Actually I was very impressed with the overall feel of WoW considering this is Blizzards first attempt at a MMORPG. I did enjoy picking my reward from quests etc and really enjoyed the game's ambiance. Meaning each area has it's own look and feel and finally got to Booty Bay before the test ended.

After having a self induced hatred of orcs elfs and dwarfs in MMORPG's World of Warcraft really sucked me in and it was quite an enjoyable experience.

And as I only got a mage to lvl 14 and a hunter to lvl 12 I have to say overall it was pretty nice experience except trying to figure out all the little things like calling your pet etc.

But as I said before and it's been proven already in the beta, is that Blizzard cannot make a game "cheat/hack" proof. And with the Stress test and people hitting lvl 50 it was painfully obvious. But at least PvP is purely your choice and not forced on you, as I had a blast dancing with a cow.. er tauren and some orcs at the Stonefield Farm.

Also of note it was nice that I finally got my athlon 1800 system upgraded to a athlon 3200 64 system, being the first time I got to turn all the settings to high and take a griffon flight from Booty bay to Ironforge was spectacular. Props to Blizzard for making the game zoneless.

xx = some guy who has chased the proverbial ho and perhaps continues the pursuit. Refer to such songs as "Let a Ho be a Ho" by the geto boys for hoducation on the topic. Basically, if you boil it down in some other medium than the ho-juice you've been drinking, you'll discover this basic woman-formula:

Be honest with yourself and you win.

Basically, if you are not honest yourself in your pursuit of women (or anything), ie. you are not inputting honesty in to the "Magic System", you will not get honest results from the "Magic System". In xx's supposed case, I imagine a scenario wherein xx flexes his nuts in ways not to be discussed, but which are not in line with his natural mode of operation. He seems dissatisfied by the ilk of women he is attracting with these nut-flexations - nut-flexations which the ho's moronometer is perfectly tuned to detect. Of course, the ho is unhappy (dishonesty into the "Magic System" = dishonesty out), and the xx is unhappy - for the same reason.

I suspect if xx were to utilize his natural-instinct instead of his high-school-homie-nut-flexation-behavior he would notice that the ilk of the ho would not be attracted, as the moronometer is by nature set to moron.

Seriously, just learn who you are, what you want, what makes you tick, and live that absolutely. A (or many many as is usually the case) woman (or women) more suited to what seems to be your preferences will present herself to you, and likely throw herself at your feet. If you present a package which is not who you are, you cannot expect some woman to psychicly infer what your actual intentions/desires are. Put on a show, and you will attract the audience who wants to see the show - not the audience you secretly hope will be watching.



Vote for Bush and find out

I don't know what state you live in, but in most if you hit a pedestrian in the road (not on the sidewalk/off the road/crosswalk) and stop (e.g. - not hit and run) then you are at no fault whatsoever.

I live in CA - you know I'd get sued by SOMEONE no matter who was at fault. I think you should be able to sue the jogger/bicyclist if they were at fault. Yeah, right, who am I kidding....


*************
* Warhawk *
*************

The new Quake-43 game blows my mind. It is even better than Super Turbo Turkey Puncher.
Doom 3

Nvidia is giving away 1000 closed slots for WoW at http://www.nzone.com/ if you can get through. It's getting pounded like a cheap whore at a naval yard. I would suspect the odds of winning are not very good, but you never know.


"We only came to kick some ass. Rock the fuckin' house and kick some ass."
- Tenacious D

It was ok. I like that the world has a very organic, living feel to it. As far as MUD's go, it's really little more than an improved EQ - and not by much. The quests are all shallow and repetitive (courier/kill) that require zero real thought or creativity. They're well written, but they still have the 'been there, done that, got the t-shirt' feel to them. The design and layout of them is quite good in many cases. Going after Van Kleef was really impressive when you finally got to the cavern and ship.

I did a lot of travelling (finished as 28 NE druid) and really enjoyed the zones, Duskwood in particular (I'd love to see a Halloween themed party there). Booty Bay was fun too - bought me a parrot!

