So, I'm sitting here with my foot in a bucket of ice, trying to distract myself from my swollen toes. Apparently the muscular pain may not be Planar Fasciitis. I've also developed a jaw pain that is leading to the need for more and more ibuprofen. Thus, the past few postless days are indicative of my three day ibuprofen cleanse, which did not cure anything by the way.
Anyways, lets get to business. Bad news aside, the good news is that I will indeed get to go to Blizzcon this year. This means that I have to not only build a sick playlist for the 6 hour flight, but also kill off all these afflictions before the summer ends. Announced as of today Jay Mohr will be the hosting comedian this year. I truly hope there is another list of comedians who will show up as well. Patton Oswalt did a bit at last year's Blizzcon and I hope he makes a return. The thing that I look forward to most though, is the live Cataclysm trailer, though Diablo 3 comes in a close second. Starcraft II is the attention of most Blizzard nerds, but for me it's the kind of game that gets boring fast once you've played through the storyline.
I'm going to call this post because I can't keep my attention diverted from the Rogue solo kill on Patchwerk any longer. A word of advice before I go. Whatever you do, always do for someone other than yourself. Karma has a way of bringing the good deeds back around to you.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
EVE Online: The Sandbox
There is a thick line between online gaming and living in an alternate reality. It's more like a wall really, and EVE Online is like a portcullis in the center of that wall. EVE Online is probably the most revolutionary game to be played online right now. In fact, even though it isn't my type of game, I still find myself drawn back to it. EVE is a sci-fi based on single-ship combat in a new universe. If I were to create a perfect game (like the cyber-universe of the Dot Hack series), EVE could be considered a single vertebra in the backbone of it. Not only is the world of EVE comparatively massive, but the player base is enormous. The player to player relations cause great snowball effects throughout the universe. There are countless accounts of corporations (think guilds) forming armies and setting off real-time events that change the history of the game forever.
There is no leveling in EVE, just training. Your character trains in real time, each skill point capped at five taking up to months to complete training. Training one of hundreds of skill to a certain level can enable you to use anything from a mining laser on an asteroid, to a mothership-class vessel. Guns, lasers, missile launchers, ethnic relations, maneuvering, shields, ship types, and even trading skills all add up to what your character can and can't do. Speaking of what you can and can't do, lets go to the sandbox trailer as an example.
You're a lone wolf floating in space and you see a defenseless mining barge under attack by local players looking for a little cash, or maybe a little payback. Corporations can go to war with each other after all, and bounties are a huge bonus to income if you can corner the poor sucker who screwed up. So you can either join them and salvage the wreck for a little cash, maybe have a little interest in taking on a pirating career, or you can be a good citizen, and drive the pirates off. Say you drive off the pirates, and the patrolling gang that was on its way to help the miner shows up. They are thankful, and invite you to help them drive off more pirates. A few weeks go by, during which you loyally continue to slaughter your new friends' opposition, and the corporation leader decides you're fit for a promotion. You're not cut out for spying, he thinks, maybe not front-line warfare either, and you're not quite interested enough to mine all day. So you end up tailing a squad of other mercenaries who've shown promise. A few hit and run missions later and something big happens. There's been word of an attack; the enemy corporation and her alliance have made their challenge. One late night, you come home from work to see urgent fleet-wide mail waiting for you. You're to report immediately to a specific system to defend a key outpost. Only, when you get there, only enemies wait for you. New orders come quickly, they've taken the outpost and you must defend the next one until your main fleet has time to assemble. You drop back to more controlled territory to be joined by twenty others who were wrecked at the first outpost. The the strike comes. There are hundreds of enemy players bearing down on the tiny outpost. The server strains to keep them all connected, and your computer strains to keep the models loaded. Ten minutes tick by and they still buzz about the outpost picking off your fleet members. And Then, salvation. The Corporation's main fleet arrives. hundreds of allies shove back. They clash for hours. You send and receive handfuls of reports over two hours. You sleep and come home from work the next day to find the stragglers still duking it out. The outpost has help, but thousands of ships and billions of ISK (currency) have been lost. Your corporation leader decides that it is time to strike back, and begins planning a mega-assault on their fringe territory, as well as position spies and traitors. You are a hero; you helped drive back a map-changing assault, even if you did sleep through some of it.
