Warcraft (2016)

The arrival of the orcs.

With their world dying (possibly because of a Blizzard fiasco), the orcs step through a magic portal to invade the world of Azeroth, but not if Lothar (Travis Fimmel) has anything to say about it! It is much more than a simple blue versus green story though, and the action sequences and CGI are absolutely top notch. If anything, it's the pacing which throws us all across the vistas of Azeroth which seems a bit rushed,.

How are opposing sides always color coded?

As someone who isn't familiar with Warcraft lore I can't compare it for accuracy/continuity so I can only credit it as a stand alone movie which I enjoyed quite a lot. Definitely recommended for fantasy action fans in the same boat as me (no Warcraft knowledge), I give it three and a half griffons out of five.

October 2020 Review: Level 14

Been awhile since I talked about my guild / alliance in Neverwinter Online, and despite DL's best recruiting efforts the going is still pretty slow. Fortunately our guild (now  on level 14) has advanced to taking a sword position in the alliance, which means more discounts in building construction and if talks of us taking the helm spot hold through, the discounts would even be larger! We're lucky that our alliance is happy to keep shuffling around to give everyone a turn at stuff. :)

Our castle isn't quite as fancy as Strahd's though...

Meanwhile because Epic is such a shit launcher that only has free games going for it, I'm struggling to balance when to download the bigger games. A slow download speed plus losing any progress should your PC shut down midway really blows. This really makes me appreciate Steam even more. As such I'm going to stop putting a backlog list with these month end posts as it's really not important anyway as I'll eventually write about whatever game I finish (or am done with).

Just to push that point, it's almost like any game over 20GB is not worth it due to the amount in increased electricity I would pay to keep the computer on to download for such an extended period. Instead if I really like a game that big, I'll just ask someone to gift it to me on steam. Much simpler.

I'll finish off with some random tips like always also use a secondary search engine when looking for stuff on the internet as your primary is likely hiding and/or shuffling results (for example google + bing) and if you want to save stories from instagram you can use storysaver.net. Oh and for those who enjoyed Civilization VI, here's an epic cover of the theme song by Peter Hollens and the OSU Chamber Choir.

   End 2020 with less weight (dropping this for the more specific goal below)
   +Lose 1kg this month (last month result: success!)
   Web comic (even more world building... too much world building?)

BLOG STATS

One Year Ago

Wow, has it already been a year since Blizzard stepped in the China vs Hong Kong poop? Let's go check how things are going with that... ah, I see Hong Kong is still f*cked and Blizzard hasn't really taken any increased damage, just the usual self-inflicted version from their own releases. Status quo restored?

Five Years Ago

I was running about in A Tale in the Desert, tale six - an interesting MMORPG that features zero combat and a whole lot of player interaction. It seems this game is still going and is now in tale nine! Good on them!

Most Viewed Posts last Month

Waterdeep: The Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Eschalon: Gramuk!?
R3B1 - Theshold (Part II)

That's a nice grouping - a review of a board game with a popular name, a story post that uses name dropping, and a GTFO tutorial that includes a minor bug exploit. :P

Blizzard: Tiananmen II

It's amazing how a few hollow words and the promise of entertainment can quell a crowd about to riot. It worked for the Romans, and it seems to be working for Blizzard too. For those not up to speed, here's a recap:

Blizzard is openly kowtowing to China. Business wise one assumes it would be big money for them at the cost of a little thing like morals and human rights, the same cost China is currently extracting from Hong Kong protestors - a few of whom Blizzard silenced. Game wise, things are being slowly changed for their market (which they deny). Less boobs and bones + more mobile games.

People got angry so Blizzard issued a statement of remorse (not an apology), and did not retract any of the offending actions. They then dazzled people with promises of cool games coming soon, which earned them redemption for some while their other supporters just have a general sense of apathy over the whole thing. It's an interesting disconnect.

