Priest @ 80!

Last Sunday I managed to hit level 80 on my Priest, which wasn't that hard considering I was only about 6 bars short. I discovered a few interesting things about leveling this character, which I leveled pretty fast (probably faster than any other character I leveled from 70 to 80).

1. The LFG tool is great for supplementing XPs assuming you are willing to go as a healer.

2. XPs gained from dungeons in the midrange aren't necessarily worth it because of just how short those instances can be. DK is an example of that...a single run through that instance may net you only about 1 bar of XP. As a result, questing is actually faster in some of these instances.

3. A combination of cherry-picking quest lines, skipping annoying quests, and supplementing with instances is definitely the best option for leveling.

4. It's also important to try to hit quest lines that net rep rewards with the various WOLK factions. Sure you can pick up that rep later doing L80 instances and heroics, but that's pretty slow going.

Now that I've hit 80, I've started doing dailies (hodir rep is now maxed, thanks to having saved hundreds of Ulduar Relics). I've also made back around 3k of the 7k I spent on the character just through leveling. I started doing some normal L80 instances, and this time since I'd been doing instances since 80 the transition was smoother. Most of my gear was comprised of questing and instance blues, with only a few green items. I spent a few hundred gold buying a few cheap purples (an inscription offhand piece, and a pair of moonshroud gloves), both of which I got for about 100g each.

Healing as Priest is a little more interesting than Shaman, and I've had less problems with it overall. Priest has some good AOE healing spells, and a few fast-reaction spells in addition to more normal casting spells. The combination seems better to me, though I can still see the value of a shaman healer.

Sunday I spent the better part of the day doing instances and had very bad luck with getting gear. I did TOC5 non-heroic at least 9 times, nothing useful dropped it was all plate and mail gear. I then tried a few specific heroics just to see how I'd do...turns out not that bad as long as the tank was well geared. So I also started doing some random heroics which also went OK. Still, the only piece of gear I got was a pair of gloves from DK that were virtually identical to the gloves I'd paid 100g for (the difference being 1 point of spirit lower)...fuck blizzard. So while I got a lot of experience, I came up with nothing gear wise even after 6 hours.

Yesterday went better, though. I also had a bad forge of souls run which I just could not keep people alive (though we completed the instance without any wipes, during the last fight the only two alive was me and the tank by the end of it). Still I started getting some gear. I picked up T9 Shoulders, socketed it with Haste and put on the hodir shoulder enchant. I also picked up a healing staff, which replaced my mace/book combo. And I picked up a spell DPS wrist which had haste, hit, and SP which I went ahead and equipped because it was still far better than the green wrist piece I was wearing (hit be damned!). By the end of the night, my SP had gone from 1300 to 1800. My haste had gone up by over 100, and my crit from 5% to 10%. My mana pool is also now over 15k, much better than the 9k I'd been stuck at for such a long time. I'm definitely interested to see how well I perform now. Hopefully some of those fights I was barely keeping up with will be easier to heal through and I'll stop feeling so mana starved.

After that, I got into a ICC10 man with my mage, which went OK. I kept dying though, mostly due to me not really knowing the encounters well enough to predict threats in the first place. I did pick up a a nice belt which had much better stats than my old piece. I lost crit about 50 crit, but gained around 90 haste and about 70 SP in return so overall I think it was a great upgrade. My haste rating is now sitting around 550, though my base crit is now only 36%. Still, for arcane haste trumps crit so I think that's a worth while trade off.

Not sure what's happening for the rest of this week. I might be online tonight, and if I am I'll probably spend much more time in instances and doing random heroics instead of TOC 5 man. I still don't think I'm geared enough for TOC5 + ICC heroics though, so I'm a bit leery of the random. Still, I'd like to get enough badges to get my next T9 piece (probably gloves?). So we'll see.

Dragonblight: The Return: The Return!

I have a confession to make. Besides my mage, I have several other L80 characters. A Death Knight. A Druid. And now a Shaman. So I have gotten used to leveling in WOTLK. I pretty much know how it works and have enough experience that I can do it pretty efficiently.

WOTLK is pretty fun to level through the first time. There is a lot of quest variety, and there is a bit more story to the whole affair which helps string everything together. But the fact is that it quickly gets boring through subsequent play throughs. Now, this is probably unavoidable. But IMO, part of the problem is still just the sheer volume of quests that have to be done. It's just daunting, and it gets worse with each new character you run through. And while the leveling speed actually increases as you go from 70 to 80, it's still just too slow IMO. A 25% speed increase to leveling would be a big help here and still not be 'too fast'.

Last night, I spent time with the priest instead of the shaman. I wanted to play around a little more with healing with it, if for nothing else to see if I liked it better. Things didn't really go as planned though.

The session started off on a bad note. I logged in, put myself in the queue for a random, and got into a dungeon (Nexus almost immediately). L80 DK tank, everyone else was 73...I figured it would go well. But I was having problems with the AOE damage on the first boss...my damned small mana pool caused me to blow most of my mana during the first two splits. Then I died trying to keep everyone else up; and then the tank started bitching that I wasn't healing him (after I was dead lol)...so he left. Then we went through 2 more tanks without even making a pull (tanks would join, then just immediately leave for whatever reason). So I left.

So, back in the queue I have to wait about 15 seconds before I get another group. This time its old kingom w/ a L80 druid and a everyone else 72 or so. This goes simple. Healing was a easy, but then the tank had 48k health and barely took any damage.

Even with that I STILL seemed to be having mana problems. Nothing major, but on boss fights my mana would get low real fast and it was making me nervous (even though the tank really wasn't taking much damage). This quite frankly worries me. I mean I understand that my gear was too shadow-oriented, and may not be all that good but damn!

So instead of 5 maning, I switched gears and went back to questing hoping for some better quest rewards to help me transition from dps to healer. The first thing I noticed was that questing with an epic mount in Dragonblight is a LOT faster. I got a level and a half yesterday, and could have easily gotten more...I'd say that epic flying increased my leveling speed by almost half.

I also picked up a few more quest rewards from 5-man quests, a healing necklace and belt. And I made myself a healing ring and a back piece. From questing I picked up a blue leg piece, blue healing hands and feet, and replaced a few greens with better greens. This increased my SP by over 100, gained me more than 1500 mana over what I was at, and increased my mana regen by about 100.

Hopefully this will help with the healing I need, but maybe not. With me hitting 74 yesterday (and almost getting to 75), a lot of mid level dungeons will now be open and the gear requirements will be higher. Still it's a good start.

Hmmm...

So, instead of spending more time with my newly minted Level 80 Shaman instead I goosed up my (only?) L72 priest spending another 7k gold buying her Flying, Epic Flyiing, Cold Weather Flying, a mount, and Dual Spec. To make up for this rather large loss of gold, I've started selling off some old mats and materials that will hopefully make the transition easier.

It took me a while to get things settled. But I got my priest a good holy spec and started doing some cleanup...I had completed several quests that I had not turned yet in for example and I did some inventory management. My priest is a Jewelcrafter/Tailor so I'm probably just going to stick with that for now. Both are in the 430 range and it'd be a waste right now to drop either of them when for the most part both should be fine.

