Pugnacious: inclined to quarrel or fight readily; quarrelsome; belligerent; combative.  Dictonary.com

When I found myself in a Vent over this weekend where a long diatribe of the conversation were negative remarks towards women.  Not just one little comment,  but they were egging each other on,  each line more offensive then the other.  I could have sat there like a good little girl and taken it. Not bitten,  not reacted, not defended myself,  or reminded them that there were ladies in the channel and to rein the conversation in. I could have left the vent if I found it so offensive.  Did I stay silent?  No way. 

I turned an insult back on them, and I felt their hackles raised over the airways.   “So its ok for you to have a go at girls,  but you can’t take it if it’s directed to boys?” I asked – extremely outnumbered.

One guys excuse for their behaviour was that it was ‘normal’  – I had asked where all the gentlemen were because they certainly were not in this channel.

I don’t think I was out of line – for me not to remind them that they were being inappropriate would have meant that I was approving of  their behaviour,  and I think that people can need reality checks  – no one knows that they are doing something wrong unless they get told.

Did I go on a female lib rant?  No.  I didn’t need to,  I just needed to remind them that they were going to far.    Did it work?.  I think so,  they didn’t say anything further along that line as least while I was in the channel.

I got a pst from what I assume was the only other girl in the channel glad that I had stuck up for myself  – and I’d do it again,  because if that is what it takes to make it a more pleasant environment for me to play in,  then I am going to bite.  It doesn’t have to be an in your face  ”respect my authority” rant, but  I do believe  that standing up when things are not right, can be  as important as doing what is right. 

What is it?

Borderlands is an FPS-RPG hybrid, with four-player cooperative gameplay, developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games. Players can choose between four different characters, each having various qualities and pseudo roles to play–though these are not strictly enforced. Loot is a significant part of the game, as there are thousands (millions?) of potential weapons, artifacts, grenade mods, shields, and class mods that are procedurally generated. There are hundreds of missions to go on as players (if coop, player if not) kill baddies with said potential weapons, collecting loot, and dying…frequently. Think of it as Diablo meets first person shooter.

What’s good?

The cooperative game play. Sure, you can play through the game alone in traditional single-player fashion, but doing it with three other people is much more enjoyable. That’s just the way coop is, and why it’s a significant trending feature in modern gaming. Borderlands is the epitome of that. The more people playing, the more difficult the game is as baddies are given more health and spawn in greater numbers. And discovering loot is better when there are others around to see it.

The addictive loot system. Thousands of weapons are procedurally generated, and all weapons fall under several classes in color coded fashion a la MMOs like World of Warcraft. Each weapon has a manufacturer, of which there are several and they all have certain traits–some manufacturers make weapons with high damage but slow reload rates or lower magazine sizes, and another makes weapons with guaranteed elemental damage but with generally lower overall damage. There is no armor to collect, but there are character mods which effects a character’s skills or offer team bonuses, shields, and grenade mods. Sticking around in game to find that next chest full of weapons or killing the next “named” mob to see what goody loot it drops makes it addictive. Ask any World of Warcraft or Diablo player.

The RPG elements. Borderlands has four character “classes,” and each class has three specialization paths players can spend points in–points that are collected after leveling up. Each weapon type has a skill that is leveled simply through using that type of weapon. Think Oblivion or Star Wars Galaxies (pre-NGE, of course)–you level up what you use. Why don’t all RPGs use this system? It makes the most logical sense. Anyway, these RPG elements add just enough depth to the game to make it interesting, but it’s not so much that it might put off fans of first person shooters who don’t like RPGs.

Awesome art direction. Borderlands runs on the Unreal Engine, though it doesn’t look like it because of the art direction. In fact, the art direction was changed completely late in the game’s development from a more mundane, realistic approach to the beautiful, artsy cel-shaded design it wields now–Gearbox made the right decision. Borderlands is gorgeous, though the animation could have used some work.

Great shooting element. It’s very solid, well polished, tight…blah blah blah…and all those other cliched utterances I would just love to use to describe how wonderful the shooting is. I’m not creative enough to avoid those cliches. Borderlands is about what you’d expect from Gearbox. And because of the RPG elements, the shooting gets a nice touch–feedback when shooting enemies. The damage done to enemies shows up above the enemy’s head in RPG fashion. I like this so much that it makes other shooters seem more numb and lifeless when shooting at baddies.

What’s bad?

There’s essentially no story. Okay, there is, but it’s uninteresting. It’s a ghostly existence. The story in all the quests, whether vital to the overall narrative or not, mimic those of MMO quests–or, rather, players mimic how they play MMOs when accepting and completing quests in Borderlands. Either way, it all exists for the sake of pushing the player in this direction, or that. Granted, Borderlands holds up just fine with the pew-pew and cooperative bits, but a deeper narrative and more immersive application of quest giving would have only made the game that much better.

Crappy multiplayer connectivity (PC version). For the PC version, the server browser (powered by GameSpy) seems lacking, and players must configure their router in order to host games–which means most of the games you see in the server browser cannot be connected to. Here’s a game I wouldn’t mind having matchmaking, though I realize it would require a revamp of how the entire cooperative experience works. I figure something akin to Left 4 Dead could work.