I wonder, if an event like Tiananmen Square happens, will Blizzard supporters feel anything or will it just be "Blizzard just makes games man - they didn't pull the trigger", "It's not my fault they support China, I just like their games!" and "What they do with the money I give them is their business, not mine!"

While we ponder that, here's what's happening in Hong Kong now since it's not well covered by mainstream news:

Police are arresting students.

Allegedly raping females.

Making some "disappear".

Use of force has been escalating.

As of late, they're also openly shooting people too.

From point blank.

They were also trying to storm the universities.

Students barricaded defended said locations all night.

The general public is supporting them by delivering supplies.

(Perhaps not this dude in particular, he just looks cool getting his lunch!)

Now the students are gearing up with catapults and bows. 

Meanwhile the police are getting a special unit in to assist them.

Is it a massacre waiting to happen?

Do you even care?

If so, spread awareness of what's happening in Hong Kong and/or boycott what you can of China. Realistically Blizzard is low hanging fruit, but doing even a little is better than doing nothing. If you really can't let go of Blizzard, you might find some other way to help.

Remember: If you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

The Cursed: Paranoia at Saradush

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Having passed the test, the pocket plane spits out the party at the besieged city of Saradush and meet Melissan, a nun of sorts who has been working to collect and protect all the Bhaalspawn here, and there are many - most of whom are just commoners and cowards.

While the militia do their best to hold the walls, the actual lord of the place - Gromnir Il-Khan is more interested in saving himself. Melissan asks the team to try talk sense into him and they accept though getting to him is tricky as he's barricaded in.

It takes blackmailing a priestess to gain access to the old, vampire filled prison - then clearing it out as well as a number of Gromnir's orcs before getting to him. Gromnir, a Bhaalspawn himself, is filled with paranoia and claims Melissan is out to get him and all others like him. With no chance to reason with him, the general attacks the party and soon finds himself very, very dead.

Orcs are stupid cowards. Have always been. Will always be.

Just like Blizzard.

Insight: Don't idle out on the streets as fireballs from the attacking army seem to heatseek the party every now and then.

October 2019 Review

Happy Halloween! That backlog is getting cleared up a bit now but again at the expense of everything else, as usual! Trying something new this month - "small jobs". I'm hoping its a mental thing that I can't get advance in a few of these so I'm simplifying the list. I'm also adding new trackers for Soft Drinks and Sweets to help with the weight goal since that seems to be my current "dragon" that I want to beat.

    End 2019 with less weight (-4 kg from last month, running total: +2 kg)
    +Drink Less Soft drinks (current consumption: LOTS)
    +Eat Less Sweets (current consumption: LOTS)
    Complete web comic chapter 1 (simplified)
    +Make 1 web comic page
    Make board game (simplified)
    +Make new board game idea (previous idea didn't work)
    Clean the roof (cancelled due to budget + water restrictions)

BACKLOG
Enderal [free on Steam]
Borderlands 2 [gift]
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice [gift] (done)
LEGO Batman [free from Epic Games] (keeps crashing)
LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes [free from Epic Games] (done)
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham [free from Epic Games] (done)
Try Shroud of the Avatar [free on Steam]
Try No More Room in Hell? [free on Steam] (no interest from my group)
Everything [free from Epic Games] (done)
+Minit [free from Epic Games] (done)
+Surviving Mars [free from Epic Games] (had enough)
+Destiny 2 [free on steam] (huge download size is an absolute turn off)
+Alan Wake: American Nightmare [free from Epic Games]
+Observer [free from Epic Games]
+QUBE2 [free from Epic Games]
+Layers of Fear [free from Epic Games]

Board games:
Zombicide: Black Plague Campaign (10/11)
London Dread Campaign (1/4)
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (0/13)
+Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats (2/4)

BLOG STATS

One Year Ago
I played through Shadowrun Chronicles and drew some Neverwinter artwork!

Five Years Ago
I played through Tropico 3 and Dragon Age Origins.