All because you helped to wreck a few pirates.
Wall of text, I know. But you get the point. Possibilities are endless. Players can shape almost every feature of the game. And while you can't really dance with another player's avatar, why bother whining, when you and a few friends can form a small mercenary group and bring in big bucks by pinning down and annihilating targets on the bounty board.
There is no leveling in EVE, just training. Your character trains in real time, each skill point capped at five taking up to months to complete training. Training one of hundreds of skill to a certain level can enable you to use anything from a mining laser on an asteroid, to a mothership-class vessel. Guns, lasers, missile launchers, ethnic relations, maneuvering, shields, ship types, and even trading skills all add up to what your character can and can't do. Speaking of what you can and can't do, lets go to the sandbox trailer as an example.
You're a lone wolf floating in space and you see a defenseless mining barge under attack by local players looking for a little cash, or maybe a little payback. Corporations can go to war with each other after all, and bounties are a huge bonus to income if you can corner the poor sucker who screwed up. So you can either join them and salvage the wreck for a little cash, maybe have a little interest in taking on a pirating career, or you can be a good citizen, and drive the pirates off. Say you drive off the pirates, and the patrolling gang that was on its way to help the miner shows up. They are thankful, and invite you to help them drive off more pirates. A few weeks go by, during which you loyally continue to slaughter your new friends' opposition, and the corporation leader decides you're fit for a promotion. You're not cut out for spying, he thinks, maybe not front-line warfare either, and you're not quite interested enough to mine all day. So you end up tailing a squad of other mercenaries who've shown promise. A few hit and run missions later and something big happens. There's been word of an attack; the enemy corporation and her alliance have made their challenge. One late night, you come home from work to see urgent fleet-wide mail waiting for you. You're to report immediately to a specific system to defend a key outpost. Only, when you get there, only enemies wait for you. New orders come quickly, they've taken the outpost and you must defend the next one until your main fleet has time to assemble. You drop back to more controlled territory to be joined by twenty others who were wrecked at the first outpost. The the strike comes. There are hundreds of enemy players bearing down on the tiny outpost. The server strains to keep them all connected, and your computer strains to keep the models loaded. Ten minutes tick by and they still buzz about the outpost picking off your fleet members. And Then, salvation. The Corporation's main fleet arrives. hundreds of allies shove back. They clash for hours. You send and receive handfuls of reports over two hours. You sleep and come home from work the next day to find the stragglers still duking it out. The outpost has help, but thousands of ships and billions of ISK (currency) have been lost. Your corporation leader decides that it is time to strike back, and begins planning a mega-assault on their fringe territory, as well as position spies and traitors. You are a hero; you helped drive back a map-changing assault, even if you did sleep through some of it.
All because you helped to wreck a few pirates.
Wall of text, I know. But you get the point. Possibilities are endless. Players can shape almost every feature of the game. And while you can't really dance with another player's avatar, why bother whining, when you and a few friends can form a small mercenary group and bring in big bucks by pinning down and annihilating targets on the bounty board.
WoW and You: Playstyle
The funny thing about WoW is that it's diverse. You have plenty of global communities spread over a large IQ spectrum. It creates an MMO. The stupid people play a somewhat important role in this community too. Hunters who melee past the level of 10, paladins wearing cloth spirit gear, even warlocks who put one talent point in each tree and don't know what to do with the fourth. They all serve to better those who can learn from others' mistakes and adapt.