Too much traveling. Sure, there are vehicles. Sure, there is infinite sprint. And sure, there are teleportation terminals through-out the world (not accessible when the game starts), but players still run around a lot. And the world, while interesting in some areas, a bit boring in others, and still amazing looking no matter what, is pretty large. Perhaps if the teleportation system worked better, or it was easier to determine where to turn in completed quests…and the teleportation system worked better…it’d be a bit more enjoyable. It’s not a major drag on the game, but I have to fill up the negatives somehow. (Kidding. Traveling in this game really can be annoying).

Recommendations:

I recommend Borderlands for anyone looking for a wonderful coop experience to play with friends, and a great shooter with RPG elements snugly attached, and who doesn’t care too much about story while they’re at it.

I recommend it for console over PC despite my own preference for keyboard and mouse as I’m sure it’s much easier to connect with and play with others compared to GameSpy’s game browser and the routing problems.

Highly recommended if you know other people to play with. I won’t fault the game for all the many bad experiences I had in pub games (gaming with complete strangers online), but I won’t recommend the game with as much enthusiasm to players that won’t be able to play with friends.

Grade: B

I have been busy farming ToC normal for trinkets. I have been able to get two – the tank one and one dps trinket. So far I have ONLY met Paletress… She’s damn mean, like really mean. Nonetheless she dies every time, but she always manages to kill atleast one. I can imagine how kick ass she’ll be on heroic difficulty.

This is the fourth part in my “Cord of Two Strands” short story.  Follow the links if you need to catch up on Part 1,  Part 2, and Part 3.

Memory

Sonora’s mind floated away from the room as images flashed dreamily before her eyes.  She saw herself when she was young, standing beside her father as he showed her the loom.  He said people were like threads in a tapestry, woven together by the Light; a cord of two strands being stronger than one.  Scenes from her childhood panned before her, and then tapered off into her young adulthood.  She had no plan for the future, like the others.  Maybe that’s why she had agreed to go to Stormwind…

Suddenly the flashes came quickly; Markus and the room and Aleron.  The images turned upside down, and Sonora felt as though she were falling into eternity.  Then she saw images that she did not recognize.  A beautiful human woman, with long brown hair, standing next to a fireplace, laughing.  A little girl, sitting on her father’s knee, blonde curls bouncing wildly as she giggled.  And a man, a young man—a young version of Aleron.

Then something darker, the girl was older, almost Sonora’s own age, she guessed.  She stood alone in the snow, looking scared but determined.  Sweat made the girl’s sandy hair dark with moisture, and fire formed on her fingertips repeatedly as she sent it flinging at a target Sonora couldn’t see.  She felt the need to hurry, to save the girl; but she couldn’t move.  She watched helplessly as something struck the girl, and she fell to the ground.

Sonora gasped, and the image faded into darkness.  Light began to register on her eyelids, but the world beyond felt distant and muffled.  She let reality settle on her slowly.

She felt a cold cloth on her head and muttered through her stiff lips.  “Sonora?” she heard, “Sonora, can you hear me?”  She tried to open her eyes, and they responded, but slowly.  They fluttered open, and Aleron’s concerned face filled her vision.

“There you are,” he said.  “You should try to sit up if you think you can.”  He held a cup to her lips and after a few sips of water, she felt a bit stronger.  Holding onto his arm, Sonora was able to pull herself up with a groan, quickly leaning back against the nearby wall.  She took a few moments to sit and look around, trying to make the spinning in her head stop.

As it settled, she remembered what had happened, and she looked over at Aleron, startled.  “Are you okay?” she asked, quickly followed by, “Am I okay?”

“I am fine,” he assured her.  “I believe you are, too; although that was no small test they put you through.  You have been unconscious most of the day.”

“I have never felt so much pain in my life,” she admitted.  “I felt like I was on fire.”

“I expected it would be painful,” he said, intentionally omitting his own fear about experience.  “How do you feel now?”

“Okay, but I feel strange.  I—I feel as though I am shaking on the inside,” she said, blushing slightly at how absurd it sounded.  Aleron studied her for a few moments, lost in thought.  Suddenly, he glanced furtively around the room, then finally looking down at the straw of the makeshift bed upon which they sat.  Plucking out a small handful, he looked again at the draenei.

“Hold out your hand,” he directed.  She held out her hand dutifully, and he placed the straw inside her palm.  “Close your eyes, and try to push that feeling out of you.”  At her puzzled expression, he prompted her again, “Go on.”

“I am too tired for games,” she replied.

“Try.  You must do this,” he said fiercely, the first real spark of life Sonora had seen shining in his eyes.  Prompted by the strength of his response, Sonora tried again.  Closing her eyes, she tried to turn her focus inside herself.  She felt the shaking, like a reverberation within her.  She pushed against it with her mind, and was shocked when it felt as though it were following her focus.  Doubling her efforts, she pushed against it further, forcing it into her outstretched arm.  The feeling was so intense, she knew her arm must be shaking wildly, but she continued until she felt as though a blast of it went through her fingers.  The vibration seemed to settle back into her body, although not as strongly.  “My hand is warm,” she noticed aloud.  She was surprised to hear Aleron chuckling.

“Open your eyes,” he instructed proudly.  She did, and was shocked to see the straw in her fingers smoldering, smoke curling up above her hand.  The straw was clearly burnt in places, like the first breaths of a fire had passed over it.

“What have I done?” she said in awe.

“You have proven that you might be our way out of here!”  He stood up, and Sonora saw him sway unsteadily for a moment.  “I will talk to you more about it tomorrow,” he said wearily.  “The encounter earlier has weakened me, as well—I must get some rest.”

