when we walked out of the airport to get in the rental car.  It was then that we realized that it felt like 15 below outside.  When we left our hometown down along the Gulf Coast, the temperature was in the high 80’s.  We had already been going to the beach for two full months.  It usually feels like summer in the middle of April where we’re from.  So, it never occurred to us that there could be blizzard conditions in Denver.  What were we thinking?  Both of us were dressed in tank tops…with no coats.  And our big winter jackets were somewhere in all our luggage packed tightly in the trunk of the rental car.

Before we left the terminal, I decided to get a cup of coffee.  It was hot.  I was freezing.  It tasted so good.  We got in the car, excited to turn the heat all the way up.  As we opened the door and sat in the seat, we realized that this car had automatic seat belts.  The seat belt just kept coming, and I didn’t know whether to hold the cup of coffee up high, down low, or over to the side.  Everything happened so fast.  Before I knew it, that seat belt had knocked the coffee out of my hand and all over me.  But, between the coffee warming me up (not the way I intended), and my friend laughing so hard that she couldn’t talk, our little ski escape was off to a good start.

I drove first.  There really were blizzard conditions as we drove on the interstate towards Breckenridge.  I followed the tire tracks in the snow of the truck in front of me to know where to go.  We couldn’t tell where the road was.  Everything was covered in snow, not to mention the fact that you could only see two feet in front of you.  It’s a good thing that truck didn’t drive off the road, because we would have been right behind him.

After what seemed hours, we ended up at a gas station in a little town called Dillon, Colorado.  You wouldn’t believe the looks we got from the people in the store when we got out of the car and walked in wearing our tank tops.  After a few moments of stunned silence, one guy asked, “Do you know there’s a blizzard out there?”  Well, that’s all it took for my friend and me to start laughing hysterically.  Besides, everything is funnier in the middle of the night.

We finally made it to Breckenridge, and drove into the parking garage of the Hilton Hotel around 3:00 in the morning.  Just as we were about to get out of the car, we noticed a guy walking toward us.  It made both of us nervous, but it was cold, and we were ready for some sleep.  As we were getting our luggage out of the trunk, he walked up to us and started talking.  There was something about him that seemed familiar.  He was older than us and had a casual, almost beach bum look to him.  But we were across the country and didn’t personally know anyone in Breckenridge.  He asked us where we were from, and when we said Mobile, he said that he was from there, too.  I didn’t believe him at first, so I started asking him questions that only a local from Mobile would know the answer to.  And, to our disbelief, he knew the answers.  He told us where he went to school.  It was a private Catholic school.  As he talked to us, I think he knew that we were trying to figure out who he was.  He had a little smile on his face, but would never let on about his identity.  He didn’t ask us our names, and we didn’t ask him his.  We were freezing by this time, and just wanted to get in where it was warm.  He said “bye” with a smile, and walked off.

My friend and I kept saying to each other that he looked so familiar.  It was like we knew him somehow.  We continued to talk about who that guy might be, when, all of the sudden, it hit us.  That was Jimmy Buffett.  It had to be him.  It looked like him, sounded like him, he was from Mobile, went to that Catholic school, and he said that he still had family down there.  Everything fit.

To this day, you can’t convince me that it wasn’t him.  I grew up hearing Jimmy Buffett.  He and his island sounds are part of what makes home…well…home.  What a way to start another fantastic girlfriend getaway!  And just like the first time, we laughed and laughed.  Many times, it was those deep belly laughs that does your soul good.  By the way, we made sure this time that the first thing we did was to take those ski lessons!

Only on PC…

Starcraft es uno de los juegos de culto para la PC en cuanto a juegos de estrategia se refiere, si tienen una PC y no han jugado a Starcraft están mal chavos; no pueden hacer eso, denle una oportunidad.

En lo personal el título no me llamaba en lo mas mínimo la atención pero después de jugar Homeworld [mega, mega juegazo...] empece a darle una oportunidades a todos los juegos de estrategia que tenía botados por ahí y saben que, fue grandioso.

Starcraft fue uno de los juegos que más disfrute para PC y que a pesar de todo el tiempo que ha pasado sigue manteniendo muchos fans y ahora es tiempo de revivir esos años gloriosos.