Now, finding your niche and play style is much trickier than you think because not only do you have to try one of each class and spec, but also level them to 80 for the full experience. Some classes change dramatically as they level up. I have played two warriors and vowed to level one of each race, but I feel too point and click as a warrior sometimes. They have little utility, and as a prot warrior what utility you have overwrites the passable damage output you need to do well in PvP. Over the course of three years I reiterated to my friends and the WoW community alike how much I despise rogues. They are cowardly and cheap. I won't go on because I'll likely end that train of thought on the word 'overpowered'. Recently, after trying a lot of PvP on a warrior and finding it boring as I stare at the blue-gray vortex in the ghost sky, I found the urge to roll another class before Cataclysm. My best friend, whom we call Raven most of them time due to his unending list of alts, decided that we could level together, and we should choose classes that compliment each other. I steered away from mana altogether after leveling a priest to 73, and he suggested a rogue. I immediately refused to think of it. I am no coward. I want no place in sneaking and tormenting players, but he made a valid point. By both his standards and in light of the Cataclysm class previews, combat rogues seems to function much like a lower level fury warrior. And I am a warrior.
To understand the true epiphany at work here, as I know some of you may have already guessed the ending of this particular bit, you also have to understand my policies for character creation. I have to be able to relate the character, almost so that I could be the character. Their name must be appropriate, not silly or immature (Anyone with beef or burger in their Tauren's name, death in their undead's name or any rogue moves in their rogue's name. You're not clever.) So each of my characters fits a persona, and I can change my mind into that persona while I play. It sounds weird, I know, but believe it or not, a good chunk of WoW players function the same way.
Anyways, after a good hour of thinking it over, I decided to give combat rogues a chance. With the beautifully appropriate name, Hypocrite, I rolled a human rogue. Oh and speaking of rolling a complimenting class, did I mention that two rogues are killer fun? He rolled a dwarf rogue also appropriately named Shankbeard. After the easy quests in Elwynn, we met up in Westfall and moved up in level rapidly from there. It's been four days and we're about 23 now (believe me for the time I have to put in for WoW that's pretty good.) The rogue, especially when coupled with another rogue, is incredibly fun. The sheer amount of utility, control, and damage output is incredible, and I've been promised that it gets better too. A combat rogue plays surprisingly like a fury warrior, and is just as gear-dependent.
I think I might be eating my words about rogues about now. Don't get me wrong, they're still cold, horrifying opponents in PvP, but they're awfully easy to kill when the opportunity presents itself. I still won't likely go another spec permanently, but I will continue to level the rogue until warriors get some buffs.
Now, finding your niche and play style is much trickier than you think because not only do you have to try one of each class and spec, but also level them to 80 for the full experience. Some classes change dramatically as they level up. I have played two warriors and vowed to level one of each race, but I feel too point and click as a warrior sometimes. They have little utility, and as a prot warrior what utility you have overwrites the passable damage output you need to do well in PvP. Over the course of three years I reiterated to my friends and the WoW community alike how much I despise rogues. They are cowardly and cheap. I won't go on because I'll likely end that train of thought on the word 'overpowered'. Recently, after trying a lot of PvP on a warrior and finding it boring as I stare at the blue-gray vortex in the ghost sky, I found the urge to roll another class before Cataclysm. My best friend, whom we call Raven most of them time due to his unending list of alts, decided that we could level together, and we should choose classes that compliment each other. I steered away from mana altogether after leveling a priest to 73, and he suggested a rogue. I immediately refused to think of it. I am no coward. I want no place in sneaking and tormenting players, but he made a valid point. By both his standards and in light of the Cataclysm class previews, combat rogues seems to function much like a lower level fury warrior. And I am a warrior.
To understand the true epiphany at work here, as I know some of you may have already guessed the ending of this particular bit, you also have to understand my policies for character creation. I have to be able to relate the character, almost so that I could be the character. Their name must be appropriate, not silly or immature (Anyone with beef or burger in their Tauren's name, death in their undead's name or any rogue moves in their rogue's name. You're not clever.) So each of my characters fits a persona, and I can change my mind into that persona while I play. It sounds weird, I know, but believe it or not, a good chunk of WoW players function the same way.
