Portrait of an Internet Troll

WoW is racist….

This was sent through to me and I just had to share…

Have LotRO will travel…

American  performance artist Jordan Long plans to ship himself across the US in a crate with only  Lord of the Rings Online as company.

Avid Lord of the Rings Online player and performance artist; Jordan Long is taking his theories about in-game communities and their benefits for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to new levels.

Long has shipped himself from his home in Bald Knob, Arkansas to a final destination in Oregon locked in a crate with nothing but his computer and his LOTRO companions along for the ride. 

According to Long, the purpose of his most recent “art” project is to study “trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and claims that he has found that many who are confined to their homes due to such trauma tend to find their escape in the form of online games such as LotRO where they can ‘enter and exit whenever they choose, be whoever they want to be and feel like functioning members of society again.’”

Good thing he isn’t playing WOW or people would want to know the gear score of his crate….

The Hardest Game In The World…

Recently I have noticed that my brother is swearing more than usual; I’m not just talking a little f word here or there I am talking a full on torrent of verbal abuse.

The target of all this swearing a video game, but  not just any video game this is the hardest game in the world…

The game in question is called “I wanna be the guy” and it is hard.

 I’m not talking “wow wasn’t that a tough game of Halo” or “man taking down the Lich King was hard” I am talking gouge your own eyes out in frustration hard.

There is no learning curve in this game, none - if you suck you die tough luck.

Boy will you die; you know how sometimes you are reading a book and the author will say that death was the protagonists only companion?  Well gues what you get to experience that first hand! Death will need to take a holiday when he has finished with you.

So what is IWBTG about? Well it is fiendishly simple the game itself is a throwback to the halcyon days of the 8 bit platformer… think Mario, but with the difficulty on steroids and possibly PCP.

You run, you jump, you dive from platform to platform etc etc but something is missing, oh yes the parts where you die… a lot.

There are different difficulty settings on IWBTG but they don’t make the game easier in the conventional sense, nope that would be too kind, all the lesser difficulty levels do is increase the frequency of save points.

When I told one of my co-workers about this I was asked why I would choose to play a game that is so mind rendingly difficult?

My answer to him?

IT IS FUN!!!

Sure you die, a lot.  Sure it is hard, almost too hard in places, sure some of the obstacles made me want to ram pencils up my nose and bang my head on the desk but it is FUN.

I loved just playing a platformer without any bells and whistles; it took me back to the innocence of my childhood back when all I looked for in a game was the ability to jump from group of blocky pixels to group of blocky pixels.

I can’t recommend this game enough, particularly if you like a challenge, an impossible, maddening challenge

http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/index.php

Enjoy

It’s coming…

There is still a goodly amount of time to go until Cataclysm hits
the World of Warcraft but already the rumblings of it’s arrival can be felt…

Patch 4.0.1 is going live today allowing players to experience the start of the changes which will be fully realised on December 7th when Cataclysm is released upon an unsuspecting Azeroth.

The update will add the new Cataclysm Launcher, which allows you to download new content while you play, reducing the time it takes to download, install and patch World of Warcraft, this is great news as it will hopefully bring an end to the agonizing wait whilst you get your hands on the latest 800 megs or so of content that Blizzard do enjoy spewing at us on a regular basis.

It is rather ironic though that an upgrade which is designed to allow you to maximise your playing time is going to result in a full 24 hours of maintenance :S

It is also adding Reforging NPCs who will allow you to modify the stats on your items so as to help with the for the forthcoming changes which are going to see a lot of stats being combined, tweaked or just plain removed.

Every class are going to get major overhauls to their talents, spells and abilities. This is always both the most enjoyable and also the most controversial of the changes that Blizz make.

As soon as everyone is back online the whole debate of who is now the most over powered class will rear it’s ugly head (not that it ever really goes away…) Skipping merrily hand in hand with the OP discussion will be the good old argument as to which class fell out of the nerf tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Surprise surprise there are changes to the currency system with all emblems of Frost and Emblems of Triumph being converted into Justice Points for all the new shinies that you are just going to have to have.

Oh and Paladins are getting a new resource bar

Help Needed…

My name is Tom and I am a gameaholic…

Unfortunately there isn’t really a 12 step program out there for video game addicts and even if there was I don’t think that I would be admitting to myself that I have a problem so thats step one buggered before we even start!