Most Viewed Posts last Month
Do you support Dictatorship?
Blizzard Cancellations
Dark Souls II: Size Compensator

Skipping over the top two since they are the same as usual. Instead I've listed the next three and it's not surprising that the political ones are coming up... followed by "Size Compensator". LOL.

Top Search Terms last Month
part of anomen
scp secret laboratory
neverwinter fiery pit too difficult to solo   

While SCP matches up with Halloween/Scary games and Neverwinter Fiery Pit can be difficult solo, especially if you unconsiously run into elite mobs (or try solo the HEs), I am very surprised that the cowardly paladin Anomen gets the top search! In case that was you, here's a compendium of his time/mentions in my play throughs (start from the bottom). :)

Questions for Blizzard

While I'm sure Blizzard presenters have been practicing some set answers by their PR team for BlizzCon (or they should be if they haven't already been), I have a few questions here that it would be nice if they answered plainly.

1 - Is Blizzard secretly (or not so secretly) run by China?
2 - Do you support Human Rights?
3 - Do you support the Hong Kong Revolution?

Here are the achievements they can unlock based on their response:

"The Company Line" - No, Yes, [deflect]. *
"Rock the Boat" - No, Yes, Yes.
"Resistance is Futile" - Yes, No, No.
"Honesty Hurts" - No, Yes, No.
"Pacification Puppet" - Yes, Yes, Yes.
"Haters gonna Hate" - No, No, No.
"Read between the lines" - [deflect], [deflect], [deflect].
"Epic Troll" - Yes, No, Yes.

*Most likely in outcome in my book.

Blizzard Cancellations

Seems the poop Blizzard fell in is so bad that they themselves are cancelling their own events. "Postponing" rather, which is basically a cancellation plus a promise to reschedule later. I wonder if BlizzCon will be next?

Also, if Blizzard did a public apology post and declare the same words that got their Hearthstone champion banned, would customers actually go back to them? It seems they have a habit of sending mixed signals... or is it simply lying outright?

Battlefield 4 Hong Kong

Looks like my list yesterday that included Blizzard was far too short. Here's a more complete record (just scroll down a bit) that also has the "other side" which includes the likes of South Park and Ubisoft (at the moment anyway).

What I really wanted to post was this cool Battlefield 4 Hong Kong compilation video though which is a nice summary of what's going on there. Such realistic graphics and huge player capacity! Downsides are it looks like there's a lot of running due to the huge maps, an overload of spectators and the respawn times take forever.

Switching back to regular content tomorrow, unless something else explodes overnight.

Do you support Dictatorship?

Blizzard, the NBA, Vans (shoes) and Apple do! And if you play any Blizzard games, watch NBA, wear Vans shoes or buy any Apple products/services then by proxy the answer is YES, YOU ALSO ABSOLUTELY SUPPORT IT! In case you weren't aware, these companies have bent the knee and opened their asses for China for whom they suppress free speech, though it seems the NBA is trying to hurriedly pull up its trousers.

Obviously they value money more than morals. Ironic that South Park has more spine than they do. What about you? Do you value your hobbies and gadgets more than your morals? Does it really matter that some far away people are getting oppressed? I'll leave that up to your own conscience.

It's the firing of the interviewers that really lends to this image.

Don't know what's happening in Hong Kong because you don't hear about it in mainstream news? A quick visit to r/Hongkong will sort that out. Don't worry, it's mostly in English.

Actually this presents a wonderful opportunity. Someone should go around to all the game and sports companies and put pro Hong Kong messages just to see which ones follow suit and to see who stands with whom.

Universe at War: Earth Assault

Where aliens wage war on Earth!

Invasion stories usually have natives fighting off the invaders. In this RTS, you get to play as the humans for all of a mission and a half before being put in command of the Novus - a machine race that likes teleporting via alien telephone poles.