Leveling is insanely fast and needs to be halved, if not quartered. I agree the contest was an absolute joke and easily rigged. Regardless of that fact, it proved that leveling is way too easy. I got to 28 in just over a week without even really trying that hard - and most of it solo. The fact that people were 40 plus is just ludicrous.

I was surprised at how much it's crashing at this point. There are still a ton of issues that need to be resolved, but I've been jonsing for a good MOG for a while so I'll probably pick it up at retail and play it untill Dungeons and Dragons Online gets underway (that will be the game that raises the bar for MOG's!).


"We only came to kick some ass. Rock the fuckin' house and kick some ass."
- Tenacious D

And, of course, it'll be my ass on the frying pan if I ever hit one.

I don't know what state you live in, but in most if you hit a pedestrian in the road (not on the sidewalk/off the road/crosswalk) and stop (e.g. - not hit and run) then you are at no fault whatsoever.

Of course, you'd want to be sure that you weren't speeding, driving recklessly, etc. -- but that's purely for civil liability. It's very doubtful you'd have any criminal liability. As long as you stopped.

Of course, you'd have to deal with the potential personal issue of having seriously injured or killed someone, but that's another matter entirely.

Here's what we should do: promote Darwinism. We should perfect "invisibility clothing" or "active camoflague," and sell it for dirt cheap.

Because then, all of the STUPID-ASS joggers out there will buy them and jog with it. It won't take long to clear out the stupid ones. You know who I'm talking about, the wanna-be's that decide to take-up jogging, and run out in the middle of the night wearing a dark jumpsuit with the hood up, no reflectors, run with traffic (instead of against), and wear headphones so they can't even hear oncoming traffic.

I live in a nice suburban town, where not much happens. The most we get is the occassional teen busted for possession of pot. Our streets are clean, but being suburbia, many of the twisty ones aren't very well lit.

Anyway, my town is full of joggers. Now, the smart and experienced ones try to wear white and reflectors when they're out at night. I have nothing but the utmost respect for these people. Some of them run marathos, some just run for heatlh, but ALL of THESE particular joggers at least have some common sense.

Then there are the boatload of jerks that will jog wearing a navy blue jumpsuit, or black jacket, all down the "quiet" streets. Unfortunately, they're quiet because their residential areas, and quiet residential areas have barely any friggin street lights.

To add insult to injury, they'll run across the street without even looking (even when the don't cross sign is up) and don't have a care in the world.

I can't begin to count the number of times I've almost hit some jerk jogging in the middle of a dark street, wearing the darkest friggin clothes possible. And, of course, it'll be my ass on the frying pan if I ever hit one.

So, I say appeal to those asshats that like to jog in dark clothes at night, give them active camo, and let natural selection run its course. We'll rid of the wanna-be joggers in a few months, and make our streets safer.



"Space. It seems to go on and on forever. But then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you."
-Fry, Futurmama
This comment was edited on Sep 13, 17:07.

1079.2 on Psycho Penguin; liked the gameplay action of Antkendo.

Looks like I'm going to have to convince 'Kitty Mother' that that her kitties should not be on a vegan diet. I quoted something I read here a couple days ago about how dogs are biologically omnivores but cats have a digestive system that needs meat. Now I have to freaking research whether cat's can eat a vegan diet. Apparently there are a couple of web sites I'm supposed to look on about vegan diets for cats. [These cats get some awful looking/smelling friskies 'fish' composition occassionally so it's not all bad right now.]

I've had some success arguing in favor of a planned kitty parenthood project that would allow at least one kitty to experience kitty motherhood -- so they can be well rounded adult kitties -- instead of being spayed immediately. So, there is hope for pinkies, but, at least in my POST COLLEGE household, it will have to done on an objectively reasonable and informed basis.

----
Currently reading, "Then Again, Maybe I won't", by Judy Blume.

I've been reading the reviews of the Sims 2 that just came out and some features the IGN and Gamespy have been running. The game sounds damn funny. I haven't paid attention to it at all but I think I may have to get it. It looks like you can have some real fun with it. A lot of little improvements over the original. Maybe I'm being swindled again (the first game got boring after a few days for me) but it sounds promising.