I do think it is possible that I do spend a bit too much time playing games though which is a start I guess. I came to this startling realisation yesterday although those who know me well will be chortling to themselves saying some realisation that is.

I realised that I spent my lunch break yesterday animatedly talking with a colleague and fellow addict about my strategy for championship manager; for those of you not familiar with champ man it is a variety of online crack that lets you pretend that you are the manager of a football team (I refuse to ever call football soccer)

That’s right it’s a game that lets you pretend you are involved in a game, but I love it! I have since I first laid eyes on it back in the heady days of Championship Manager 2 which I struggled to get going on my mighty 486.

Since then I have owned every version of the game that has been released even though by my own admission they are more or less exactly the same, but thats not the point, I need the up to date information and the realistic transfer prices etc etc.

I love championship manager so much that I have been working on my current file for 147 hours. That is just a few hours shy of two whole premiership seasons!!! The kicker is it’s not my only file I have another file with 50 odd hours.

Where have I found the time to play nearly 200 hours of a football management simulator since the new season began??

It doesn’t stop there either, if I was addicted to just one game it would be bad enough but it’s every game, well except the shit ones obviously! During my 200 hour footballing marathon I have also completed Halo Wars, replayed my way through half of GTA IV and clocked up about 20 hours on Soul Calibre.

I could understand if I was unemployed, single or worked as a games reviewer but I am none of those things. I have a girlfriend and work a 40 hour+ week as some form of emarketing bitch (even I can’t really quantify what I do)

It’s not solely video games either, my girlfriend will readily atest to the fact that when I’m not playing video games I want to play other games; scrabble, backgammon, cribbage, monopoly, risk, warhammer or d&d. It quite literally does not matter what it happens to be I am addicted to playing games.

I still don’t think I have a problem though

WOW Questionnaire

I saw this questionnaire on MMO Gamer Chick and  I would complete it myself and see what anyone else has to say on it

1. Raider, farmer, PvPer, or altoholic?
Raider / Altoholic but I am getting to like the PvP these days

2. Favorite raid or dungeon?
Got to be The Black Temple, I must of played through that place like 100 times when TBC came out

3. Number one choice for a new playable race?
Arakkoa / Ogres

4. Class you suck the most at?
Rogues, my first ever main was a rogue and I just couldnt enjoy it at all

5. Original UI or modded UI?
Modded, but not that much, when I’m levelling it tends to just be Recount and Omen with PallyPower stashed away for groups

6. Profession you’ve never leveled past 200?
Leatherworking, I have an annoying habit of leaving professions until I hit level cap and then blizing them and I never seem to bother with Leatherworking

7. Favorite flying mount?
Has to be the Proto Drake, even though I don’t have one

8. Nozdormu — friend or foe, you figure?
Neither, when you control time who needs concepts like friends or enemies?

9. Useless item you have in your bank that you’ll never get rid of?
My midsummer fire festival tabard, pointless but I kinda like the look

10. Most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?
Same as most people epic flying skill and coldweather flying in one fell swoop – 6k straight down the hole

11. Favorite starting area?
Eversong Wood, don’t know why but I just like it, maybe because I know it so well (8 blood elves started so far)

12. Inane goal you worked hardest to achieve?
I’m fairly sure they are all kind of inane!

13. Darion Mograine VS Tirion Fordring, gloves off — winner is?
Mograine all the way, if only for the fact that first time I ever heard the name I was sort of blitzed and heard it as Dave Mustaine and since then it has made me chuckle

14. Game music or your own playlist?
Neither, I don’t listen to music whilst I game, the sole exception to that in recent years has been LOTRO

15. Particular option or setting that you always toggle on a new alt/server?
Have to add the extra action bars straight away

16. Highest amount of levels gained in one play session?
27, from level 3 to level 30 whilst sat in an internet cafe waiting to find out if I could get a flight home for xmas

17. Thing you’d most like to experience or see in-game?
A horde win in Strand of the Ancients,the horde sucks balls at SOA in our battle group!  I guess a more serious suggestion would be an all paladin raiding guild, just to lol at all the palyl haters

18. Worst PuG moment?
A mage entering as Tank for HoR because in their words they didnt have to queue so long

19. Best dungeon/raid moment?
First time my old guild and I completed Mount Hyjal, we managed it second time round without even knowing how we survived it and it just felt epic, I kinda feel like some of that epicness is missing these days

20. Worst quest ever that you totally hate doing?
Any in Zul Farrak, it’s not the quests more the instance. As it’s sort of the first proper instance there are always a lot of people that haven’t a clue and you can get really bogged down in there for quite a while. On my newest toon it was enough to make me think about dual boxing.