So, then I went out and did a little questing, finishing up some old quests in Borean. It's a much better experience doing those quests with an epic flyer...big shock everything went faster and more smoothly. Tried leveling a bit as pure holy...bad bad bad move...so I queued myself up for the random normal dungeon and started completing some of the outstanding quests in borean just for the hell of it.

It didn't take long (maybe 10 minutes) for me to get a group. And there I had my first bad experience. I pop in, they are ahead clearing. Obviously they'd lost their healer. Highest level character is 77, the rest 73, so I figure it'll go well. It's the nexus, so not that bad. So I switch to holy and run to them. About the time I get into range, I see typed 'I'm pulling them all' followed by the DK pulling 3/4th of the mobs around the first boss intentionally with me at 1k mana. Big shock, he dies and we wipe. Then 3 seconds later the group disbands. lol. At least it was over fast enough.

So I re-queue and complete another quest and then get another run. This one goes a lot better, though most of the characters are only 70. I struggled a -little- bit with healing here though no one died until the end where the mage blew his wad in the first few seconds of the fight and got 1 shotted (I'm not taking responsibility for that one lol).

Priest heailng is certainly a bit more varied. But with more options comes a bit more problems with knowing what to cast and when. (which was the point, so it's not a complaint). But my mana pool was being severely constrained and my heals just seemed fairly low compared to the damage being delt at points. Circle of healing is nice, but seemed to grab almost 20% of my mana bar in one cast...ouch.

Still, just that short run netted me about 6 bars of XP in about 30 minutes. And while it was a little more harrowing that the shaman, I had fun with it. And as a plan, leveling through the LFG tool seems very, very viable; with using quests only for having something to do during downtime and for getting rep.

I probably won't be in game tonight...I have other plans (which may or may not get canceled). And Wednesday is probably Avatar night...so I may not be back in the game till Thursday.

Being Sick...

Well, I spent most of this weekend being sick. So instead of doing all of the things I'd planned (including a ton of christmas shopping) I stayed at home and did nothing productive.

Instead I ended up spending most of Sunday playing WOW. Got my shaman to 80, and then spent some quality time getting it ready to do five mans. I decided that the best course of action would be to go Resto and heal. And I also decided to spend some more quality time with the new looking for group system.

I have to say, the LFG system is probably the single most important update to WOW in it's history. It's ability to simply the ability to form groups is a major deal, and it seems to avoid some of the major hangups of the system by automating it. And, by spreading it across many servers, the pool of potentials is much higher. Sure, getting into a crappy group will still happen, but so far it's gone well.

Of course, ever since I created my Shaman a long time ago, I have been Enhancement. And having never played a Resto or healing in a group, I was a bit nervous going into it. I spent a little time looking at the healing gear I'd collected...I'd been planning this for a while and discovered that I did have pretty much a full set of healing gear...minus a pair of shoes. So I bought myself a pair of crappy ilev 200 epic shoes for 180g no less, and then started studying.

I have a confession to make...I don't really know the Shaman Class very well. Though I've played it to 80, I'd never grouped with it and my play with that character was pretty sporadic. I am not up on what gear is good or bad, what enchantments I need, or anything else. Most of my LK rep levels suck, and my character was equipped with a combination of blues and healing greens I'd collected since around L74. My main weapon is a green dagger I got as an item drop no less!

So, doing some reading and some research I've discovered the following:

1. Gear Wise, Resto Shamans like Haste, Spell Power, and Crit in that order. This surprised me, I thought that MP5 would be higher on the list.
2. Resto Shamans do not stick with just Mail Gear...they will sometimes go for leather or cloth.
3. There isn't really a spell rotation that I can tell. Lesser Healing Wave, Riptide, and Chain Heal seem to be the main healing spells.
4. I can -barely- handle normal TOC...barely.

Though I had a lot of fun with it, I'm starting to wonder if Priest would be better suited for healing. Still, Shaman was fun and I had some good luck yesterday with groups so I don't know...

WOW 3.3

After the break up of Arete I haven't spent much time in WOW. I intended on taking a break, and that's what I've done (for the most part, with the exception of a few 10 mans and a couple of pug 25s which have almost completely dried up at this point). Now I'm wanting to see some of the 3.3 stuff. I'm not to the point where I'm looking for a new raiding guild at this point, but I do want to see the Frozen Thrown and try to keep up gear wise to some degree.

Post raiding guild Arete seems pretty lively, I've noticed...a lot of people online hanging out and doing 5 mans and stuff. I, however, find myself mostly left out of that...those guys know each other pretty well and stick to the same groups. They tried a 10 man last week but I didn't get in, so my options have been pretty limited.

Though I pretty much detest puging, I did use the dungeon finder tool and found it to be pretty good just as advertised. I started doing dailies, entered the queue for the first 5 man, and got in relatively fast (about 15 minutes). Then did the second, and the 3rd in quick order. The experience was pretty good, but I was kinda disappointed in a way with the actual instances which were very short.

I'm not saying that they were bad. In fact, considering their small size they were pretty dense and got right to the heart of the encounters. And the final encounter with the Lich King in the final dungeon was unique and very interesting to say the least. And despite the sparse start, the final dungeon had built up a real sense of dread and actually told a story from start to finish. That I'm pretty impressed with, even if it was pretty basic.

I haven't really paid much attention to 3.3 or read much about it. So I was interested to see the Disenchant Roll. Mage seems little changed (though I hear they changed frost a lot, who knows if it's any good or not. Recount wasn't working for me in a group, so it was hard to tell how bad my skills declined. I felt like I did ok, considering that I really haven't played at all in 6 weeks.

I do think that there should be something of a personal rating system involved with the dungeon finder. Not a global one, but a personal list where you can rate players and if those players are in the queue they are groups with you more often if you rated them higher. But still everything went pretty well so I was happy with it. I'll probably play some more this week to see if I can get into the frozen throne, and do some more pugs. I also went ahead and purchased epic/cold flying for my 76 shaman (now 77)...so I might try pushing him to 80 this week.

We'll see how I'm feeling tonight I guess. I have a 2 hour dentist appointment tomorrow where they are doing the first step of putting in a new crown, and dealing with a deep cavity that needs to be taken care of. That's going to be fun :(

Assassin's Creed 2

I have a confession to make. I bought Assassin's Creed 2 the day it came out, but I just finished it last night. I have an excuse though. Since I hadn't played the original Assassin's Creed, I bought that as well at a budget price of 9.99 and started with that one first.

I was worried playing the two one after the other might hurt the experience. Especially after I got into AC1 a bit and found it to be one of the most annoyingly repetitive games of all time. Brilliant concept, beautiful visuals, but utterly barren in the long run.

Yet surprisingly AC2 is very similar to the first in game play, yet instead of being boring and repetitive the game feels very fresh and innovative. And that was even after just playing the first one. I think there are two reasons for this. The first is, there is an actual story here instead of a couple of vague short mission briefings like the first. The progression is more linear, but as a result the game play and missions much more varied. It's not just 'save the woman/monk' 9 times, then climb 9 buildings, etc. Sure some are similar, but there is a story woven into the missions that make them much more compelling and the story itself is pretty cool.