He laid down in his small pile of straw, but found himself unable to fall asleep immediately.  If Sonora were strong enough to withstand it all, there might be hope yet.  Hope—something he had nearly forgotten.

***

“Concentrate,” a younger Aleron said.  “If you do not focus it will find a way out without you, and control is key.”

“I am concentrating,” the girl told him, her eyes closed.  The room stood completely silent, nothing but their collective breaths.  Aleron had chosen thisStormwind home for its small tower, and certainly appreciated it now.  A place where he—and now his daughter—could do their work away from prying eyes and the sensitivities of his wife downstairs.  He looked again at Arcis’s hand, shaking almost imperceptibly.  Suddenly, a small spark lit up the piece of dry wood she held in her hand.  It burned a hole straight through the middle before dying.

“I did it!”  Arcis exclaimed excitedly.

“Yes you did!” Aleron chuckled.  “That was wonderful.  Do you want to do it again?”

“Yes! I can do even better this time!”  Arcis took another piece of wood from the pile on the table.  This time she did not close her eyes.  He watched while her youthful face twisted in careful concentration.  He could sense power radiating from her, and watched her hand, daring not to breathe.  Less than a minute later, an orb of fire the size of a child’s toy erupted from the palm of Arcis’ hand.  The wood disappeared completely in the blaze before it vaporized, leaving no mark behind.  Aleron looked at his little girl in astonishment.  Most mages spent months or years trying to turn their first spark into a fireball, and here she had done it in the span of several minutes.

“That was amazing,” he said softly, pulling her close.  “You are amazing.  But I should not have expected less.”

“Can I do it again, Daddy?  Please? I need to practice a lot so I can stop using the starter.”

“Of course, Arcis.  You can burn all the wood in this house if it pleases you to do so,” he answered proudly.

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

Heute ist der 5. Geburtstag von World of Warcraft und jeder Nutzer, der sich heute einloggt, bekommt neben einem Erfolg auch ein neues Pet geschenkt. Hierbei handelt es sich um einen Welpling von Onyxia. Ob die alte Dame so erfreut darüber ist, dass ihre Welpen auf Azeroth verteilt werden? ^^

A boy freaks out after him mum cancels his World of Warcraft subcription. What was going through his mind at 1m10sec?? Bizarre!

It’s like cooking amnesty

-Potshot

Another holiday is upon us in Azeroth, Pilgrim’s Bounty.  This holiday borrows heavily from the American Thanksgiving traditions, which tends to focus on food and cooking.

The way Blizzard has Pilgrim’s Bounty set up, if you have neglected your cooking skills on your character, now is the chance to catch up.  You need to buy five new recipes to complete the cooking quests, but the recipes are all spread out in skill level so you may only be able to use a few at first.

But the ingredients are all easily obtainable, and as you cook through the lower level recipes, you cooking skills will notch up and allow you to get to the next set.

So the event will let you catch up on cooking without a huge effort.

As for me, my cooking skills were already at the cap on my main character, Vikund.  But those five recipes put me over the top for my final remaining cooking achievement.

Chef de Cuisine is awarded for knowing 160 cooking recipes out of the 169 total that are currently in the game.

Happy Pilgrim’s Bounty to you, happy cooking to all!

A man who calls himself SAL9000 is set to marry his virtual girlfriend from a video game called Love Plus this weekend.

The above is stolen straight from a Dallas headline. Apparently our love-struck gamer decided to take his love – the in game avatar Nene Anegasaki – on a honeymoon to Guam. Now, sadly, ‘Love Plus’ does not actually have a Guam in game. Thus, SAL9000 did the next logical thing and took his Nintendo DS with him to Guam, where he undoubtedly held hands with her through his stylus and attempted to advance the sex life of the relationship by getting the DS up the cartridge slot.

The man now plans to hold a public wedding reception in Tokyo this weekend which will also be livecast on Nico Nico Douga.

Ah, yes. Japan. The one country in the world that will embrace this match made in digital heaven. I will not be surprised if the company that produced ‘Love Plus’ uses this as a positive press moment and attempts to capitalize by actually programming the game to allow such a ceremony on this grand scale.

But all will not be love and roses in this relationship. In fact, it can  actually be quite short lived. Unfortunately for SAL9000, mistreating his so-to-be bride will cause her to leave him within the next 100 days!

The player can increase their abilities by studying, working out and solving problems of their virtual girlfriend, but if they fail to make their girlfriend happy, the game will restart after 100 days.

This is a great time to instead invest in World of Warcraft. There, your digital half-elf paladin bombshell will even do a dancing striptease for you.

My WoW-day started good, with a present for the game`s 5th anniversary, a mini-Onyxia pet that looks so stupid and funny. I love the “angry raid leader”’s qoute there. He`s a classic.

Today is the first day of Pilgrim`s Bounty, the new World of Warcraft holiday. It mostly involves traveling and cooking. It`s not possible to do it in one single day, you`ll need to do some dailies.

The achievements for the meta are:

• FOOD FIGHT! – Sit at a table outside any capital and throw food.
• Now we`re cooking – Buy the book from a vendor at the festivities, learn the five recipe and cook them all.
• Pilgrim`s Paunch – Travel to each capital and all foods at a Bountiful Table.