21. First thing you do when you hit 80?
hit the AH to see if there are any instant “wins” to be had in terms of bargain crafted epics

22. Character (of yours) you would RP as if you had to?
Curadane my Blood Elf Paladin (also my current main) If only because I have this whole little back story already worked out in my head

23. Keyboard, mouse, or both for using abilities?
Both.

24. Thottbot or WoWhead?
Has to be WoWhead, the level of trolling and general asshattery on Thottbot has gotten real old these days, especially as my time is limited

25. Acronym you’ve seen in chat but don’t understand?
On coming back to the game 3 months ago after a 2 year hiatus I hadn’t a clue what GS or gearscore was or what I might do with one if I found it

26. Plot point you’d like to see resolved someday?
The whole Blood Elf/Sunwell Saga

27. Biggest thing you’re looking forward to in Cataclysm?
Flying in Azeroth

28. Guild event you’d like to see?
Around the World of Warcraft in 80 days, a scavenger hunt with a clue released each day, first to finish on the 80th day wins a prize. We organized something very similar in my old LOTRO kin and it was great not to mention that we had over 400g in cash and prizes

29. Level range you hate being in?
I loathe the Barrens, if only because the chat there is inane babbling

Favorite map to quest in?
Hmmm I love Stranglethorn and Un’ Goro Crater

STFU about your gear score

I asked a guy for an invite to a Naxx 10 man last night, he had been shouting out looking for DPS for about 20 mins and I thought hey I have some time why not.

The first thing he asked me was am  I/can I hit over 2k DPS and did I have time to run the instance in full. Well it was  a yes to both of those without any hesitation on my part.

He sent me an invite and there I was ready to go, not 3 minutes later though I got a whisper back to me – Sorry I am gonna have to boot you. So of course I asked him why this was, bearing in mind he had been shouting out looking for DPS of all things for over 20 mins, the answer?

My Gearscore…. He only wanted people on the raid with a GS of more than 2500, I decided to challenge him on this to find out exactly why he felt this way and what he was hoping to achieve.

Apparently if I didnt have a GS of at least 2500 I was a noob who was wasting his time and would make the raid fail, boy did I laugh at that.

I had a little look at his gearscore just out of interest, it turns out that yes indeed he was over 2500 however none of his gear was really working together, instead he had just whacked on a jumble of armour, trinkets etc that would give him the highest GS.

He was the MT for the group and yet was wearing an epic helm that gave spirit and int as stats solely because it had a decent level, none of his armour or his weapons were enchanted and he only had 3 pieces that gave stamina as there main stat.

By comparison my noobish gear of shittyness which only gave me a paltry 1.7 gs is all giving bonuses to strength, crit, stam and  hit.

I have enchanted everything I can with appropriate enchants giving boosts to my strength, crit, ap etc oh and I spend big amounts of gold socketing appropriate epic level gems.

Despite the fact that he was the main tank and I am just some noob fool who doesn’t respect the might of GS I had over 2k more health unbuffed then he did, I would be interested to see if he could even survive Naxx as MT let alone hold aggro without any issues etc etc.

This isn’t an isolated incident, everywhere you look people are bleating on about GS this and gearscore that as if it was the sole purpose of playing the game.

Sure having good gear can be an indicator of some being a good player or not but you are equally as likely to get owned by someone who isnt obsessed by their GS and actually focuses on playing.

I think some people forget that there were still kickass players around long before GS was a twinkling in some fat nerd’s myopic eyes. It’s a tool, granted it has it’s uses but it is still just a tool.

Unfortunately it’s user base seem to have a lot in common with it, they too are tools

Northrend and beyond

I wrote a quick update a while ago mentioning that I had just hit level 70 with my (not so) new Ret Paladin in WOW. Well time has moved on since then and so have Curadane and I.