The second big change in the game is the main character. In AC, Altair is something of an ass. And a bland ass at that. Enzio, however, is a much more compelling character and a much easier to relate to. His goal, to avenge the death of his family, makes him more than just as assassin. He also grows over the course of the game, which spans at least 12 years, becoming less of a hothead and more of a driven man as the story progresses to its inevitable conclusion.

There are some nitpicks I have with the game. The whole city-building system is half-assed and fucks the game's economy to hell. By the time I finished the game, I had around 780,000 florins with literally nothing to spend it on but bribing officials and hookers. You get so much money from your city that everything else pales in comparison. Who cares about looting a chest for 1k when you get 14k every 20 minutes for free and that new piece of armor costs 27,000. Money is simply too easy to get, and there just isn't enough to spend it on.

Another thing that's kinda annoying, and this is just as true as the first one, is how the main character handles on the run. The game tries too much to assist you, often leading the character to do stupid things had no intention of doing just because you ran close to something and it locked on. This was especially obvious in chases, where weaving through buildings caused you to hit every damned chimney in the area and causing you to do strange jumps that inevitably cause you to jump off buildings instead of up the next wall. At a slower pace it is MUCH easier to manage, but this has less to do with the actual speed and more to do with the character's actions at speed.

I also wasn't entirely convinced at the ending. The Truth, well, was obvious even from the first few clips...too bad there wasn't something more interesting there. I didn't collect all of the feathers either (I got about 45 by the end, less than half). And there are tons of treasures left to collect and a score of optional missions. I'm half tempted to go back just to finish them up, but I'm not sure if there is a real point.

Overall, I'd have to say that AC2 exceeded my expectations and has been one of the best gaming experiences I've had this year. It was a truly fun, though not particularly challenging, game. One that I'll probably play again at some point.

Star Trek

I've always been a fan of Star Trek all the way back to when I was a kid watching TNG. The idea of a reboot really didn't seem to fit well with Trek--there's just a lot of history there, so I was hesitant about the new film even when reviews said it was good.

I came out of the movie theater really surprised about how good, how fun the movie turned out. I saw it twice in the theater (something I just don't do anymore), and I was eagerly awaiting it's release on blue-ray.

So this week I bought the film, and watched it again. And it holds up to everything I remember about it. Though now that I've seen it 3 times, some of it's faults are starting to appear. Most of them story related.

- Why in the hell is Scotty even in this picture? He's blatant comic relief and the only accomplishment he has is given to him by Future Spock. The scene where he's just running through engineering doing nothing but saying 'i'm givin her all she's got' just goes to show how much they just tried to shoehorn this character into the movie. Checkov, who theoretically shouldn't be there at all (in the original series, he was added later), had a much more substantial role.

- Why the whole drill thing? Why not just dump the 'red matter' onto the planet's surface and be done with it? Oh, I'm sorry, you have to give the good guys SOME chance to actually succeed!

- Still talking about the drill thing. But why is it so easy for Spock to blow up the cable holding the drill in the Jellyfish? You mean no one else thought of that until then?

- Karl Urban just owns the role of McCoy in this picture. He doesn't play him exactly the same, but his performance is spectacular in almost every scene he's in.

- Nero as a villain was something of a waste. There needed to be more of his back story. More of an explanation for why he was so pissed off. The little explanation we get of his motivation shows that he could have been a lot more. But this movie sacrifices all for the sake of the Kirk/Spock dynamic, and Nero and his story is no exception. It's a waste.

- That whole ice planet sequence really reminds me of the Phantom Menace in a not-so-pleasant way. And Kirk just randomly finding Future Spock is eye-rolling.

There are some other things that spring to mind, but many of those are nit-picks. I still like the film, it's a lot of fun. And it is one of the better Star Trek films. And considering that it could have ended up being a LOT worse, I'm pretty happy with it.

Borderlands

So, I picked up Borderlands, a game that really wasn't on my radar. But hell, I was bored this weekend and looking for a new game to play. Unfortunately, with Dragon Age coming up (and in fact it is now out), I really don't expect to be playing it for a while. A friend picked it up, though, but so far we haven't been able to set up any co-op game. Seems like that is a common problem from what I've read online.

Still, I do have a few impressions. The game has a rather quirky introduction. Alien world. Vault. Find. Kill Stuff. But the game has a very distinctive style, that while not necessarily pretty is interesting at least. The combination of FPS, RPG, and Diablo makes this game somewhat unique and different from other games I've played. Familiar too, but not so much so that the game is a straight knock off.

I, of course, am playing the Siren. Stealth, Misdirection, Critical Hits/Elemental chick seems more my style of game play than the other characters. The hunter does look cool though, so I'll have to check him out too. Combat is not very twitchy, and there seems to be a lot of space to search and look for items and quests, so I'm sure I'll be playing this game for a while. Especially if we can get multiplayer going.

I did, however, pick up DA last night so I'm probably not going to go much farther into this game right now unless I can get multiplayer going. We'll have to see what happens.

Stargate Universe

It's no secret that I am a fan of genre television. But while I am a fan, I am also very picky about my sci fi shows. And while I loved Stargate (the movie), I was never a fan of SG1, and I hated SG Atlantis with a passion that has not really diminished even after the show ended.

So I had no real interest in Stargate Universe. The premise is, well, fucking stupid. Trapped on an Ancient Stargate Ship; that stops only occasionally for 12 hours? W-T-F? But even with that I usually will check out a show; at least watch the pilot. And SGU was no exception.

So color me surprised, I actually liked what I saw, despite it's inherent problems. You see, a show can survive a fucking stupid premise if done right. And from what I was seeing, SGU was doing it right 90% of the time. Sure there were problems, but SGU succeeded by NOT trying to be SG1 or Atlantis. (If anything, that is why Atlantis was just so bad of a show, it tried to be nothing more than SG1 with slicker technology). Star Trek TNG could get away with that, because it was mimicing a show that had been off the air for years; but Atlantis was mimicing a show still on the air for it's first season. It was already state before it even got it's legs out from under it.

SGU succeeds by placing the characters in a difficult situation, and then playing that. There is no McCoy there to provide instant answers. In fact, very few answers are presented in the show so far. And the challenges presented in the first few episodes are all realistic, serious, and very much play off the concept of surviving only to delay the inevitable. The SGU group are not in charge, and they are not in any position to deal with the problem.

Which gets to my 1 specific problem with the premise that I can't look over. These people are supposed to be the 'wrong people for the job'. Civilians, scientistis, etc, shifting factions and all that. Which to me, is 100% BS. These people were all sent to a remote planet 22 light years from Earth, on a military base studying ancient technology; and they act like 2 year olds? Give me a break, these people would be the best and the brightest.

If the pilot had been an episode of SG Atlantis, by the end of the pilot; they would have completely taken over the ship; repaired it completely, used the stargate for some random reason (just because Stargate is in the name of the show); and gotten into shooting war with a mysterious new dominant race bent on destroying/enslaving/eating humanity. Instead, by the end of the SGU pilot; they know very little of about the ship (other than that it is very old and badly damaged). They are running out of air, and they have no obvious way of fixing it; and one of them had to die just to give them some time to find a solution.