While the game play, battle pacing, voice acting, music and what I saw of the story are decent this game does suffer a little in the graphics area (for the humans anyway) but worse is that it does that annoying trope of forcing you to play as "x" to experience the story. I really, really hate that.

You will hate / love those giant walkers.

That's right, out of the 3 alien races you need to play all three in a predetermined order to complete the game. Working hard to win as the Novus only to then be shoved onto the side of the enemy to "undo" what I was doing just doesn't work (so obviously I stopped there). It's the same crap Blizzard pulls in the later Warcrafts and Starcraft.

If that's your sort of thing this might interest you, but for me I give it out 2 broken arms from carrying a gatling gun out of 5.

NBI: Screenshot Safari! #NBI2015 #NBI2015Safari #Selfie #Flight

It's time for my final screenshot for the NBI Safari! This is me and my shadow wolf mount, flying through the area of Spinward Rise in Neverwinter Online.

Technically, I think it could fit in any of the available categories but I'm going to go with #Selfie. =)

Selfie - its me!
Heroes or Villains - I'm a hero!
Landscape - With an awesome view behind me!
Epic Achievement - I'm also flying... kinda (shh I'm actually falling)!
High Fantasy - I'm riding a wolf made out of shadows, jumping about on a floating a earth node (flying island)!
The Scariest Place - This fall is near certain death, if I don't time my evade right.

Yes, I'm so awesome I can "evade" falling damage. :P

Anywho while I'm talking about airborne silliness I've been hearing a lot of noise about WoW killing flying because it "skips content". It wouldn't skip content if they simply had flying enemies. In Mabinogi if you get hit in the air your mount is summoned, you take falling damage, then you have to deal with whatever cluster of mobs you just fell into and in that game two regular enemies can easily destroy you (depending on player skill).

Better still is Perfect World where elves have wings, humans ride giant, flying swords and a bunch of quests actually lead to magical floating fortresses guarded by all manner of flying foes. Given that a good portion of the game is in the air it has some pretty good aerial (and by extent, underwater) combat. Guess what I'm trying to say is flying wouldn't be skipping content if you just put content up there. Oh well, Blizzard should know what it's doing. It's been doing it a long time after all. Right?

World of Warcraft: Starter Edition

Most people who read my blog or just know me in general would know I'm not a big World of Warcraft fan, but I thought I'd go see for myself just how bad it really is given that the "Starter Edition" makes it free for anyone to play to level 20. As much as I'd like to say that I am right and that WoW sucks donkey balls, I can't because it does actually do many things right.

It's come a long way.

Despite being an old game the graphics which you may first go "ewww" to at the character screen does actually work well with the rest of the world when you get in it. Good luck making a decent looking human male though. Not all races are equal however, as you'll find better starting quests for the later races like Worgen, Goblins and Pandaren with their own starter zones and mini cutscenes, and if there's one thing Blizzard does well (other than marketing) it's cutscenes. Comparatively speaking a starting human or orc is pretty ho-hum, especially given that the other races of their faction can come along and do the same starting quests if they so choose.

The addition of "mini games" in the quest lines also does well to break the monotony of ye old fetch this or kill that which we are all familiar with. As an example, suddenly having to go fly a plane and shoot down enemy aircraft is really neat! The best thing they do for me however is the fast travel where you hire a temporary steed who takes you to your chosen location. You can't control the ride, but the ride keeps you in the world - moving you from point A to point B. Same goes for the said mini-games. Even if you are drifting in and out of instances it is so seamless and it really does its best to keep you immersed.

Ironically the only place where it falls down for me is the combat, where you will spend more time waiting to cast a spell, waiting for energy to attack, or waiting for an attack to activate instead of actually fighting. To top it off your character will "helpfully" tell you so. Repeatedly.

"It's too far."
"I need to target something."
"I need more energy."
"I can't do that yet."
"It's not ready yet."