EDIT: Holy shit! I just had an awesome idea: simulate Animal House in the Sims.

We bury our sins here, Dave. We wash them clean.

This comment was edited on Sep 13, 17:00.

Arg. sounds like every other mmog i've ever played.
Dammit why does this have to be The Next Big MMO?
Gods! now i feel obligated to come out of retirement *creak* and at least try the open beta, minimax a template, find a 'good' guild to experience the EndGame, arg!

-Ex: Realm, Underlight, M59 (original), UO, EQ, AC1, AO, DaoC, Mimesis, Neocron, E&B, AC2, ShadowBane, Horizons

edit: you should email your beta report in to Blizzard
This comment was edited on Sep 13, 16:46.

First off, let me give a shout out to a fellow poster that was known in-game as "Angard" and on the boards as "inexorable." He/she is a bit of the lurker type, but it was nice to find somebody from Blue's and Angard, a priest, really helped us on taking out the first sunken ghost ship in the wetlands.

You did something I have failed at so far - finding someone from Blue's News on the Beta Server.

Second, I do have to say that there is a somewhat bitter feeling or taste from the whole "closed beta" contest experience. I certainly was not going to kill myself to get into, but yeah, I was definitely interested in it. However, there were various issues and concerns over cheating and shady conduct. From day one, there were closed beta PCs that were going out of their way to help their friends through everything - some people had a leg up on knowing what to do, profession routes to take, and locations for all items. That was understandable, but then there was some definite cheating going on - reports of people being rested at all times (200% XP) and some people had the most bizarre level jumps. Things started getting worse and I just gave up on it - an even newer cheat had been found (100% protection) and there were level 50+ characters with mounts, too. Perhaps Matthew can comment on how stupidly ridiculous that is within a ten day period. As it stands, my character ended at level thirty.

First off, the first exploit (I've hear rumors but don't know exactly what it is or how to do it) just stinks. I had heard that it was removed rather quickly. As for the second exploit - I don't know anything about it - again it stinks that people would find something like that to get around the basis of the game - I've never understood people like this.

As for level 50 in 10 days - I'm flabergasted. My current character is level 29 after months of play. The most time I have logged at any one time is maybe 4 hours of play. Most of the time I get an hour, maybe two, 3-4 nights a week. So level 50+ in ten days is just plain unbelievable.

I did read some of the posts regarding the contest - many people posted that they were unemployed and playing every waking moment of the day as they had nothing else to do. I guess if I played for 10-15 hours a day I could hit 50 in ten days - I wouldn't enjoy it - I'd miss a lot of the back story - I would skip the trade skills (professions now) - not worth it to me. When a game is more work than, uh work then I'm out.

I do not know if I would have ever won, but I know that I never had a chance to win - that is what irks me. Meanwhile, Blizzard really did not have anything to say other than a vague promise to look into things on the last day.

Well they did expand the pool of people that qualified. Still, they left a lot of unhappy people.

Likewise, now that it is over, I was going to wait a day and make a fairly detailed post covering things ranging from my general playing to various bugs all the way to sweeping design decisions they should make. However, the stress test board, the only one stress testers could post to, was locked yesterday and has already been removed. Blizzard could not even wait a day before locking/closing the board?

That was dumb on their part. I know their intention was to test loading and registration issues with their games. While I could see an argument on their side that stress testers would not have enough time to really form opinions with respect to game balance and class issues. Believe me when I tell you the PVP and PVE beta testers are constantly providing this kind of info. Not to belittle your input in anyway, just trying to see it from their standpoint.

As for the game, it is both amazing and yet shockingly shallow.

I think there is more backstory and continuity than you are aware of.

Why, as a high level warrior with 1600+ armor, was I taking as much damage as the lower level rogue with 400+ armor?

Even better, why would a Rogue just two levels higher than me have the same number of HP as me? There are class balance issues to be sure. I really can't imagine this game being released any time soon because of class balance issues.