By concentrating on the internal threats and character dynamics, leaving the external threats elemental and insolvable; SGU manages to become something more than the sum of it's parts. And that these characters, many of which really aren't that likable, become so fascinating to watch and they duck, weave, and try to survive, really shows that SGU is trying to be less action oriented, and more cerebral.

I still think that eventually the flavor of the show will turn more SG1ish later, once a lot of these problems begin to be resolved, but for now I intend to watch more of it and see where this show goes.

Demon's Souls and Windows 7

So, last night I installed Windows 7 on my PC. Pulled out my 2 raptors, which were configured in a raid 0 array and replaced it with a 640 GB single drive. Didn't have any problems with the install, 7 recognized all of my settings and hardware.

Over all it took maybe four hours from start to finish. I never do a straight upgrade in a situation like this--I always do a clean install. It took my about 30 minutes to backup all of my data one final time; pull out my old drives, and put in the new one. The actual install of 7 took maybe 45 minutes. And it took about 2 hours to re-install all of my software back on the machine. Had no problems at any point in the process. 7 recognized everything just fine, and I had no driver issues. And on the plus side my space issue has been resolved now.

Tonight I'll probably spend a bit more time tweeking settings, and maybe looking into some of the new features of the OS. And for now, Golden Axe girl is gone from my wallpaper, replaced by FF13 Chick!

Because I knew I was going to be bored and w/o a computer, I ended up going ahead while at the store and bought Demon's Soul. I've heard so many good things about it, and I was wanting a new game, so I picked this one over Brutal Legend.

So far, I'm not impressed. Everyone talks about how 'hard' this game is. But they mistake poor game design with difficulty. The bleak setting, lack of narrative, and the fact that the game provides virtually no information on what you are supposed to do makes the game very fucking frustrating. And for such a 'hard' game, stuff seems to die easy enough. The only time I have problems with it so far is in tight quarters, where targeting simply fails to function (this happens a lot, but once you know where these places are, it's easy to run in; back out and then target the monsters in open areas where targeting actually works).

Admittedly, I'm still in the first section of the game. Equipment is limited, I have virtually no abilities, so maybe it gets better later. Because quite frankly the crappy targeting, and lack of variety in combat moves, and spell abilities was really wearing thin on me last

Hopefully, the game will improve after I get past that first section (I had to go onto gamefaqs to figure out WTF I was supposed to be doing, and after that I found it much easier). I made it to the first main boss, but stopped at that point because it was 11 and it was time for bed.

October Confessions

It's been a few weeks since my WOW guild imploded, and you know what? I've found it pretty easy to disengage from the game completely. I've done a few TOC 10 mans, even a few attempts in heroic; but that's about it. Quite frankly, the break is doing me some good. And it's given me a chance to play a few other kinds of games, do some reading, and some other things that I haven't done much in a while.

Like, Uncharted 2!

I remember the original Uncharted, which was a good game with some frustrating controls and stellar production values. I don't think I actually finished the original...at the time something came up and I wasn't able to do any gaming for a few weeks, and never came back to it.

Uncharted 2 has been hyped to hell and back. And while I would say to ignore the hype, the game really IS good. I've had a ton of fun with it. The controls are tighter, there game play elements are more refined and varied, and the action sequences longer and more interesting both in game elements and presentation. It's a bit longer than the first game, and there is a welcome, yet abrupt increase in difficulty after a certain point in the game.

There are a few problems with the game.

First, the stealth elements are so simplistic as to be unrealistic. It is very easy to stealth past, and kill people, in the open, with others watching, and not sound an alarm. Sure it makes it easier, but when you stealth-kill the middle guy in a 3-man patrol; then stealth kill the other two and no one ever notices...it just becomes a joke. The stealth element is welcome in the game, but certainly could have been a bit more refined if for no other purposes as to make it a little more realistic.

Second, there are some annoying sections of platforming which are extremely forced. And I'm not talking about stuff in the temples/ruins, but mundane sections where you are forced to do really complex platforming to...get past a pipe on the floor; or exit a building with open doors. Of course, Uncharted is 50% platforming, so that is probably a nitpick.

Third, I would have liked the end section to have been expanded slightly. Shambala was very pretty, and I would have liked to have seem more of it. And maybe had some more complex action sequences set there.

Fourth...they don't let you play with Doughnut Drake from the start. Doughnut Drake is the perfect avatar for this game.

Overall, Uncharted 2 was probably the closest experience to playing Raiders of the Lost Ark of any game I've ever played. Some of the action sequences are very similar and may of the characters, betrayals, and story seem very similar. In particular I loved the whole train sequence; the helicopter gunfight in the city, and the truck chase through the mountains--all of which had shades of Indiana Jones written all over them.

End of (Another) Era

Well last night something pretty unexpected happened. My WOW guild of the last year dissolved with little-to-no notice last night. They'd been doing pretty good, but were having problems with hard modes, and no progressing as fast as some of the members wanted.

I'm still a bit shocked by it. I'm not completely surprised, there were some signs, but it did happen way too quickly. Very little drama though (unlike the Nerfed breakup).

From what I can tell, the breakup was caused by a combination of:

1. Core Players Leaving.
2. Ulduar Burnout.
3. Aion drawing players away.

I'm going to miss them. Arete was a damned good guild. It may not have been comprised of the most skilled players. But they were all fine people who were fun to play with. And very few assholes.

So next up, I guess I have to decide what I'm going to do with WOW. If anything at all.

Magic: The Return!

It's been years, but last week me and my friends decided to start playing Magic: the Gathering again. I used to play this game quite religiously with a rather large group of friends, but then pretty much quit when all of my friends got out of it. That was over 15 years ago.

Now, times are different. And Magic is now on it's 11th edition (my last was FOURTH). Times have changed. The cards look different (no more white bordered core sets lol), everything is more vibrant and colorful and the artwork is top notch...much higher quality than it used to be.

At least one of my friends is a hardcore player...he seems to be able to name any card he sees based on what it does; and he'll scour entire sets for that one card that will help him construct the deck he's wanting. I'm not like that, though I'd made some pretty good decks in my day, they were generally simple to understand and relied on only a few core mechanics to operate.

So now, years later, I spent way too much money and bought quite a few cards from the new edition. Partly to play, but I'm also thinking about doing some collecting again...mostly because that hobby can be fun...and also because I'm not sure how much we'll be playing. There's six of us, but a few really don't have the money to put down for cards somewhat limiting what we can do with it. Our tenative plan at this point is to create decks, and then randomly pick who plays them instead of everyone having to buy their own cards to play.

I ended up buying 2 M2010 core set booster boxes, and a core set of 5 decks. That almost completed a full M2010 set (I think I'm missing 10 cards at this point). And I'm also buying some Shards of Alara, Conflux, and Alara Reborn mostly because they are designed for multi-color (and I LOVE multicolor decks).

Along with that, I've bought a bunch of supplies designed to help me store this crap. And to properly put away a lot of my old cards which have been sitting in boxes for the last 15 years. The cards are in very good shape, but I'd like to get them properly put away.