And then when you do get the rhythm of things it becomes very much like remembering a keycode to defeat opponents. Oh, a wolf? Thats a 152. Hmm a naga mage? I believe thats a 1452152 and so on. It's facepalmingly stupid.

Despite that I give the Starter Edition four out of five orc skulls. If you haven't tried WoW out then I think you should, I mean - I did. Is it enough to get me to PAY for the rest of the game though? Nope, but that's just me. Maybe you are easier parted with your money.

Devils in the Torchlight

Been going through Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 (pretty much a Diablo clone) on and off with my guildies and I've gotta say these two similar games so I thought I'd write up a quick comparison review.

Style and Story:
While both have the mostly unchangable eagle-eye camera view during gameplay, Torchlight 2 takes the more cartoony approach to its graphics and very rare (and flash like) cutscene(s). I prefer the sharp grittiness of Diablo 3, and the cool story and uber awesome cutscenes that go with it. Blizzard has pretty much perfected that part. :P

Places to See, Things to Do:
D3 has a mostly procedurally generated map. It and the baddies repopulate each time you start a session it seems. This is cool in that you can run into some interesting traps and people you haven't met before. However given it's nature, there is no real point (other than farming) to enter non-main story related instances. Even if you do it's not like it will matter because that dungeon you cleared may not even exist in the next session anyway.

T2 has a set map, even for its dungeons I think which means you can memorize paths and where secret rooms are etc. The baddies actually do respawn (not sure on the timer, possibly 1hr or some other trigger) within a single session, but the difference is that every dungeon actually has a purpose, a quest, or quest item that you need/probably want. Sure the monsters can respawn after and you can go back to farm but once you're done with a dungeon there's that sense of accomplishment that you don't need to go back in there again. For me T2 wins this section.

Party and Levels:
In D3 it allows for a party of 4 to face the demons of hell, give or take some NPCs depending on your current quest. Also, XP gain is scaled so that a lev 20 party killing low level scum will get minimal XP. Unfortunately if you have a lev 1 joining the lev 20 it means the lev 1 character will also get minimal XP, which actually encourages people to play solo instead of co-op.

T2 on the other hand seems to adjust XP gain based on an individual level (instead of a party level like D3), meaning it's easier to level up a low level buddy as they are getting full XP for each critter kill. It also allows up to 6 people to party up. This doesn't really affect single player people but for us where we like being in a team (and levelling up our allies to our level) this method obviously works better.

Difficulty:
As a group neither game is actually overly difficult. Had more deaths in T2 simply because it lets us go straight to the "elite" mode that we enjoy. D3 however forces people to play through "normal" mode first, and upon each completion of the game unlocks a harder tier. Tobold put up a post on Unlockable Difficulty and I pretty much agree with him in that it's a stupid idea. Once I've finished the plot line, what's the point in playing it again? Grinding numbers?

The D3 developers were either very lazy, or very arrogant in thinking theirs is the only game in town in this regard. With so many other games to play, I've seen no reason yet to replay this one. T2 definitely wins this category.

Bonus Stuff:
D3 has the Auction House which is pretty nifty though self defeating in my opinion. After looking at the wares available I've concluded that crafting, buying stuff from NPCs and grinding through all the random, non essential dungeons is a waste of time. Why would you bother when you can deck yourself out in full unique gear for an ultimately paltry sum of gold? Still, I like it since it saves time and puts all those coins to work.

T2 has no auction house or crafting meaning all those loot drops are slightly more important because you WILL need to find better gear (encouraging you to venture into all those dungeons). However what it does have are PETS. Everyone starts with a cute pet NPC who helps carry stuff, fight, and most importantly can go back to town on their own to SELL AND BUY stuff. This is frigging fantastic since it means the flow of combat doesn't need to be broken by merchanting runs back to town.

So, in the end while both games are pretty cool and both fun, in the end I think Torchlight II is simply better designed overall, which is kinda wierd when you think about it.