Llega Starcraft 2 dotado de vitamina extra, gráficos de ultima generación y un motor que [como pueden ver en las imágenes...] no deja pasar ningún detalle, todo esta hecho a la perfección.

Hemos visto algunos videos en donde se muestra como ha evolucionado el juego, el gameplay parece ser el mismo, pero sin lugar a dudas la acción ha crecido; es turno de ver unas imágenes de gran calidad, es obvio que este juego nos va a dejar con un muy buen sabor de boca.

Fuente | ºlagzero.netº

Word from Blizzard on how they are handling Icecrown Citadel when 3.3 comes out.

Icecrown Citadel testing has been progressing very well over the last few weeks, and this has been a huge help to the encounter design team. We want to thank everyone who has logged onto the PTR and tried the encounters there.

As we’re now getting closer to the release of 3.3.0, we wanted to talk about our plans for access progression within Icecrown Citadel. Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live. At this point we can’t give precise dates for these release dates as they are determined by when patch 3.3.0 goes live. Once dates are known with more certainty, I’ll update the community so they can plan appropriately.

The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. Progress beyond that point will be prevented for several weeks. Then the Plagueworks will open with Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide becoming available. After another period of time, the Crimson Hall will open and you can then fight the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana’thel. The final Frostwing Halls unlock then occurs after that, making Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available. We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace.

There are other elements that gate access along the way. Players may not attempt any Heroic versions of 10 player encounters until they have defeated the Lich King in a 10 player raid. Similarly, players must defeat the Lich King in a 25 player raid before they can attempt a Heroic 25 player encounter. So players must master every normal difficulty encounter in Icecrown Citadel before attempting Heroic difficulty.

The Lich King may not be attempted until Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, and Sindragosa are defeated. Furthermore, the Heroic difficulty of The Lich King encounter may not be attempted in any week unless the three aforementioned encounters have been defeated in Heroic difficulty that week.

The Ashen Verdict provides reinforcements and material for players to assault Icecrown Citadel, but this support is not endless. Raids will have a limited number of attempts total each week to defeat the four most difficult encounters in Icecrown Citadel: Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. As these boss encounters are unlocked, the number of attempts available per week will increase. The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana’thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses. After a raid has exhausted their attempts for the week, the Ashen Verdict must withdraw their support and the four most difficult bosses all despawn and become unavailable for the week. The limited attempt system is a feature of both Normal and Heroic difficulty.

There will be no explicit rewards for defeating the Lich King with a specific number of attempts remaining as there was with Trial of the Grand Crusader. There will also not be an achievement to complete Icecrown Citadel without being defeated by a boss encounter, or letting a raid member die. (i.e. A Tribute to Insanity).

In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel. To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time. Players may opt out of the spell’s effect if they so wish.

Source

Wow, where to start.

Generally, I’m not a fan of artificial blocks that are placed in the game.  Therefore, I am not a fan of their gating system.  My take on this is simple.  If a guild is capable of defeating that should not be held by artificial means.  Sure it may keep people from burning themselves out, but I don’t really think that is Blizzard’s job.  The only way this is acceptable to me is if they just want to give players more content as soon as possible, but they need more time to work on the other encounters.  It also seems kind of harsh to me that no heroic versions can be attempted until Arthas has been killed.  This is likely months away.  It seems they are trying to buy as much time as possible with 3.3 and ICC.

I’m not really opposed to limiting attempts.  Since it is built into the encounter, and everyone plays by the same rules.

Hello everyone,

In recent years a new Christmas tradition has come about in my home; which is about locating on the web old Christmas TV episodes and movies, that time seemed to have forgotten.  YouTube has of course been the biggest provider of such Holiday entertainment with user provided videos from Bob Hope to Rudolph.  There is Christmas videos for just about every taste (even some for the more distasteful lot who would rather say Bah Humbug than Merry Christmas.)