After everything, I do have to give the game credit for its art design. The textures are low resolution, the game looked fugly the first time I played it , but there are a lot of them and I cannot stress the amount of attention and love that went into crafting the levels.

I really enjoy the artwork. No, it's not photo-realistic. I like the flavor of the different areas. No reusing textures is right.

I could go on and on, but this is already way too much.

No it's not!

Removing skill points is stupid - you go from working for knowledge and being able to make a uniquely-skilled character to just purchasing the two fields of experience you wish - and I view it as a "cheat" on Blizzard's part.

I agree with the skill point removal being dumb. I'm happy that people will be limited in the number of skills you can acquire. At some point people could become too independant.

Why is the character creation so blatantly limited?

Blizzard has stated that many more character 'types' are due to be added as well as more varied items, animations, etc.

I still hit level thirty in ten days. Mind you, the game is supposed to be capped at, what, level sixty?

The cap is currently 55 and will jump to 60 I believe. Each patch seems to bump it 5. I don't know what the max is but there are NPCs in 90's so I would guess they will go at least that high.

Wondering if anybody at Blizzard wants to move RaymArden to the closed beta.

I sure hope someone from Blizzard reads this.

-TPFKAS2S
http://www.braglio.com

http://www.shamings.com

I always use this site http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink
for NYT stuff. Generates a reg-less link to an article (works most of the time). I use the bookmarklet. Quite handy.

Well that's about as dumb as it gets, xx…..

…When/if you ever finally meet a human woman in person, you are in for a rude awakening, big guy..

I think he is only talking about is a purely physical relationship (or hopes thereof).
If you are just trying to “leave her ass in debris” then ya, lie all you want I guess….if it makes you happy.

If you are trying to develop a serious and loving relation ship…that is not going to work, at all. If you need this explained why in more detail, go talk to your parents or a guidance counselor, because you need a lot of help.


_____
Enahs
That’s a deep kiss too, like the Europeans. You know the French they have to unhinge their jaw to show love.

yoiks, and i thought i was Barry Bonds at:
1025.4

Contest = Anger

WoW = Warm up to, but good MMRPG

Depth = Is there? What is long-term potential?

Matthew = So p\/\/n3d by my warrior

Many issues = Why so many? Why not fixed?

Ray = Ramble

Simple, keep for Bunko :o,
Ray

-----
A locked copy of Half-Life 2 is now on your computer.
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=ray_marden
s{I love you, mom.
This comment was edited on Sep 13, 16:12.

Longest. Post. Ever.

Come on Ray. That's gonna take me forever to read. What are you doing?

We bury our sins here, Dave. We wash them clean.

Yay for ignorance and the hate of sexism!!1111

Er...wait.

Giving the troll and "E" for effort,
Ray

-----
A locked copy of Half-Life 2 is now on your computer.
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=ray_marden
I love you, mom.

No no no no... that's when it's easy. At that point there becomes one rule:

The only rule: there are no rules.

We bury our sins here, Dave. We wash them clean.

if she has kids already she'll tell a coke machine she loves it if she thinks theres money in the coin return slot

Hahahaha, that's funny, I'll have to remember that one. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with it, but it's a helluva turn of phrase.

____________________
Pick up the receiver
I'll make you a believer

Well, the stress test ended Sunday at 18:00 Pacific and the servers should be wiped by now. I have to say that I am a bit mixed about things overall, though.

First off, let me give a shout out to a fellow poster that was known in-game as "Angard" and on the boards as "inexorable." He/she is a bit of the lurker type, but it was nice to find somebody from Blue's and Angard, a priest, really helped us on taking out the first sunken ghost ship in the wetlands.

Second, I do have to say that there is a somewhat bitter feeling or taste from the whole "closed beta" contest experience. I certainly was not going to kill myself to get into, but yeah, I was definitely interested in it. However, there were various issues and concerns over cheating and shady conduct. From day one, there were closed beta PCs that were going out of their way to help their friends through everything - some people had a leg up on knowing what to do, profession routes to take, and locations for all items. That was understandable, but then there was some definite cheating going on - reports of people being rested at all times (200% XP) and some people had the most bizarre level jumps. Things started getting worse and I just gave up on it - an even newer cheat had been found (100% protection) and there were level 50+ characters with mounts, too. Perhaps Matthew can comment on how stupidly ridiculous that is within a ten day period. As it stands, my character ended at level thirty.