• Pligrim’s Peril – Wearing the any chest items you get from the event`s dailies, take a seat at a table in every enemy capital. I hate these achievements, I have to travel so much.
• Pilgrim’s Progress – Complete all five dailies.
• Sharing is Caring – At a Bountiful Table, pass all five courses.

• Terokkar Turkey Time – Kill Talon Lord Ikiss while wearing the hat and the chest item from the event. Since you kill him in normal at lvl 80, he can he easily soloed/2 manned.

• The Turkinator – Read this “Worst Achievement Ever”. Go to Elwynn Forest and kill 40 turkeys in maximum 30 seconds apart. I did this East of Eastvale Logging Camp, ran around in that area and after failing 4-5 times finally noone came to screw with the respawn times and I got the achievement.



• Turkey Lurkey – Do the dailies, pick the Turkey Shooter and use it on rogues from each race. The item is single use, don`t shoot a rogue that`s already transformed because it won`t count and your item will still disappear.

I don’t really have a dps spec. My main spec is resto, my off-spec is feral tank. I got good gear for both. I used to be moonkin, but I didn’t like it so much. My dps was too dependent on RNG, and I felt that even if I played really well, it didn’t always look like that because I had no luck with eclipse. So no more moonkin for me. So far, I’ve gotten by just fine doing dailies in kitty wearing my tank gear. It works for me.

But my raid leader has a wish, that I get myself some proper dps gear. Why? Well, on some boss encounters you need 7 healers, on others you need 5 or 6 healers. So we usually bring 7 healers, and then rotate the healers on going dps on some encounters. So far, I’ve not been part of the rotation due to my lacking dps gear. That’s a bit unfair I guess, so I’ve been gathering dps gear and now I have a decent set, so I’m about ready to try doing some dps in raids as well, if needed.

So last night I decided to spend some time on a training dummy in Ironforge. I have no idea what rotation to use, and feral dps kitties have all sorts of fancy useful abilities these days, apparently. I never really use any of it, since I only use my kitty for solo questing. When solo playing, my rotation is usually *mangle, mangle* and things are dead. But I figured I would need a different rotation for raid bosses I went to the dummy, placed myself behind it and started the stopwatch (I know from my moonkin days, that I need to test for at least 3 minutes, and have about 5-10 attempts to get a decent picture of my dps output).

I did 3 minutes of dps on the dummy, I check recount; 1341 dps. WTF?! Okay, maybe I should read the tooltip for these abilities. Tiger’s fury seems useful enough, maybe I should put it in my action bar. Savage roar… not bad, I’m gonna try that too. I test again; 3 minutes full dps, recount says 1577 dps. Okay… This just isn’t working. Time to visit google. “feral dps rotation”… yay, lots of matches. A thread on wow forums, I’ll check that. Kitty rotation for bosses? It goes something like:

Mangle -> Rake -> Shred (till 5cp) -> Savage Roar -> Tigers Fury -> BERSERK! -> Mangle -> Shred (till 5cp) -> Rip -> Rake -> Shred (tll 5 cp) -> Ferocious Bite /Repeat with no berserk

…say what….?

I was tempted to delete all my epic dps gear, and just tell raid leader, that if he wants healers with dps spec, he can bench me I mean, I might be able to get this rotation sorted on a target dummy, where I can stand still for 10 straight minutes. But on a raid boss? No wai! If I have to dps, they’ll have to accept a melee tree spanking big bad bosses with the tree branches that look like arms!

I did go on testing on the training dummy, and after a while, I got a consistent 25-2800 dps on each attempt. But still… That’s not particularly impressive, so I’m gonna stick with my melee tree! My branches hit hard, and with just two arms, it’s an easy rotation!

Shame on you Channel 7 for letting this air! Oh, who am I kidding. Your researchers have the intelligence of 12 year olds and the conviction of a pine nut. Heaven forbid showing unbiased, truthful (as possible) reported facts that may go against the grain of conservatism so as to effect the ratings of Sunday Night. I suppose you would get more over-hinged criticism from the thoroughly uneducated and overtly conservative audience if a more balanced story was shown (save the children! Who will tell us games are bad!).

I viewed Game On! thinking you would cover the aspects of Australia’s participation in the World Cyber Games, however, sadly, this was just a thinly veiled cover for the real story of Ross Coulthart’s video game bashing on the issue of addiction.

The fact is:

1. To master anything requires an incredible amount of time and dedication (take for example Gladwell’s rule of 10,000 hours, not particularly scientifically correct, but often used as a yard stick), often multiple hours of practice a day for many years. So does aspiring to become a player at the highest level and putting in the effort behind it (as is seen in WCG) a demonstration of addiction? If you said yes, then, by that logic, your favourite footballer would be considered an addict of football. Rubbish? Well consider the hours of practice required, consider the dedication, consider the ambition. They are fundamentally the same.

What, but the computer gamer doesn’t sweat or work out, gain muscle mass or cardiovascular endurance, I hear you exclaim. But the measure of a humans growth is not merely limited to physical aspects (far from it, I would argue, the accumulation of knowledge and development of intelligence is bound to last longer than physical prowess for the vast proportion of the population. I would rather be a Nobel laureate than win the Brownlow Medal in AFL any day). In fact, research as far back as five years ago shows cognitive benefits from gaming (Gee, 2005) with current research investigating the extent of this cognitive enhancement (Steinkuehler, 2006).