I’d thought I share some of the shows I’ve come across over the past couple years on YouTube  in hopes it might brighten your Christmas sprit.  First off, we start with “Christmas Comes to Pac-Land.”  Yes thats right its a Pac-Man Christmas special.  As a kid this was one of my favorites.  Pac-Man + Santa teaming up?   Yes, in the 80’s this was a no brainer.  Back then Pac-Man was king and Santa well…what kid doesn’t love Santa.  In typical kiddy Christmas fashion the story is much like other specials. Something bad has happened on Christmas eve that causes Santa’ toy route to be jeopardized.  It is of course up to our hero, Pac-Man to come through for a distraught Santa, and save Christmas…as if Christmas is something that could ever be saved.  (God Bless Dr. Seuss for correcting that absurd notion in the “Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”)  Nonetheless, it is what it is and Santa’s the toy man/good will ambassador of the world and failure for the jolly elf is not an option.  Sure its silly, and somewhat retro…but hey the cartoon is just a nice piece of holiday nostalgia and if you’ve never seen it then its just a goofy, somewhat pretty, little animated Christmas card from Hannah-Barbara and Namco.

The following is the special separated in three parts.  Runs about 25 minutes.

Enjoy and if you haven’t already done so please visit my website (www.thompsonstshirts.com) for the coolest Christmas T-shirts on the net,  Thanks, Matt

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Thompson’s Original’s Jolly T-shirts Christmas Showcase!

So, Blizz plans on releasing new bosses and wings in Icecrown like a HOT- or if you are addicted to WoW, maybe a DOT is a better way to describe it. We won’t get to fight the Lich King right away!
/cry

When ToC first dropped, our guild was surprised and elated to get the Northrend Beasts on the first night. It was so exciting as we waited to see how we would do with the next boss on the next week.  In Icecrown, looks like we will start with four new bosses- but then not get a chance at the next round of bosses for “several weeks.”  And then two more sets after that!  Wow, WoW!

I don’t really have a problem with this. It gives us time to really work on the bosses and hopefully dominate before the next set comes out. I think if we stay on top of it, we can maintain our top 10 position on the server. Although, a number of the top guilds broke up in the last two months. With the new content, we may very well move into the top 5! Yay! Bragging rights are nice…

Anyhoo… from Blizz by way of MMO Champion:

“Icecrown Citadel testing has been progressing very well over the last few weeks, and this has been a huge help to the encounter design team. We want to thank everyone who has logged onto the PTR and tried the encounters there.

As we’re now getting closer to the release of 3.3.0, we wanted to talk about our plans for access progression within Icecrown Citadel. Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live. At this point we can’t give precise dates for these release dates as they are determined by when patch 3.3.0 goes live. Once dates are known with more certainty, I’ll update the community so they can plan appropriately.

The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. Progress beyond that point will be prevented for several weeks. Then the Plagueworks will open with Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide becoming available. After another period of time, the Crimson Hall will open and you can then fight the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana’thel. The final Frostwing Halls unlock then occurs after that, making Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available. We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace.

There are other elements that gate access along the way. Players may not attempt any Heroic versions of 10 player encounters until they have defeated the Lich King in a 10 player raid. Similarly, players must defeat the Lich King in a 25 player raid before they can attempt a Heroic 25 player encounter. So players must master every normal difficulty encounter in Icecrown Citadel before attempting Heroic difficulty.

The Lich King may not be attempted until Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, and Sindragosa are defeated. Furthermore, the Heroic difficulty of The Lich King encounter may not be attempted in any week unless the three aforementioned encounters have been defeated in Heroic difficulty that week.

The Ashen Verdict provides reinforcements and material for players to assault Icecrown Citadel, but this support is not endless. Raids will have a limited number of attempts total each week to defeat the four most difficult encounters in Icecrown Citadel: Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. As these boss encounters are unlocked, the number of attempts available per week will increase. The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana’thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses. After a raid has exhausted their attempts for the week, the Ashen Verdict must withdraw their support and the four most difficult bosses all despawn and become unavailable for the week. The limited attempt system is a feature of both Normal and Heroic difficulty.

There will be no explicit rewards for defeating the Lich King with a specific number of attempts remaining as there was with Trial of the Grand Crusader. There will also not be an achievement to complete Icecrown Citadel without being defeated by a boss encounter, or letting a raid member die. (i.e. A Tribute to Insanity).

In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel. To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time. Players may opt out of the spell’s effect if they so wish. “

I can’t wait! I can’t wait! I can’t wait!

Happy Raiding!

Exxy