I do not know if I would have ever won, but I know that I never had a chance to win - that is what irks me. Meanwhile, Blizzard really did not have anything to say other than a vague promise to look into things on the last day. Basically, a known problem that was not correct nor dealt with and only give a very basic promise to potentially look into things. This is not completely fair to Blizzard, it was just a stress and Blizzard does not care about it, but it really reminded me of dealing with SOE all over again.

Likewise, now that it is over, I was going to wait a day and make a fairly detailed post covering things ranging from my general playing to various bugs all the way to sweeping design decisions they should make. However, the stress test board, the only one stress testers could post to, was locked yesterday and has already been removed. Blizzard could not even wait a day before locking/closing the board? Talk about cutting off my communication and not caring at all about what people have to say. It just seems inane to not was a reflection of what people just played. Again, it made me feel like I was dealing with good 'ol SOE.

As for the game, it is both amazing and yet shockingly shallow. It is an amazing game to start playing and is, by far, the most accessible of any MMRPG out there. In a lot of ways, this is the casual gamers' MMRPG. Where it succeeds is by making an almost single-player RPG and placing it online. This is so simple, you would think this is the basic of any online RPG, but many games get caught up in the combat, the economy, guilds, or some other hook. In a way, this is like Gothic taken online, ableit with better graphics, tightened gameplay, more goal oriented quests, massive size, and significantly more polish.

If I do pick this game up, something I think will be very hard not to do, it will be for casual playing - maybe thirty to sixty minutes a night. At the same time, I am hesitant about doing it all over again. I realized the one thing that the game was truly lacking was any type of character development or growth. It is amazing what they have done, a gigantic world made around quests with tons of little touches everywhere, yet the game is all quests. As silly as it sounds, I will not be working for house, "living" in any area, having a real base of operations, gaining heroic status for my character, or anything else. Log in. See what missions you have. Try to do one.

That is it.

I will say that missions are a bit hit or miss. At the end, I had about eight elite quests, three bugged quests, and two yellow quests. Obviously, I could not finish the bugged quests. It is a little troubling that there were as many quests with blatant issues or that could only be completed after a server reboot, completing it quickly before the NPC or quest became stuck again.

As for the elite quests, that blackfathom deeps area is insane. Not only do they recycle it way too much, just in my small area of the world, I had like five or six quests for it. Even at the end of the game, with a group of five high-level PCs, we could not finish the green-colored elite quest due to the insane spawning issues. By the time we took out, say, two mobs, the mobs we had already killed were respawning. Mind you, we would stumble upon areas with six-plus mobs in one room that needed to be taken out one by one or in small groups. Lastly, this was all going in a fresh dungeon - once you had other PCs going through there, you had respawn timers going off at any one moment. It does seem like other instanced dungeons are not as insane, but I am basing this off of the one the night-elves had in the area and had the numerous quests for.

As for the remaining yellow-colored quests, they were anything but. I noticed this on more than a few missions. Sometimes, I could solo an orange mission. Other times, it might take me and another player to complete a yellow quest. For these last two I had, a full group of players was easily owned by the quest. Major imbalance issues.

Speaking of imbalance, I do have to say that the combat is out of whack from head to toe. Why, as a high level warrior with 1600+ armor, was I taking as much damage as the lower level rogue with 400+ armor? At that point, I should be invincible or take such relatively minor damage. Likewise, I found it incredibly frustrating to be forced to build up rage (with each hit) to perform actions while others classes could enter combat with full mana or action points. Likewise, the spellcasters would heal mana over time whereas my rage will subside over time.