Anyways, after a good hour of thinking it over, I decided to give combat rogues a chance. With the beautifully appropriate name, Hypocrite, I rolled a human rogue. Oh and speaking of rolling a complimenting class, did I mention that two rogues are killer fun? He rolled a dwarf rogue also appropriately named Shankbeard. After the easy quests in Elwynn, we met up in Westfall and moved up in level rapidly from there. It's been four days and we're about 23 now (believe me for the time I have to put in for WoW that's pretty good.) The rogue, especially when coupled with another rogue, is incredibly fun. The sheer amount of utility, control, and damage output is incredible, and I've been promised that it gets better too. A combat rogue plays surprisingly like a fury warrior, and is just as gear-dependent.
I think I might be eating my words about rogues about now. Don't get me wrong, they're still cold, horrifying opponents in PvP, but they're awfully easy to kill when the opportunity presents itself. I still won't likely go another spec permanently, but I will continue to level the rogue until warriors get some buffs.
Friday, May 14, 2010
In The Beginning...
...There was man. Man saw that he was filled with hatred of the world around him and beheld a dream of pixel after pixel, chasing each other around a wide screen LCD monitor. Thus began the gamer generations, each after the next, boys learning to play Sonic and Mario before even to tie their shoes. They toiled and grew, learning and shaping pixels to their own desires until, at last was born the modern day of gaming, where Half-Life, World of Warcraft, and Modern Warfare are the true masters of our video-enslaved race.
Hello there. My name is Matthew Coale and I am a gamer. I fit perfectly into the category of nerd. I listen to Final Fantasy soundtracks, play WoW, and I get all of Patton Oswalt's jokes. I am here to chronicle the travels of my mind through a gamer life. I will delve into any matter that tickles my fancy. Now, this could be anything from leveling cooking from 1-300 in Vanilla WoW, to The pros and cons of wearing a Queens of the Stone Age hoodie in public, so hang on and enjoy what you can. Before I leave to hit the gym on a rainy friday night, let me tell you more about myself.
I have lived quite some time a gamer. I remember sneaking over to friends' houses just to watch them play Donkey Kong. One time I even called a kid I barely knew just to listen to him dictate his actions while playing Spyro. I never owned a game system until my first Xbox. I went through three of them over two years. Some broke, others just refused to work in the first place. Somewhere along the way I picked up a PlayStation 2 and a Gamecube. Being the oldest of four I often had to assert my place as eldest as I walked in from school, and I set to work. Final Fantasy 7,8,9, Rogue Squadron, Battlefront, Phantom Crash, Kotr II, Crimson Skies, Grand Theft Auto (3 being my favorite), Kingdom hearts, and Halo all fell before my iron thumbs. Still I yearned for more. I bought a very cheap piece of junk (a.k.a. this very computer), as a package deal from Best Buy one fine autumn evening with my father in tow. I set up it up, plugged it in and was off. I picked up Warcraft first, Diablo and Guild Wars soon followed. I took a lot of interest in Fable, but had already begun tinkering with World of Warcraft. It wasn't until I had my first 60, a Tauren hunter (of which I have a figureprint), that I knew what true beauty an online game could set into motion. I had just began to find my niche in PvWhatever when the first expansion, Burning Crusade, hit like a train. By then I had leveled a warrior to 70, and he was far more fun than my hunter had ever been. Not only did he make it to 70, but he also, upon server transferring, lead a small family guild through Karazhan, as well as Gruul's and Mag's. But as Wrath of the Lich King drew nearer, my days of warrior-hood grew fewer. I was at the midnight release. I even wore both a Horde shirt and an Alliance hoodie. My hunter was first to 80, and with it came the socialite rank of casual raider. I hung him up for a while and played my second warrior, an orc. While he made it further into Ulduar than any other of my characters, he still didn't break free from the casual raider playstyle. I moved back to my human warrior. I tried roleplay, I tried PvP, I even tried raiding again. Nothing could keep me from going back and trying harder except my computer crashing. It did. Hard. It was eight whole months before I bothered to get it running again, and better than ever, I might add.