Star Ocean, a short review

I did a rather dumb thing last night and went ahead and finished Star Ocean 4 when I really just should have gone to bed. Hurray for seemingly endless dungeons with a derth of save points. (Isn't the save point mechanic one of the worst things to come out of the consoles...ever?)

So, I really don't have a lot to say about the game. I liked it, but for the most part there isn't much really to say about it. The game's story was haphazard, and towards the end got needlessly talky and rather out there in regards to plot. I generally liked the characters, with some caveats.

Edge was OK, until he turned all emo.
Reimi was OK, but too passive and unsure of herself. Still there were some pretty funny scenes with her. Very powerful in combat.
Lymle sucked, 'kay?
Faize was a bland annoying twit. There was so much they could have done with this character too, but they didn't.
Myuria, the hot red head elf chick. Was devistatingly powerful in combat and otherwise a total man-slut who had no real purpose in the game.
Arumant...Faize's replacement, and he isn't really all that better of a character.
Sarah...wtf don't even get me started.
Bacchus is fairly cool. Not very important story wise, but he's got a very good mix of abilities and was fun to use in combat

Hmm, ok, maybe I didn't really like the characters so much. Still Reimi, Myuria, and Baccus were fairly cool.

As I write this, I'm actually having a hard time describing -why- I liked it. And that sounds like a back-handed insult to the game, but it's really not that bad. It has a fun combat system, and lots of stuff to find and explore. It has a central mystery that the game ignores for large parts of the game, and a general plot revelation that is quite out of left field even though it is also completely telegraphed.

I spent a lot of effort trying to get all of the endings, and was completely disappointed with every one of them. But it also means that I pretty much saw everything there was to see in the game in regards to story. Though I did skip some end-game quests and chests, mostly because by that point I was just ready to be done with the game.

I never messed much with item crafting, or synthesis. Not doing so did not really affect the game. Due to some farming I did, I was way overpowered in regards to level compared to what the game expected (I entered the last dungeon at level 92)...it was so easy to get a 120% xp bonus and chain it for hours that near the end I was regularly getting 20-30k xps per fight.

One other thing...what was up with group SPs? I couldn't figure out how to spend them, and by the end of the game had close to 20,000. During the discovery process I maybe used 200 total? Were SPs used in Item Synthesis maybe?

Ahem, anyway...

The main draw of the game was the more action-oriented combat system, which was more complex and engaging that a lot of other RPGs, without bogging it down and making it too slow. Fights could be completely pretty quickly, especially if you slightly out-leveled the content (and it was very easy to stay ahead of the curve). It actually may have been TOO fast, as combats typically didn't require much character switching.

To me, the combat system HEAVILY favored the ranged characters. Which is why I generally used Reimi, and then later Myuria and Bacchus; all of which are very good at ranged combat (so is Lymle, but I couldn't stand her, 'kay?'). Considering that it was easily to have your bonus board broken when using melee, the game actually punished being melee. I'm not saying that melee characters weren't powerful in the game--they were...but ranged gave more options, more control, and was generally safer.

So, thinking about it, I'm going to give the game a B-. The game had a solid and fun combat system. There was a lot of interesting exploration possible in the game. And the story was ok, if bland and fragmented it was at least not offensive (except Edge's Emo stint). And while the characters themselves didn't really appeal to me, only Faize and Lymle were actively disliked. The others just didn't add much to the story, which admittedly had a hard time coming to a point in the first place.

The general suckiness of the 'secret' hidden endings though, really disappointed me. Considering how many cut scenes were in the game and how much pointless exposition was wasted, I was really expecting more than a few 1 minute shorts regarding the fates of each character. But, oh well.

Star Ocean

Well, with my sister and her family in town I didn't get a lot of play time it (or more specifically more video game play time). But I did get to spend some more time with SO4.

I've been back into playing some console games, but SO4 was the first JRPG I've played in a while. Playing it right after Fable 2 really shows the difference in contrast between what is essentially a traditional JRPG and other different RPGs out there.

I wasn't sure how far into the game I was, but now I know...I'm pretty close to the end. Sure there are a bunch of side quests, and item creation quests to do--but I'm probably going to skip those. I've used a game guide for parts of the game, mostly because I didn't want to miss out on any of the endings--I don't have any intention of playing this game again anytime soon (hell, I'm lucky to have had enough time to play through it once and I still have a ton of new games to get through).

Like many JRPGs, the story takes center stage--but the story in SO4 is very fractured and random. In fact the best way to describe it is: Humanity begins exploring space. Random Shit Happens(TM). More Random Shit Happens (TM). Arch demon? WTF? UNIVERSE ENDING DUE TO RANDOM SHIT! AAHHHHHHHH

More seriously, the basic plot involves some form of extra-dimensional non-living entity using dark crystals to mutate life to make it easier for it to absorb the life-energy of other races, so it can use this energy to reform the Universe to it's own liking. Or something like that. Though half of the story really doesn't have anything to do with this. There's also a journey to an alternate dimension which serves as a major plot device involving the main character turning Emo for the next, and by far the largest segment of the game involving some Archfiend's return that doesn't have anything to do with the main plot at all.

So, for the most part, the story isn't the strong suit of this game. The characters themselves aren't too bad, except for Lymle, k? Her feature is to follow everything she says with k, k?

Despite the lackluster story, the game has been a lot of fun and I've clocked way to many hours in it. Current time listed in 70, though I'd say at least 30 of this involved me being idle and away from the console because I forgot to turn it off. :) So I'd say it's a pretty average length JRPG that can be completed in about 40 or 50 hours or so.

I might have some more specific thoughts about the game after I finish it, but right now I'm still wondering how it's going to end. It seems pretty obvious, but we'll see. Surprisingly, I've mostly liked the characters (except Lymle, and Faize), so I'm interesting to see how it turns out.

I also picked up a couple of movies this weekend, but I didn't get a chance to watch them yet: Push, and Knowing. I haven't heard much good about Push; Knowing is supposed to be good, but I'm not sure that I'll like it or not.

Either way, hopefully I'll get at least a little free time this week.

So Typed? Or Cut-and-Paste! You be the judge.

I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job! I am happy and fulfilled in my well paying job!

This place gives me a headache.

Too Many Games!

I have a confession to make. Over the last year, I've purchased quite a few Xbox 360 and PS3 games which I've had every intention in playing but time constraints have been taking their toll. Many of these games have been sitting on my shelf for months. WOW really does take up a lot of my gaming-time...even when I'm just raiding. I have been working through them however, though I admit I've been taking a more casual approach (little side-questing, etc).

This list includes:

Resistance 2
Killzone 2
Fable 2
infamous
Infinite Undiscovery
Call of Duty 4
Call of Duty 5
The Last Remnant
Golden Axe
Mirror's Edge
Fear 2
Prince of Persia
Lost Odyssey
Halo Wars
Valkyria Chronicles
Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Blue Dragon
Ghostbusters (which I just bought)
...and probably a few other games I can't remember off the top of my head.

Even typing that...that's a pretty long list. Just for the fun of it, here's some impressions of the game's at at least played for more than a few minutes (even if I haven't beaten them yet).

Call of Duty 4 | Fun, but very short short. I think I completed the main storyline in 2 evenings. Very stylish in how it portrays a modern firefight. This was my first Call of Duty game, and it gave me an impression about the series that turned out to not be very true.