The quote, “What is lacking in sweat is made up for in sheer numbers” is, frankly, insulting. The best gamers in the world have highly developed cognitive processes developed through gaming such as pattern recognition, system thinking and  highly enhanced reaction processing.

2. I agree there are a small proportion of gamers who have had their interaction-reward cognitive processes modified by gaming, and this could lead to the classification of addiction. However, the vast majority of gamers simply interact with the medium as they would with any other media. In fact 63% of the US population would be considered a gamer (NPD, 2007), spending at least 10 hours a week on gaming and gaming related activities (while this isn’t the Australian population, we don’t really have any studies. However, if the Australian Parliament Standing Committee on Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (2008) uses this as analogous to our situation then so will I). So, would television viewing habits require the use of television addiction boot camps? If we applied the same principles of consumption as we do to television we would see many times the number of television “addicts” compared to video game “addicts”.

And, really, humans are inherently addicted to things. Our evolutionary survival instincts dictate that we love to eat too much, we are obsessed about sex and anything that provides reward from input is bound to provide more reward from more input. While the comparison to gambling, smoking and alcoholism are all valid comparisons, however, I won’t stoop to that level to beat the drum, but, just say, addiction is part of human nature and gaming is a relatively less harmful than a lot of other possible addictions out there and the amount of media frenzy it attracts is unwarranted.

The use of a respondent in the programme who claimed to spend 15 hours a day gaming is highly sensationalist.  For all I know he really does spend 15 hours a day gaming, but in a survey done by Nick Yee in 2005 of over 3000 world of warcraft gamers only 2 respondents spent 15 hours or more a day gaming. This is a minuscule proportion of the respondents, in fact, the average number of hours spent playing World of Warcraft among all 3245 respondants was 22 hours per week, which is in fact similar to the amount of time the average Australian spends watching TV (26 hours per week), indicating that gaming is possibly replacing television time in these respondents.

Something in the back of my mind is thinking this report is a reaction to the amount of time people are now spending on games rather than television. In a recent survey by Roy Morgan (2008) the average Australian (over 14) still spends 43% of their media viewing time glued to the television with computer usage coming second at 21%. However, the most telling statistic is in the younger portion of the people surveyed where the gap in the two mediums was much less apparent. Respondents aged 18-24 almost had no different with 36% of their media viewing time spent on the computer and 37% of it spent watching the telly. Something I suppose would be a scary statistic for networks about the projection of TV influence in the future.

3. “…they’re just games”

This was the most infuriating thing said on this program. They’re just games. Well. If they were “just games” how come the games industry dwarfs the movie industry and yet, in Australia particularly, attracts comparatively little government funding in comparison to the film industry. If they were  ”just games” how come the average gamer in Australia is now over 30 years old and, yet, we have no R18+ rating classification, even with 98% of the population (IEAA, 2009) seeing the benefit such a rating would have (such as educating parents on what content is applicable for their children, the argument many of the opposition peddle, which is baseless because 92% of surveyed parents say they know what their children are playing. And, even if kids these days are more savvy (which they are), they aren’t telepathic, they are not going to spend hours devising and implementing brute force algorithms to break a 4 digit code placed by their parents to play a game rated above their age).

Such a view that games are juvenile and puerile has no statistical weight. It seems this form of technophobia is nothing new, television caused the silver screen industry to spew propaganda dismissing the television as harmful to family relations as a survival technique, and now they are ubiquitous. Such is the same with games, the arguments against addiction, violence in games and social degradation are scapegoats we have all seen, petted and then subsequently roasted before.

We are in an age of unprecedented media saturation. Our views are unfortunately disproportionately shaped by what we see, which is often a reflection of popular views, further distilling it. I would think, however, that we were all intelligent enough to see everything through a critical frame of mind. But, the saying rings true that 90% of a population is moronic viewing media almost as a form of blind faith, if a current affair programme says this, it MUST be true, never mind there maybe underlying agendas, never mind there may be mitigating factors, it is black and white.

While we are media savvy, it seems the majority of the population is not savvy enough to distinguish sensationalist “newstainment” (which, unfortunately, is more economically viable) from truly factual and unbiased reporting. It is a trend that is worryingly becoming more apparent (we need more Media Watch).

So, Sunday Night, under your guise of “award winning unbiased presentation of facts”, don’t muddy the water of a new and already overly contentious issue. It does more harm to a growing and influential Australian industry and the culture surrounding it, than it benefits Channel 7’s wallet.

P.S. I’m going to get a call from my mum probably later tonight telling me to stop studying games now =_=. Thanks Channel 7 for bringing further doubt into my parents minds about my future. They weren’t exactly confident to begin with.

Watch the video here (notice the complete lack of even basic scientific grounding. Dr Tao Ran’s use of anecdotal evidence explaining the condition of 15 or so kids and then linking it with the “health of Chinese youth” is farcical . If you are going to use a scientist, at least use someone who is recognizably knowledgeable in the subject… Not some random who is willing to spout anything to get on television (DONT YOU DARE DEFLECT THE ISSUE ONTO RACISM))

http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunday-night/video/#fop
(3rd one across in the gallery)

P.S.S. I am waiting on the transcripts to be released for me to more accurately quote Ross.

So, last night my guild decided to raid the Eye of Eternity. Those of you who play WoW currently know exactly what I’m about to talk about, but those of you that don’t… don’t.

