Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Official Avengers Movie Trailer!
I can't friggin wait!
Source: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=34844
Monday, October 10, 2011
You never forget your first... (MMO)
One of the universal truths of the MMO gamer is that there will never be a time or a game as great and epic and amazing as your first.
For those people who started in UO - there can never been another game with the depth of freedom and the ability to dictate your own gaming style.
The EQ players out there will tell you that no other game built camaraderie and told such an epic story. The people who started out in Shadowbane will regale you with stories of building and destroying empires... (When the servers were up for longer than 15 minutes(or when there were less than 10 players in a zone)).
Then there is me: Dark Age of Camelot was my first MMO experience. Quite by choice I might add - I had shunned the MMO as a "hardcore" PC FPS player and part-time RTS player I was against the idea of a subscription and to be blunt - I knew that it was a time-sink. I knew a little about UO and I had heard lots of interesting things about Asheron's Call and Everquest and from what little I knew; I was certain that playing them meant succumbing to an abyss of endless RPG goal achievement.
In retrospect I can tell you I was right I never should have started ;) - but I digress... It was April of 2002 - and it was SLOW - as it always is in the game cycle. Nothing was out, and nothing was coming out that was going to be interesting to play and so as always we were looking for something to do. I had just moved up to Portland Oregon in 2000 and started a new Job in Jan of '01 where I met Spencer. Spencer was a PC enthusiast as well and we spent copious time playing Baldurs Gate at the lan parties I hosted. That year we were into Tribes, Baldurs Gate, and one of the iterations of Doom/Quake but we were always looking for something to do. One evening in April he came by for a bit of the ole LAN Partay and we were playing... I think Tribes - to be honest and he was telling me about how he had just subscribed to DAoC, how it had just come out in October the year before and that it was in a word - AWESOME. For some reason I decided that there was something out there to be had and I joined Spencer on Lancelot.
Spencer was a Champion which meant he was a Hibbie so since I couldn't imagine a world where I would be a male toon and be small - I rolled up a Firbolg Blademaster.
We. Had. A. Blast. It was awesome; progression was gruelingly slow in PvE and coordination was an absolute must. Most mobs were aggressive, and BAF (which meant if you pulled it or aggro'd it there was always more than 1 mob in its posse) and that almost certainly spelled doom for you and possibly your group if you were a fool. Quests were something that didn't make a lot of sense - there were monsters in the world and they needed killing, but the idea that someone would send you out there to do it for them was not really the deal. That is not to say that there weren't quests; there were - but they were not something that guided you on your path to progression. The more prevalent guiding factor was the dungeon and the "camp" a concept provided by Everquest.
Basically for every level range there was a place where monsters of the right level spawned faster than you could kill them and so you would try to find a tank and a healer and some DPS and head out there to handle their bidness.
Mudmen, Siabra, Pookha, the pit and countless other camps until the holy grail of PvE leveling. The cursed forest and Finlaiths...
The cursed forest was the big-bad-mamma-jamma PvE spot - real level 50 epic mobs roamed there and not many people knew about groups that could successfully kill them. We speculated that you needed more than one group but noone was sure.
Finlaiths were the best XP camp in the forrest a densly packed group of level 50+ mobs that spawned fast and were weak to energy magic. Meaning that the group composition was Tank, Warden, Druid, PBAOE Chanterx2 or 3, Mana Ment, and Bard. There was a list on Lancelot that was maintained by the person who had been in the Fin group the longest.
You would literally send a tell to the list guy and he would add you to the list of people waiting for someone to leave this perpetually running group. It was hands down the absolute fastest way from 47.5 to 50 so there were always at least 2-3 people on the list. If you were a blademaster like me you were waiting for a non-support slot to open up. If there was an amazing Druid there then sometimes you could get in and be extra DPS which was super helpful since Blademasters had 1 AOE attack.
Then - voila! 50! Ready to head out to emain an defend the fronteir from the evil Albion swarm and the insta-stunning Midgardians.
I am feeling like I may have to recap PvP in a separate post - but suffice it to say that no other game has put together the real feeling of reliance that DAoC created. Suboptimal groups were punishing and as a result players played needed support classes because they knew they would have a spot. Its a far cry from the WoW/Rift world where every class can fill a role.
It was 9 years ago for me but thanks to Mythic and DAoC for the glory days!