While I may lose some audience I am unashamed to say that I have never been a hardcore gamer. I never raided more than two nights a week, and I never did battlegrounds in a full premade. I never truly amounted to much of an achiever, but I learned a hell of a lot of useful things. Most of this I will do my best to pass on to you, the faithful readers. The rest I have in bits and pieces of memory. Such as watching my best friend spellsteal levitate from a priest and laugh over his corpse. Anyways, my point is that this blog will be dedicated to sharing experiences. I want not only to communicate ideas and experiences, but to create them.
Hello there. My name is Matthew Coale and I am a gamer. I fit perfectly into the category of nerd. I listen to Final Fantasy soundtracks, play WoW, and I get all of Patton Oswalt's jokes. I am here to chronicle the travels of my mind through a gamer life. I will delve into any matter that tickles my fancy. Now, this could be anything from leveling cooking from 1-300 in Vanilla WoW, to The pros and cons of wearing a Queens of the Stone Age hoodie in public, so hang on and enjoy what you can. Before I leave to hit the gym on a rainy friday night, let me tell you more about myself.
I have lived quite some time a gamer. I remember sneaking over to friends' houses just to watch them play Donkey Kong. One time I even called a kid I barely knew just to listen to him dictate his actions while playing Spyro. I never owned a game system until my first Xbox. I went through three of them over two years. Some broke, others just refused to work in the first place. Somewhere along the way I picked up a PlayStation 2 and a Gamecube. Being the oldest of four I often had to assert my place as eldest as I walked in from school, and I set to work. Final Fantasy 7,8,9, Rogue Squadron, Battlefront, Phantom Crash, Kotr II, Crimson Skies, Grand Theft Auto (3 being my favorite), Kingdom hearts, and Halo all fell before my iron thumbs. Still I yearned for more. I bought a very cheap piece of junk (a.k.a. this very computer), as a package deal from Best Buy one fine autumn evening with my father in tow. I set up it up, plugged it in and was off. I picked up Warcraft first, Diablo and Guild Wars soon followed. I took a lot of interest in Fable, but had already begun tinkering with World of Warcraft. It wasn't until I had my first 60, a Tauren hunter (of which I have a figureprint), that I knew what true beauty an online game could set into motion. I had just began to find my niche in PvWhatever when the first expansion, Burning Crusade, hit like a train. By then I had leveled a warrior to 70, and he was far more fun than my hunter had ever been. Not only did he make it to 70, but he also, upon server transferring, lead a small family guild through Karazhan, as well as Gruul's and Mag's. But as Wrath of the Lich King drew nearer, my days of warrior-hood grew fewer. I was at the midnight release. I even wore both a Horde shirt and an Alliance hoodie. My hunter was first to 80, and with it came the socialite rank of casual raider. I hung him up for a while and played my second warrior, an orc. While he made it further into Ulduar than any other of my characters, he still didn't break free from the casual raider playstyle. I moved back to my human warrior. I tried roleplay, I tried PvP, I even tried raiding again. Nothing could keep me from going back and trying harder except my computer crashing. It did. Hard. It was eight whole months before I bothered to get it running again, and better than ever, I might add.
While I may lose some audience I am unashamed to say that I have never been a hardcore gamer. I never raided more than two nights a week, and I never did battlegrounds in a full premade. I never truly amounted to much of an achiever, but I learned a hell of a lot of useful things. Most of this I will do my best to pass on to you, the faithful readers. The rest I have in bits and pieces of memory. Such as watching my best friend spellsteal levitate from a priest and laugh over his corpse. Anyways, my point is that this blog will be dedicated to sharing experiences. I want not only to communicate ideas and experiences, but to create them.
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