Call of Duty 5 | Not so fun. Was generally put off by the game and the lack of a coherent story behind the characters which made some of the big, um, emotional sequences and victories portrayed that much more meaningless. From what I've been told, COD5 is the norm for the series, while 4 was the exception. Oh well.

Golden Axe | Hated it. Got about half way through before I just couldn't stand it anymore. The game literally made my hand cramp up, it took so much damned button mashing to kill even simple mobs. If that weren't bad enough, the monsters came in waves, and waves, waves...the same monsters, the same pack composition; every time you moved forward to the next room/area. It was so repetitive, and took so much mindless button mashing that I eventually couldn't take it anymore. I mean God of War is repetitive...but at least it varies up the monsters and lets you kill them quickly before moving on to the next pack.

Halo Wars | Was better than I expected. Actually it was pretty fun. It was short, though, but I didn't mind it so much due to the rather limited nature of RTS games in general. Not a big Halo fan, but the game itself wasn't so bad.

Mirror's Edge | Hated it. But I will admit that despite the fact that I hated it, I stuck with it until the bitter end. Which made me hate it even more. Recommended only for masochists. For added fun, play the game while sitting on hot nails, and clipping electrified wires to your nipple piercings.

Prince of Persia | Loved it. Loved it besides the glaring game play flaws. I didn't mind the fact that all of the fights were essentially boss battles...but having to re fight the same 4 bosses 4 (or was it 5) times each really hurt the experience. However, I loved how the AI girl companion was integrated into the story and the game play; this is the first time in a game like that where the mechanic wasn't a liability to the game. It really made up for the bad parts IMO.

Killzone 2 | Never played the original. I thought the game was ok; generally hated the controls which made it hard to aim and run&gun well. Sloppy (and probably more realistic) controls are fine...with more realistic damage effects. But in a game where it could take an entire clip to kill an enemy soldier at point blank range...with the gun going everywhere...just didn't work very well and was more frustrating than anything.

Lost Odyssey | Really liked it, until the little kids joined the party and then the game just got weird. Still the main (adult) characters were interesting, and as a whole the game had some interesting moments. But I never actually finished it (though I think I made it near the end). Real life interceded, and then I ended up letting someone borrow that 360...and then let him keep it as a gift. So at this point, I'd have to replay it from scratch since I no longer have the same 360. I will probably go back to it as some point just to see how it ends, but that'll be a while yet.

Fable 2 | Just played this one more recently. I'd never played the original. I'd heard some good things about this game. But honestly, I thought it was only 'ok' at best. I hated the way the game punished you severely for playing good (which I did), and the way in which a simple accidental button press could send people running for cover in town and have the guards show up. After the main tower sequence, getting THE MAGE, I gave up on trying to enjoy the game and do all of the side quests and just pushed through to complete it as soon as possible.

Valkyria Chronicles | Something I tried a while back, but shit came up so I didn't get very far. The game seemed ok, at some points good even, but there were things that just held the whole game back. The story book nature of the 'story' is an interesting concept, which doesn't really work well on paper. And the game's combat system had some odd quirks which were really starting to annoy me. Hopefully I'll get back to it again sometime.

Fear 2 | I think I'm getting sick of FPSes. Fear 2 was OK; and was at least a bit more dynamic than the original. And once again, the motivations of the bad guys, and the undead chick for that matter, are beyond stupid. But it wasn't just the inane story telling. Even early in the game, I was just...wanting...it...to...end, and as each level went on and on I just kept feeling frustrated that the game wasn't over yet. Certainly not a good sign. But right now I'm not sure if this is because of a change in my tastes, or terrible level design.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope | This is what I'm playing now. I'll probably put up a review of it when I'm done. So far I'm digging it, even if the plot was devised by a 13 year old schizo with strange fascination with little girls and young romance. I'm just to the 3rd disk (of 3), but the second disk really didn't last very long (the first disk was at least 2 times longer game-wise than the second) so I don't know how much is left exactly. Still, I'm enjoying the game and am looking at finishing it in the next few weeks.

Whew. So that means I still have a few games left.

Ghostbusters
Infinite Undiscovery
Resistance 2
The Last Remnant
infamous
Blue Dragon

I'm windy!

You know what? I am damned long-winded when I writing.

You know, when I origionally created this blog I did it for several reasons. The first was simply curiousity. I don't really have all that much interest in 'putting myself out there' in the world. Nor do I really have the time, the inclination, or the idea of how to create a successful blog viewed by thousands of people.

It's a good thing too, since to date this blog has not been viewed by a single person other than me. Not one! Not that I'm upset or anything. Probably more relieved, actually.

The second reason I did it was to try to soften up my writing, which to me feels very stiff and unfriendly. Vanilla. Uninspired. Boring. I find that oftentimes when I'm imagining something in my head, there is a lot more flourish and flavor to my thinking which simply doesn't translate to what makes it past the keyboard. It's my hands, really. They are just too damned plain and dull and disinterested in anything other than switching letters around and making me look illiterate.

Did I mention that no one ever looks at this thing?

There were, however, a few things that I did NOT want this blog to be. I didn't want it to be about WOW, or any specific thing really (despite the name). I also didn't really want it to be a personal, online diary about my life (though my sister just had twins, yay!). I just wanted to do it to write about things I wanted, when I wanted to write them, and damned any internal consistancy. This was more of a practice for me than anything.

Yet lately I've really been having the itch to write something serious again. Something that hasn't happened in years. I'm getting bored again in life, I know, and writing is an outlet for me that I rarely take advantage of anymore.

I have a confession to make (ahem!). At one point in my life I wanted to be a professional writer. Now, even back then I didn't really think I had the chops for it. I'm very hard on myself, especially on my writing. And I know I'm not very good at it.

I need practice. Serious practice, not just on writing itself, but on HOW to write; how to make a sentence or paragraph not only readable, but fun to read. Because often that is what is missing in my rather stiff writing...the fun!

A long time ago (has it really been ten years now?), I made an attempt at writing a book. I think it was a rather good attempt at the time, but in hindsight the book simply doesn't work even if I still like the concept even to this day. It had all of the elements I was interested in. Travel to other worlds. The clashing of diffent cultures. Mysterious characters with questionable more objectives. And a real sense by the end of the book of having to question who was was the good guys, and who were the real bad guys.

By the time I was done with it, there was no real resolution to the plot (the book was intended to be part 1 of 2). And the story itself deviated from my origional outline about half way through. I really did start writing itself, something I've heard happens to other writers, and experiencing it myself really made me feel excited at the time. But, because of that there were also quite a few inconsistancies that cropped up in the story. Including main characters and plots that never intersected. Characters living that were supposed to die. Others dying that were supposed to live. A major plot change which added like 10 chapters to the book and completely changed the ending. And a major betrayal at the end which seemed to perfectly fit where the story was going; but hadn't origionally been planned for and left me completely stumped on how to continue it to the second book.