Source: Link
For those people who started in UO - there can never been another game with the depth of freedom and the ability to dictate your own gaming style.
The EQ players out there will tell you that no other game built camaraderie and told such an epic story. The people who started out in Shadowbane will regale you with stories of building and destroying empires... (When the servers were up for longer than 15 minutes(or when there were less than 10 players in a zone)).
Then there is me: Dark Age of Camelot was my first MMO experience. Quite by choice I might add - I had shunned the MMO as a "hardcore" PC FPS player and part-time RTS player I was against the idea of a subscription and to be blunt - I knew that it was a time-sink. I knew a little about UO and I had heard lots of interesting things about Asheron's Call and Everquest and from what little I knew; I was certain that playing them meant succumbing to an abyss of endless RPG goal achievement.
In retrospect I can tell you I was right I never should have started ;) - but I digress... It was April of 2002 - and it was SLOW - as it always is in the game cycle. Nothing was out, and nothing was coming out that was going to be interesting to play and so as always we were looking for something to do. I had just moved up to Portland Oregon in 2000 and started a new Job in Jan of '01 where I met Spencer. Spencer was a PC enthusiast as well and we spent copious time playing Baldurs Gate at the lan parties I hosted. That year we were into Tribes, Baldurs Gate, and one of the iterations of Doom/Quake but we were always looking for something to do. One evening in April he came by for a bit of the ole LAN Partay and we were playing... I think Tribes - to be honest and he was telling me about how he had just subscribed to DAoC, how it had just come out in October the year before and that it was in a word - AWESOME. For some reason I decided that there was something out there to be had and I joined Spencer on Lancelot.
Spencer was a Champion which meant he was a Hibbie so since I couldn't imagine a world where I would be a male toon and be small - I rolled up a Firbolg Blademaster.
We. Had. A. Blast. It was awesome; progression was gruelingly slow in PvE and coordination was an absolute must. Most mobs were aggressive, and BAF (which meant if you pulled it or aggro'd it there was always more than 1 mob in its posse) and that almost certainly spelled doom for you and possibly your group if you were a fool. Quests were something that didn't make a lot of sense - there were monsters in the world and they needed killing, but the idea that someone would send you out there to do it for them was not really the deal. That is not to say that there weren't quests; there were - but they were not something that guided you on your path to progression. The more prevalent guiding factor was the dungeon and the "camp" a concept provided by Everquest.
Basically for every level range there was a place where monsters of the right level spawned faster than you could kill them and so you would try to find a tank and a healer and some DPS and head out there to handle their bidness.
Mudmen, Siabra, Pookha, the pit and countless other camps until the holy grail of PvE leveling. The cursed forest and Finlaiths...
The cursed forest was the big-bad-mamma-jamma PvE spot - real level 50 epic mobs roamed there and not many people knew about groups that could successfully kill them. We speculated that you needed more than one group but noone was sure.
Finlaiths were the best XP camp in the forrest a densly packed group of level 50+ mobs that spawned fast and were weak to energy magic. Meaning that the group composition was Tank, Warden, Druid, PBAOE Chanterx2 or 3, Mana Ment, and Bard. There was a list on Lancelot that was maintained by the person who had been in the Fin group the longest.
You would literally send a tell to the list guy and he would add you to the list of people waiting for someone to leave this perpetually running group. It was hands down the absolute fastest way from 47.5 to 50 so there were always at least 2-3 people on the list. If you were a blademaster like me you were waiting for a non-support slot to open up. If there was an amazing Druid there then sometimes you could get in and be extra DPS which was super helpful since Blademasters had 1 AOE attack.
Then - voila! 50! Ready to head out to emain an defend the fronteir from the evil Albion swarm and the insta-stunning Midgardians.
I am feeling like I may have to recap PvP in a separate post - but suffice it to say that no other game has put together the real feeling of reliance that DAoC created. Suboptimal groups were punishing and as a result players played needed support classes because they knew they would have a spot. Its a far cry from the WoW/Rift world where every class can fill a role.
It was 9 years ago for me but thanks to Mythic and DAoC for the glory days!
Source: Link
Sunday, October 02, 2011
10 Win Streak! For Childs Play
I read this in the news over on Penny Arcade this weekend and I thought that it would be cool to share. Someone started up a live-streaming website to play LoL endlessly for Child's Play. Head over to 10winstreak.com to have a look at the live feed to see some awesome LoL action and chip-in to their cause!