It was the last raid I needed for my “Champion of the Frozen Wastes” title, so I came along. Little did I know what was about to happen. The raid assembled inside the instance, which looks spectacular by the way. Seriously, it’s a floating platform IN SPACE. Looks awesome.

So, we spent 10 minutes talking about strategies and stuff. Once we finished discussing said strategies, the guild leader ran in and activated the big orb in the middle, starting the encounter. This was the start of what is now arguably my favourite raid boss.

Malygos landed on the platform, and our tank held him on the outside. Sparks appeared occasionally, and we got a death knight to grip them into a group of DPS before killing them (50% temporary damage boost for standing in the result of a spark’s death). Every now and then, he’d fly up and bring the entire raid with him, creating a massive swirling vortex with his wings, flinging all raid members around. Very impressive.

After we (finally) got him down to 50% health, phase 2 started. He flew up, still in range of the ranged DPS who attacked him still. Once he had been hit a bit, he summoned adds on flying discs. We killed them, and our melee DPS took the discs so they could fly up and attack the rest along side the ranged DPS. Because we didn’t know the strategies, we took too long for the first two phases, and Malygos enraged just as this phase ended. So we died.

Attempt number 2 started. This time, everyone was familiar with the tactics, so we got him down to 50% health with 5 minutes left on the enrage timer (we had 3 minutes left first attempt). Phase 2 went much smoother, and we killed the last of the adds with 2 minutes left on the timer. The floor crumbled, and we fell down, landing on the backs of friendly dragons. It’s as epic as it sounds. Everyone “/follow”ed the tank, so we only needed to focus on hitting the right buttons. As a DPS, I simply had to press: 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, and so on and so forth. Well, too many people died and we couldn’t DPS him fast enough. He enraged, we died.

Attempt number 3. Phase 1 went nicely, ending it with 6 minutes left. Phase 2 went flawlessly, and we ended with 3 minutes remaining. We fell onto the drakes again, and everyone “/follow”ed the tank in time. All DPS used the correct rotation, and he had 7 debuffs with 5 stacks each. Needless to say, his health was going down with a decent speed. People did occasionally die though, lowering the DPS. We couldn’t nuke him because most damage done to Malygos is a DoT. Eventually, all but two had died, a healer and the tank. Malygos was at 3% health, and it was going down PAINFULLY slowly. We still had a minute on the enrage timer though, so as long as the tank stayed alive, we could kill him.

Well, next the healer went down. There was ONLY the tank left. So he fired another stack onto Malygos, increasing the DoT just enough to kill him. Two achievements were unlocked for pretty much everybody in the raid, one for killing Malygos and one for killing all Wrath bosses that haven’t been added in some sort of patch. Most of us (someone hadn’t done all the heroics) were officially Champions of the Frozen Wastes.

A truly epic battle, ending in a truly epic manner. If anyone asks me why I play World of Warcraft, this is it. The feeling you get when you kill a difficult boss with 9 other people, only one of them still left standing at the end. The feeling of raiding.

Have any thoughts on this? Comment! Let me know!

Ich habe ja schon von Anfang an gesagt, dass es nervig wird. Ich halte mich hier erstmal nur an die Fakten, ohne mich groß im Frust zu verlieren:

- Truthahnator braucht 40 Truthähne, wobei man jeweils immer den nächsten Truthahn innerhalb von 30 Sekunden töten muss, ansonsten ist der Buff weg. Ich empfehle Tirisfal, da ist es nicht so überfüllt wie in Elwynn.

- Die Tisch-Erfolge brauchen jeweils immer 5 Aufladungen (geben einzelne 60-Min-Buffs) von allem, was in einem 60-Min-Buff resultiert, der den Rufzuwachs um 10% erhöht. Wahlweise muss man Glück haben, dass alles auf seinem Teller liegt, oder man reicht sich die Sachen durch Absprache gegenseitig zu (muss man ohnehin für Essensschlacht). Ansonsten hilft nur der Platzwechsel.

- Um die Schurken abzuschießen braucht man immer jeweils eine Donnerbüchse, da selbige bei der Benutzung verschwindet. Also drauf achten, auf wen ihr schießt (da Schurken, welche den Buff noch haben nicht zählen).

- Daily-Quests gibt es in Sturmwind, Eisenschmiede und Darnassus (also wohl für die Horde in Unterstadt, Orgrimmar und Donnerfels). Die sind jeweils untereinander verlinkt. So braucht man aus Eisenschmiede Truthähne, die es in Elwynn gibt, in Sturmwind braucht man Süßkartoffeln aus Darnassus, sowie Beeren aus Eisenschmiede und in Darnassus braucht man Kürbisse aus Sturmwind. Alles jeweils 20x. Wenn man also in einer Hauptstadt vorbei kommt, kann man selbiges gleich mitnehmen.

- Rezepte gibts in dem Buch beim Lehrer und die kleine Daily, in der man kochen muss, führt einen auch überall rum.

- Die Magier tun mir leid. Jeder will ein Portal und die Preise gehen schon auf 20 Gold rauf, was durchaus verzehnfacht ist. Bin jetzt schon auf welche getroffen, die nichtmal mehr Portalrunen hatten.

Den Frustpost über die dämlichen Spieler gibt es dann in ein paar Tagen. Vielleicht hilft die kleine Aufzählung ja.