I have now said good bye to outland and have ventured off bravely into the freezing wastes of Northrend.

7 levels later and I feel like I have seen enough of the continent to put my two pennies in.

Overall I am really impressed; there is a sense of scale to the continent that makes it seem as if a mere ten levels of questing and grinding just isn’t enough to see it all. I know some people like to rag on sandbox games and MMO’s because there is just too much scope for going off and doing basically not very much in order to explore huge sections of map but I like it.

If I am going to go to the bother of controlling a virtual person in a made up world I at least want that world to seem like a place worth visiting, both in terms of places to go and things to do.

There is no point putting a serious investment of time (and wow is a serious timesink) into a game if you can trot across the whole map in five minutes and keep revisiting the sae half dozen or so locations to speak to the same couple of dozen protagonists.

Another thing which pleased me about WOTLK in general and Northrend in particular is the graphics, now granted as a long time LOTRO player they aren’t really anything to write home about however I do think they are a big step up from Vanilla WOW or The Burning Crusade. One of the main reasons that I prefer the graphics in WOTLK is that they are less cartoony than many of the graphics in TBC. I know the reasoning behind it and agree that it suited that particular expansion but personally they just weren’t my cup of tea.

The quests and dungeons all seem well thought through and there are some interesting new tweaks that help to keep things fresh, even if some of them are a little gimmicky (I’m thinking of the harpoon guns in Utgarde Pinnacle) but there is definitely something fun about driving round in a siege engine as part of Wintergrasp PvP or  flying a war dragon around as part of the Occulus instance.

So the not so good things….

I’m not sure on Death Knights, I wrote at some length before about my issues with DKs and I’m sorry ot say that having now spent a few more weeks grouping with them my initial opinions haven’t changed.

I think that a big part of the DK problem is that even by the time you are playing through Halls of Stone, The Nexus etc etc they just don’t seem to have really learnt their class….at all.

There is a long list of issues that I have regularly come across and it seems I am not alone a lot of other players are also complaining about these and others:

Tanking in all DPS gear – Just because it is plate it doesn’t mean you should tank with it!!

Hoping that DPS alone will generate enough threat for you to be able to hold a room full of mobs – fail in anyone’s language

Not using Frost presence when tanking….seriously wtf?

Oh yeah and my favourite the shitty fairy at the top of the Death Knoob tree, the cherry on top of the liquishit cake you so freely share around…..

After a wipe on halls of lightning, Utgarde Pinnacle etc “Soz guys my 1st time tanking roflol”….Well thanks a lot, thanks for fucking up the one instance run a night that I might get on an instance I actually need to do, thanks for the half the group (usually including a pissed off healer) dropping as soon as this utterance leaves your lips and lets not forget the 10g minimum that you have just cost me in having to go repair my sorry plate wearing ass.

Ok calm, down deep breaths, DK rant over.

I also dislike the 1k gold it costs for cold weather flying, just seems like a money sink but hey thats life. Personally I never rock less than 4/5k gold at any given time so dont mind paying it, but there are a lot of players who will spend whole weeks farming just to hit that 1k or alternately will decide to contact their friendly neighbourhood Chinese gold farmer in order to puke up some of their hard earned cash.

DING 70!

Well I am surprisingly tardy in reporting this but I hit 70 on Tuesday evening.

Obviously it’s not the big deal it used to be but it still gives me a sense of achievement, there are now only 10 measly levels between me and the Lich King.

Because I actually really like the Burning Crusade content I have decided against jumping ship to Northrend straight away, I really want to work my way through some of the greatraids that there are in TBC, in particular Sunwell Plateau and Mount Hyjal.

I only ever got to complete Sunwell once before I took my gaming hiatus and would really like to give it another whirl.

Being a few years further on as a gamer and having been a bit more patient and focused on making some gold I am really enjoying the benefits of having good gear.

Ret Pallys are really gear dependant and I see some of my compatriots really struggling in comparisson to other classes for two simple reasons; either their gear sucks balls or they aren’t bothering with  can’t afford the little things that make all the difference like decent gems and enchants.

Sure I might have taken a week  or so longer in order to get here but good god the time spent farming has sure payed off!

So if you happen to be hanging around Boulderfist (not likely) and want to run some TBC raids then hit me up