If I restarted that today, I know I'd go about it in a different way. But, do I really want to? I mean, I want to write again. But where, and in what format. And how do I deal with the fact that in 10 years, my writing style has actually declined since then, not improved like I would have wanted? Not to mention the fact that, do I really have time to do something like that again right now? That one story took me an entire summer to write (4 months, often spending at least 8 hours each day on it).

Maybe I'd do better writing something entirely different? I have a few ideas, some of them more fleshed out than others. And I've been spending a lot of time lately designing a world-setting for a character concept I had...but while I like the premise (future humanity / post holocaust, mad max + blade runner + star trek style setting)...but what do I really want to do?

And that's the problem. I really don't know.

Virtuality

So, after missing it on Friday, Virtuality showed up on Hulu this weekend and I decided to watch it. The show certainly wasn't promoted very well, but it was pretty heavily hyped on some of the web sites that I frequent. So I decided to watch it and see what I thought.

Well, now that I've seen it, I can say that it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't all that good either. And it started off damned slow. And while the movie continued to get better as I watched it, the show itself has literally no resolution at all. It makes no attempt to be anything more than the pitch for a new series, and because of that I'd have to label it as nothing more than a watchable failure.

Spoilers below...

The show is really a mishmash of different concepts crammed together into one show. It's part 2001, part Big Brother, and part Matrix. The show is based on the premise that a ship is launched from Earth (sometime in the future) to Epsilon Eredani on a 10 year mission to find intelligent life. The ship was funded by a mysterious corporation which spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the project...in order to make a reality TV show out it.

The ship has a crew of 12, each chosen not because of their particular skills, but to make 'interesting' TV by ensuring there will be lots of conflict. There is the Gay Couple, The Bi-Racial Couple, the Wacky Captain, the grumpy disabled engineer, the hot doctor (who is married to the TV Show producer...and is banging to Wacky Captain), and the media girl. There are a few other characters, Starbu--er, the ship's pilot, and a few others that really don't have anything to do in the pilot.

Let's get one thing straight right from the beginning. Most of these characters a fucktards...the exact sorts of characters you'd find on Big Brother or Survivor. They bitch and whine about petty things, have little respect for authority, and generally spend much of their time bitching about each other. They live their lives being filmed 24/7, they have to spend time in the Confessional to talk about their feeling to the camera. The producers encourage them to spice things up by fighting more. Even the ship itself is purposefully designed to be less comfortable in order to encourage conflict.

Because, on a 10 year voyage to another star system with no one in a position to rescue you, the first thing you want to do is make sure the ship is uncomfortable; and the crew unstable.

To make matters worse, mysteriously after their departure, they begin receiving word from earth that some massive ecological disaster is taking place and that Earth itself will be uninhabitable in less than 100 years. And this means that this crew is now the sole hope for humanity...though why their trip to Epsilon Eredani and back is going to save them is never explained. And even the Captain is suspicious of this.

To round out the show, the characters have each been giving VR systems that are designed to allow them to escape into their own private virtual reality for a time as a form of stress relief. The VR realities they create for themselves vary quite a bit, and are generally reflective of the characters. Though I have to admit the one chick's reality where she's a Rock Superstar / Super Spy who performs concerts singing a punk-rock version of the Munster's theme song...in Japanese...while tracking international criminals...is pretty out there.

Even early on, there are a few signs that not everything is as it seems. The VR system seems to be glitching...but intelligently so. And as I already said, the Captain doesn't really believe everything they are getting from Earth is real. Much of the show deals with the Go/No Go decision at Neptune at whether to go ahead with the trip to Epsilon Eredani or turn back for Earth...a decision made more complicated by the fact that the ship's doctor diagnoses himself with Parkinson's Disease the day before the final point where they can abort the mission. Everyone want's a vote, of course, but the Captain has final say...though not everyone aboard agrees with this.

At this point, the Captain seems to be convinced that they must turn back. However, while investigating his own personal VR glitch (via the mysterious VR persona which seems self aware and keeps taking control of his VR and shooting him dead)...the Captain has some form of off-screen epiphany and begins to start acting very strangely. He's no longer cautious. He starts talking about a transcendant experience and the next step of evolution; and he no longer seems to care about anything. He's now fully wanting to continue to journey, no matter what, and he seems barely in control...which does nothing for the stability of the rest of the crew, who seems to be getting more and more paranoid as others experience their own personal VR glitches.


The VR glitches continue to being an escalating problem; with the VR cyberstalker attacking the crew inside their VR systems, usually resulting in their virtual death, and cumulating in the virtual rape of one of crew in a rather disturbing scene. Some of the crew favors turning the VR systems off; others find the prospect unthinkable...and the Captain himself, acting just as wacky, seems convinced that the VRs are absolutely necessary for them for them to experience transcendance, which will either save or doom them.

And right after that, the Captain gets sucked out an airlock, killed apparently due to a computer malfunction that could not have been anything but deliberate sabotage. The show ends with his lover entering his VR simulation, only to see a VR version of the Captain, fully self-aware; warning her that nothing is real; and asking her to follow him through the mirror and down the rabbit hole, because that is the only way any of them are going to survive.

And that's it. There is no real resolution. Though you do find out a few other intriguing bits. One of the character's speculates about the captain's death...obviously a murder and someone on the ship has to be responsible. There are even some obvious motivations for character's wanting the character dead (for example, the captain was having a 'virtual' affair with the wife of the show producer). And another of the characters seems to be having some form of dialog with the VR glitch persona hidden within the VR system.

But, Virtuality is all setup and no payoff. There is not even the attempt at an explanation here. And much of the important setup happens in the last 30 minutes; giving the show a rather slow beginning, a weak character-building middle, and a strong finish w/o any resolution. As a pilot for a TV show this would be fine, but since that isn't going to be happening, the show is a bit of a failure. Not an unwatchable one, but a failure nonetheless. Not to mention the fact that I don't really see Virtuality being able to sustain a long-running TV series in the first place. Virtuality would be better served as a miniseries IMO, but that isn't going to happen either.

One thing that worries me...a LOT of people have said that this show is better than the Caprica DVD movie that came out a few months ago now (and I still haven't seen)...that statement really worries me about what to expect from Caprica when I eventually decide to go ahead and buy it.

Chuck Soundtrack Test

Uldaur Week 2

I'm half way through the guild's raiding week, the second spent in Uldaur. And I've got a few impressions.

Week 1 was pretty difficult. The guild managed to kill Flame Leviathan (yawn), Razorgore, Deconstructor, Iron Council, and Thorogrim (forgot his name already), and Ignis. 6/14. Of those, we managed to kill Razorgore, and Deconstructor before they were severely nerfed. And Ignis only after he was patched to not insta-gib the tanks.

Since that time, most of those bossess have had minor-to-major nerfs handed out to them. And this has certainly changed the flavor of those encounters. Our week 2 has certainly been easier...we killed all of the bosses we killed the first week on the first day, plus Aurilya (sp?)...and spent all of last night on Hodir (didn't get him), Freya (got her, but that fight is assy), and Thorim (we just had time for 3 pulls, and didn't really get to see the real encounter).

I have to say, after having gone farther into the instance...so far this is the best instance that Blizzard has released so far. The instance has a fairly cool atmosphere, and the trash/encounters really feel different from one another. And with the exception of Freya, most of the trash just isn't that long...assy maybe, but none of it takes very long to go through. And well spaced teleporters allow for getting through what is otherwise a massive area fairly quickly.