LG

Arthas wirft eine Schatten voraus und der Vorabdownload des Patches steht mit bislang rund 450MB zur Verfügung. Für mich heißt das der Patch kommt noch dieses Jahr. Auch wenn Blizz andeutet es könnte auch Januar werden. Ob er Content für mich bereit hält weiß ich noch nicht.

Was ich weiß ist, daß er wieder Cock-Blocker für die Raider enthält. Die Bosse werden erneut mit zeitlicher Verzögerung frei geschaltet was für diejenigen die die Bosse seit Wochen auf dem PTR testen doch recht ärgerlich sein muß. Ich selber gehe nicht mehr auf den PTR weil das Gefühl “ui, neue Instanz” das kann man eben nur 1x Mal haben – entweder auf dem PTR oder wenn der Patch live geht.

Das Problem für den Monopolisten sind wieder die 8 Monate die wohl vergehen werden bis der Vorbereitungspatch für das Addon kommt. Das war in der Vergangenheit zu lange und wird es auch diesmal sein. Insbesondere wegen der umfangreichen Änderungen an Spielstrukturen – was in der Folge wohl zu erneuten Klassenumbauten führen wird – diesmal aber an (fast) allen Klassen.

Bei der Gesamtbetrachtung des Patches mache ich mir am meisten Sorgen um die Raider. Mein Raid aus 2006 ist in der Zwischenzeit in den Top3 der erfolgreichsten Raids. Auch wenn mir da jetzt vielleicht einer böse sein mag (sry, Elo) das ist nicht nur Eigenleistung. Das hat auch etwas mit dem Wegbrechen an Raids davor zu tun. Erfolgreichster Raid auf Aman’Thul ist seit Jahren CD (/bow an alle die ich da kenne).

Dahinter ist die Luft recht dünne geworden.

Luna

I hadn’t been able to play in the last 4 days till today and I don’t like that. I see my game time diminishing due to IRL demands and a change in my work schedule. /QQ

My S O is in the process of changing his lifestyle and is much more present as a part of the family. This is great, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that he is not a gamer. His being present means spending more time together (good) and less free time gaming for me (not so good).

My gaming time usually consists of about 3 hours a morning 2 to 3x’s a week and occassionally one long evening of about 5 hours. Family time permitting I may or may not also get one all day session on the weekend.

Now I know that sounds like a lot of time and maybe I just play like a noob, but I still have not been able to get one toon to 80 in almost a year and a half. My sister’s boyfriend Bathazario (sorry if I butcherd your name I’ll edit later) says he’s been playing only since May and is at 77. I’m at 70. FML. He thinks his progression is slow and that most people should be able to level to 80 in 6 months or so. WTF.

I have, for nearly 2 years now, worked from home but that is changing this Monday when I have to go into the office for a minimum of 3 months. Since it is a 30 min commute and of course there will now be showering, make up, hair, lunch packing, breakfast eating and driving to fill my morning (no more working in my jammies and showering during lunch break for more morning WoW time) I will be losing a good chunk of my weekly play time. /sad panda face.

I feel like I’m falling farther and farther behind. I know this is sounding like a big QQ fest but I’m really trying to see the whole picture. Where I’ve been what is changing and what I can do to maximize what time I do have.

I know part of the reason I’ve been slow to progress is I pretty much just solo. I’ve gotten a hand with the odd quest or two but I don’t know the mechanics of grouping and am terrified to look not only look like the noob I am but a damn stupid one at that. My self esteem is too closely connected to my sense of competence to be able to detach long enough to learn.

I’m in a very supportive guild now DOTH = Daughters of the Horde. I’m looking to change my play style and learn new skills that will keep leveling fun and steady.

That’s it for now. Thanks for visiting and. Come again soon.

My main character has been my rogue since the day I started playing WoW. I’ve enjoyed the experience of leveling as a rogue and over the course of 5 years we’ve seen quite a lot of changes to class. Overall our focus hasn’t strayed from the original vision, but we have gained much needed utility that makes us useful beyond our DPS. With the recreation of Azeroth in Cataclysm and new and improved leveling experience for new characters I’ve decided to chime in on some changes I’d like to see to our core skill-set.

Tricks of the Trade

Currently learned at level 75 this ability really helps solidify a tank’s threat right away especially when combined with Fan of Knives. I’d love to see this ability learned sooner than 75. While there isn’t much need for it early on since most boss encounters are tank n’ spank in the old world it could help in Outlands. There is a gap of new skills that rogues learn between 40 and 62, so it could easily be slotted in at level 58.

Shiv

Quite useless outside of PVP, something needs to be done to make shiv worth doing in PVE content. Allowing shiv to crit made the ability broken, but what if shiv allowed your next special attack (shiv excluded) a chance to award an extra CP? *shrug* Then again, maybe shiv doesn’t need to be worthwhile outside of PVP. In that case there’s no real reason a rogue should have to wait until level 70 to pick up the ability. Making it trainable at level 48 wouldn’t hurt anything and give pvp rogues a new toy to play with.

Fan of Knives

Our beloved AoE attack received some necessary tuning but is still incredibly useful. I only wish it were available earlier on especially when I was leveling my rogue through Northrend and doing dungeons. Would it be completely unbalancing to allow rogues to learn this at level 70? Or even 72? It’s an awesome ability for sure and should be near the end of the line for rogues, but it was painful having to wait until 80 to have an AoE attack outside of Blade Flurry.