Friday, September 30, 2011
PlayStation Home Overhaul / Relaunch
So, by now you've probably heard that Sony is relaunching their PlayStation Home service this fall<http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/08/23/the-next-evolution-for-playstation-home-coming-fall-2011/>, and from what I've read, it looks like it'll be at least worth checking out. They're going to be adding quests and more activities that may even make Home a decent way to waste some time. Even though I'm not a frequent visitor, I've jumped in a few times this year to browse around. I think the best application of the space so far was the streamed E3 keynote that was broadcast in Home earlier this year, and the replica of Sony's E3 space that you could explore. For those of us who couldn't go to E3, this was a pretty cool thing. I don't know why Sony doesn't do something similar for TGS and Gamescom, as I firmly believe this would draw more people into Home.
At any rate, I'll definitely check out the new PlayStation Home when it launches later this year. I just hope it'll hold my attention for longer than it has in the past.
At any rate, I'll definitely check out the new PlayStation Home when it launches later this year. I just hope it'll hold my attention for longer than it has in the past.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
I am the Internet: Quora
I love the internet. In fact - according to Smitty D. I AM the internet.
So today I am going to start a weekly installment series where I share something amazing that happened to me on the internet. With any luck I will point our intrepid readers at something new and exciting or perhaps so incredibly low brow that you simply say "Ew".
Today the hotness is Quora - I had never ever heard of Quora before today. I found it reading an article on TechCrunch about how they just got done releasing their brand new IOS app to bring all the Quora goodness right to the palm of your hand. So what does this have to do with you?!
Well if you are a blog reader like me you cannot get enough of interesting commentary about subjects that are interesting to you. Quora makes it possible for you to track Topics - and inside of those topics people like us are posting questions and anyone in the community is able to answer those questions. That all sounds a little bit too much like the silly yahoo tool that you get anytime you type a question into google - but bear with me a second. What you get are some of the most thoughtful/thought provoking responses to questions that matter to you (since you subscribed to the topics). I spent time today reading responses to why Gymnasts are shorter than non-gymnasts. How to blend God with Science (amazing answer tbh) and trying to understand the problem with geometry rules as they exist today with time measurements smaller than Planck units (or something like that). The startup topic was so active I had to remove it :P
The only downfall to it is that it looks like credibility can cause your answers to go up in popularity even if you dont have the best answer. This happened a bit more frequently in the business topics where someone with a CEO title would put some opinion in there and the answer might get voted up. Largely though I saw much more interesting information that I would have if I didn't visit Quora today.
Check it out - I do not think you will be disappointed and you can follow me over there. Although I am still searching for the right question to answer!
Source: TechCrunch
So today I am going to start a weekly installment series where I share something amazing that happened to me on the internet. With any luck I will point our intrepid readers at something new and exciting or perhaps so incredibly low brow that you simply say "Ew".
Today the hotness is Quora - I had never ever heard of Quora before today. I found it reading an article on TechCrunch about how they just got done releasing their brand new IOS app to bring all the Quora goodness right to the palm of your hand. So what does this have to do with you?!
Well if you are a blog reader like me you cannot get enough of interesting commentary about subjects that are interesting to you. Quora makes it possible for you to track Topics - and inside of those topics people like us are posting questions and anyone in the community is able to answer those questions. That all sounds a little bit too much like the silly yahoo tool that you get anytime you type a question into google - but bear with me a second. What you get are some of the most thoughtful/thought provoking responses to questions that matter to you (since you subscribed to the topics). I spent time today reading responses to why Gymnasts are shorter than non-gymnasts. How to blend God with Science (amazing answer tbh) and trying to understand the problem with geometry rules as they exist today with time measurements smaller than Planck units (or something like that). The startup topic was so active I had to remove it :P
The only downfall to it is that it looks like credibility can cause your answers to go up in popularity even if you dont have the best answer. This happened a bit more frequently in the business topics where someone with a CEO title would put some opinion in there and the answer might get voted up. Largely though I saw much more interesting information that I would have if I didn't visit Quora today.
Check it out - I do not think you will be disappointed and you can follow me over there. Although I am still searching for the right question to answer!
Source: TechCrunch
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