What I don't like is that most of the gear seems a bit...underwhelming so far. I don't like going into a new raid instance and DEing 70% of what was dropping...but this is exactly what was happening to us. I'm guessing that standard-mode gear is mostly 226, 226 gear which is at best mostly side-grades or not as well itimized. It's pretty annoying.

Flame Leviathan.
The first time we were in Uldaur, we 1-shotted FL. And that was with 3 vehicles locked out due to accidently starting the encounter early, and no one on a motorcycle understanding that they were supposed to be picking up the people that get lobbed onto the leviathan after taking out the turrets. On normal difficulty, this boss is a joke in every way. But, he's also a lot of fun.

Ignis the Igniter
This boss was a complete broken ass when he came out. Bugged to hell. Killing his adds didn't properly remove his damage buff. He had a tendency to melee attack the people we put into the slagpot. And he would randomly double-attack the tank, killing him instantly.

I'm not sure how some guilds got past that (though I know a few obviously did). But, Blizzard was pretty quick to fix some of this stuff. Plus they nerfed him to boot. We did not kill him the first night...our first kill on him came Monday before the reset and after most of the fixes/nerfs.

Now the encounter is pretty simple and no longer quite as punishing on the healers. I wouldn't say it's trivial, but it's nothing like it was.

Razorgore
This boss has a pretty simple, fun design. And when Uldaur origionally came out...a punishing enrage timer. We managed to beat him (barely), our second boss kill...but wow, it was by the skin of our teeth. By this point I had decided that Blizzard's description of difficulty was WAY off...Uldaur didn't feel like a step up in difficulty...it felt like 3 or 4. The encounter difficulty was really feeling more like the second half of black temple...IE not sunwell hard, but not easy either.

Of course, then they nerfed him by extending his enrage timer (which was honestly the only thing that made him difficult). They also reduced the spawning range of the drills, which is a nerf but a more welcome one. Those things were quite annoying spawning all over the place.

Deconstructor
At this point, my idea of what Uldaur was going to be had changed quite a bit. So I wasn't surprised that XT turned out to be as hard as he ended up being. Again, the encounter itself wasn't all that complex. DPS, DPS-heart, then AOE adds before they get to him. And run out when you get the nasty debuff. But his 6-minute enrage timer made this fight much harder than it would have been otherwise. With a 6-minute enrage timer, you had to execute it perfectly while stacking DPS.

This boss gave us the most trouble of the first four...I think we wiped 44 times to him over the course of a single night (our second night in Uldaur). But we got him...and then they nerfed the hell out of him the next day. The changes made to him, again, don't make the encounter trivial, but certainly provides a LOT more latitude on executing the encounter.

Iron Council
Hmmm...after some fairly difficult first bosses, the encounter difficulty in Uldaur dropped significantly with Iron Council. We one-shotted him, and didn't have much trouble doing it either. I don't think he was nerfed that much either before we got to him, so I was a bit surprised on how quick this guy went down.

Kologarm (or whatever his name is, I cannot remember)
The first time we fought this guy, we got him to 6%. Though in the end it took 5 kills to actually kill him. Honestly I like this encounter. It's one of the least complicated and easy to execute fights in Uldaur. The only thing that makes this fight difficult is the lack of room to manuever when dealing with eyebeam...especially in the 25 man version where you don't want to run it through the middle of everyone.

Again, this guy was nerfed. Not sure why because he was already pretty easy. Now he's even easier.

Auyrelia (or whatever else I can do to butcher her name)
We didn't get to do much with her the first week. The hardest part of this fight looks to be the pull...man she can wipe a raid FAST. Otherwise it's a fairly simple fight that tries to make it seem more hectic than it really is.

Tactics are simple. Stay together. After the fear group back together fast. Stay out of the black stuff. And kill the adds she spawns on a regular basis.

Hodir
Tried him last night. We weren't really set up for him, though we did manage to get him to 16% before went on to another boss. Our DPS was a LITTLE low on him, and unfortunately the healers were having a hard time keeping the boss alive.

Mostly I like this fight. And the animations in this fight are pretty cool. I would consider this a moderately difficult fight. Nothing too severe, but 36 million HP is a lot of health to burn through in 9 minutes (or 8?, I don't remember now).

Freya
Holy shit that's a lot of trash. And the actual fight itself is somewhat annoying. This is the first boss I don't really like in Uldaur. And I can't imagine how hectic it is going to be to do her in full hard mode. On the plus side, she did give me a nice pair of T8.5 legs...which I got!

Thorim
Didn't get to see much of this fight...just a little of the gauntlet. We'll be working on him and Hodir on Sunday...hopefully we'll get both of them down.

Hooray for Idle Postings!

I haven't posted on this blog since November. I'd like to say that it was because I've been too busy. But I have a confession to make...I just haven't been all that interested or had much to say.

In the WOW Front, patch 3.1 has come out and I took a first step into Uldaur last night. The first boss is/was a joke...we did everything wrong from what I could tell...had multiple people get locked out, and STILL managed to suceed easy enough. Past that, though, things got more difficult. The second boss was hitting like a truck, and after a Uldaur reset caused all the trash to respawn we went on to the second boss. The second boss, Razorgore, seems easy enough, but has a pretty agressive enrage timer. So, Flame Leviathan was our only kill of the night. And people were pretty happy that, at the very least, we weren't just steam rolling everything.

But, this points to what Blizzard has done wrong with Wrath. Now, compared to BC things are much better. But Blizzard made a major mistake making Naxx so easy and providing no clear alternative. Not only was Naxx a remake of an already-existing zone with well known tactics, but it was completely forgiving.

Now, IMO, that's a very good thing. Not only does Naxx serve as a very good introduction to raiding, it drives up interest and brings in new players. Unfortunately, there was no real alternative to Naxx for a hardcore guild to sink their teeth into. Naxx was on farm mode for those guilds the second week of Wrath. And there has been a serious sense of...what now? permeating the game. Uldaur has been viewed as the second coming, and certainly with 14 bosses, 11 hard mode alternatives, and a few other new features, there is more here for a guild to get into.

I think people are going to be a bit shocked by the difficulty shift from Naxx to Uldaur. Not that it seems -that- much harder, but Naxx was just SO easy that a lot of casuals are going to freak out. Of course, I think the intention is to have a better representation of difficulty: Uldaur 10 < Uldaur 25 < Uldaur 10 Hard Modes < Uldaur 25 Hard Modes. But we'll see.

For right now, I've stuck with a cookie cutter FFB build 0/52/18. I did go ahead and purchase the dual spec option for my mage (and also my newly minted druid and DK). For my mage, I'm a more popular fire/arcane build, or possibly a full frost build used just for learning boss fights. Mana, which I was somewhat worried about, did not seem like much of an issue to me last night.

When Wrath came out, I didn't spend much time researching gear, nor was I very disciplined when it came to DKP purchases in the guild. This time I'm planning on being much more on top of things. Instead of making rash purchases, I'm going to be very specific about what gear I'm going to go for and which I won't.