Sprint

I’d love to see sprint’s duration and cooldown halved. How often do you really need a full 15 seconds of sprint? Okay, there is flag carrying duty in WSG but that’s about it. This change would improve the mobility of rogues in pvp and pve. I am envious of warriors that are able to charge back in after running out of a nova attack, so c’mon Blizz, let us use sprint a little more frequently!

Dismantle

I’ve always found it odd that Blizzard decided to retroactively give rogues the ability to disarm their foes at level 20. This ability is extremely powerful in 1 on 1 pvp situations and do rogues really need it at 20? Level 20 is already crowded with plenty of other abilities. I don’t think it would hurt much to push dismantle back to around level 42 or 44.

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.

Way back in the dark mists of January 2008 Eric Heimburg, who was Perpetual’s Lead Systems Designer on Star Trek Online back before that company folded, wrote a few points out to Cryptic / whoever might get the Star Trek MMO. With Cryptic’s STO launching just a few short months away in February 2010, I thought it was interesting to compare that advice with what has since been announced. Please read his article – and it is an interesting one, as is its follow-up – for a better perspective on Eric’s experience than I’m going to cover here.

This Star Trek uniform is non-canon and thus an affront to the every true Trek fan.

Advice #1: Don’t try to be too true to the license. and Advice #4: Ignore the fans.

Reading into these points of advice, I see this covering some “remember that you are making a MMO, not a Star Trek simulator, so don’t abandon MMO conventions too easily” territory. And this is good advice.

A lot of people have the attitude that since STO is using the Star Trek IP, it needs to follow it exactly. This just isn’t true. The highly successful new “Star Trek” film basically threw out every bit of existing Star Trek lore barring the character names and it didn’t hurt the franchise at all. (Side note: personally I thought the film was over-rated, but that’s another issue.) Instead, “Star Trek” just focused on making a fast-moving action film with a clear story and the box office was very good, so dumping decades worth of lore had little impact on its success.

So, although there have been some complaints of terms like “tanking”, “DPS” and “support’ appearing in STO trailers, the reality is that STO has to appeal to existing MMO players as a whole, not just Trek fans who might also play MMOs. Love or hate the holy trinity terms, they are basic role definitions for combat in MMOs, so not having them is a red flag to all those players who want to better understand the game. Now, an STO ‘tank’ might not be the same as a World of Warcraft ‘tank’, but simply having the concepts there make it more acceptable to a lot of MMO players.

To date, it appears that Cryptic is following this advice. They certainly want to give the title a Star Trek flavour, but they are setting out to make a MMO first. How well it all plays is only going to be known during open beta, but this is going to be more important to the title’s success than if the lore is followed 100%.

Also, regardless of what Cryptic did, there would always be a group who felt that it “wasn’t Star Trek enough”. This isn’t an area where everyone can be satisfied with the outcome.

Advice #2: Make a fun game loop first.

The ‘fun’ won’t be known until the title hits open beta, but Cryptic has indicated that they have episode missions and procedurally generated content. This at least seems that they are trying to make the core of the game feel Trek-ish in its game loop.

Advice #3: Don’t try to make the ground and space games at the same time.

Cryptic is making the ground and space games at the same time, as seen here. Advice ignored.

Advice #5: Don’t go public too soon.

Is an extended testing period really an expendable for STO?

Although STO has probably spent two years in development at Cryptic, here is where I feel the need to go, “Hmmm … yeah … well …” as this would seem to be a large trap that Cryptic are heading towards. STO’s closed beta looks like it is going to only run for about 3 months while open beta is going to be 1 month (January 2010) and then STO launches. That’s an awfully big rush out the door.

I’m going to write a longer piece on Champions Online’s beta, but a key thing it needed was longer server up times and longer testing. If anything, STO is getting a shorter testing period than Cryptic’s other MMO and it would be hard to say that ChampO didn’t have a good number of issues to deal with at launch that more testing would have helped smooth out. STO could easily fall into the same hole. Regardless of when STO is launched, there will always be players who will say it needed more time, but only having such a short beta period limits the ability to actually change game features according to testing feedback.

Of all the pieces of Eric’s advice, it is this last one that was probably the most important – launch it right and spend the time required to get there. Unfortunately, it appears to be the piece of advice that Cryptic isn’t paying attention to.

Guess we’ll see at launch if this was the wise thing to do… or not.

今まではGlyph of Last Stand、Glyph of Shield Wall、Glyph of Vigilanceを使ってたんだけど、Last StandとShield WallをGlyph of CleavingとGlyph of Blockingに変えた。

Ony, TOTC, VOAでタンクして分かったんだけど、Cooldownってほとんど必要ないのよね。使うとしても１回のボス戦で１回くらい。だからCooldownが短くならなくても別に困らないかなと。特にShield Wallは、どうせ１回しか使わないのなら60%ダメージ減少の方がいい。まあ本当はどんどん使っていくべきなんだろうけど、ピンチになると困ると思って取っておいて、結局使わずに終わってしまう（＾＾；UlduarのハードモードとかとかTOGCをやるわけではないので、これで十分と思う。

それに3.3でHeroicをする様になると、やっぱりGlyph of Cleavingは欲しいよね。BlockingはSunder Armorと迷ったけど、Cleaveが3体に当たればThreat面で問題が無いのは経験済みなので、多少でもMitigationを上げた方がいいかなと。