There are issues with combat. The single worst experience that I can recall was missing fourteeen straight times against a level twenty bear when I was a level twenty-two warrior. I would love to see any type of explanation from Blizzard for that. Considering I really cannot do much until I even make a hit, it is so completely frustrating and irritating. There were some moments like this where I just...hated this game with a passion. I will note that there is a command to give up a chunk of health for rage, but I do not feel that I should need to do that, especially not given the insane miss/hit situation.

Now, this may not actually be the combat, but indicative of other issues. Geometry is a huge issue with the game. You will see random "MobXXX: Too many stuck in geometry errors - removing self from game" messages, but there are many times where this is not recognized. What drives you crazy is when this happens to a quest NPC. This leads back to the "You can only finish the quests right after the server is reset - run to the mob before it gets bugged again" situation. Once a NPC gets caught, you cannot attack it and it usually cannot attack you. In combat, I noticed that moving does sometimes help with the "You just missed five million times" issue that arises. I do not really care what the issue is, I just know that it has a negative experience on the game and make me really hate the game when I have to deal with it. Likewise, though a bit rare, you can get weird circumstances where the server is showing the mob in one location, is registering the hits from another location, and you cannot return attack until the server sorts the two. Vertical space can be an issue as well, tough it is rare to have overlapping areas in the game. Still, nothing like being on the top deck of the ghost ship and being hit from the mob two levels down.

After everything, I do have to give the game credit for its art design. The textures are low resolution, the game looked fugly the first time I played it :o, but there are a lot of them and I cannot stress the amount of attention and love that went into crafting the levels. Though the textures are low resolution, they are very "clean" in appearance. Likewise, I think many people will find this game runs quite well for them. I had no problems running at 1280x1024 with maximum options. In a completely packed area, I was pulling down 35 FPS. In general, I was between 45FPS and 60FPS. These are not just big, empty maps you are on - there are specifically placed texture, trees, structures, dungeons, paths, etc. That last part is scary considering I only saw maybe a true tenth of the world; lots of love was given by the art department and the art direction is superb.

Likewise, the entire world is connected with near-seamless loads. The gryphon is blatantly slow, nothing like spending ten minutes (literally) flying from one continent to the other, but you will see the entire land as you go.

I could go on and on, but this is already way too much. Removing skill points is stupid - you go from working for knowledge and being able to make a uniquely-skilled character to just purchasing the two fields of experience you wish - and I view it as a "cheat" on Blizzard's part. Where was the XP from being logged out? Why is the character creation so blatantly limited?

Blah blah blah.........

I do think the game will be a real blast for anybody that has not played it, especially casual gamers or first time MMRPG playrs, but it does take a bit of a warming up period. My only true concern is about the overall depth. Withou cheating and with scaling my playing back due to the players, I still hit level thirty in ten days. Mind you, the game is supposed to be capped at, what, level sixty? Likewise, what do complete in the game? Just quest after quest? Besides being a bit boring at points, the whole difficulty scaling is out of whack. The "easy" way to hold back players is to decrease XP, but then that means I am pointlessly killing even more mobs. As it stands, I must have killed a few thousand mobs already and it is one of the most mind-numbing experience. Why is the night-elf area so freaking boring or even small in comparison with the other areas? After all that time in our homeland tree, we finally get to Darkshore and.....crap, it is more forest. Meanwhile, Stormwind is too big for its own good and Ironforge is on such a different scale than anything a night-elf has. Darnassus is a bit bigger, but talk about a dead city. Why is the map so bad? Some places are just an image, some places are an image that gets updated with names and locations, and some places have a zoomed in, detailed map.

Blah blah blah...I would love to talk about all this on Blizzard's board, but my comments are unwelcomed, apparently.

I am still irked over this "contest." I never had a chance to ever try to win, the fair players were ignored, and the cheaters or exploiters will be rewarded.

It is a good game, but it could be so much more. Any RPG fan, casual gamer, or new MMO gamer should give it a whirl.

Wondering if anybody at Blizzard wants to move RaymArden to the closed beta :D,
Ray

-----
A locked copy of Half-Life 2 is now on your computer.
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=ray_marden
I love you, mom.