World of Warcraft is starting to get annoying.
Let me rephrase that.
Playing with people is starting to get annoying.
I actually think that Blizzard did a really good job with this expansion. Shortening the talent trees was a great plan. The DK changes feel fine, the mage changes feel fine, and the content is fairly challenging.
People have a ton of complaints. I'm not talking about class-specific complaints (*waves at wife*), I'm talking about sweeping 'THEY BROKE ALL HEALZ" types of complaints.
Raiding is hard! Heroics are hard! I don't like having to worry about mana as a healer!
We've been trying to raid. It isn't the same without the old group, but we found a couple of great replacements that I really like having around.
However, our raid leader and MT...he's not even heroic geared. And after 4 hours of wiping (2 hours last week, 2 this week), he realized that his gear just *might* be causing problems. Healer mana issues, etc.
I know he's been busy lately and stuff, but I don't understand why you wouldn't offer to step down for a week until you can actually take the time to use a meta gem. (And we have 5 spare tanking ones in the guild bank. And with the new Mobile Banking guild perk, he had access to the gems while we were rebuffing. I didn't get it then, and I still don't.)
After much wiping, we finally downed the first boss in Bastion of Twilight. The attempt that finally worked seemed to go flawlessly, but that was immediately after MT and OT switched duties.
I've been playing 3-4 different characters, my DK being my focus. Even so, somehow I've found enough time to play Fallout 3, beat Castlevania, have board game nights (Shadows over Camelot -- play it if you haven't) with my cousin-in-law and friends, AND get TWO full sets of 346 gear (tanking / DPS) -- fully gemmed and enchanted.
Unless our tank has a new girlfriend, I don't see how he couldn't attain one set of 333 gear...
Maybe that's it. I should ask.
Regardless, I think he's aware of the issues now, and as far as I know, he's planning on fixing them.
He's a good tank, in terms of technique and strategy, so I'm hoping he catches up with gear shortly.
In the meantime, I am going to play the Rift beta with the wife.
I logged on over lunch to get our character names saved. Someone took Kaliera, which is really disappointing. I don't even know what it's from, but I stole it for my DK from my paladin friend that I used to play with. I actually really like the name. More than most of my character names. Rowsdower is funny and a great running joke, and Nuke is an old school name that I've carried over. Dyne is always used (thanks to the two other people who played Lunar. Jerks.), so Diyne is my second option in that phonetic family.
But the only name I really *like* is Kaliera. Maybe I should see if "Kevin" is taken. (He was a guard in Dynasty Warriors. You had many asian names, then Kevin.)
I think I figured out that there are 216 character class combinations in Rift. 4 groups of 54 (set of 8, choose 3, order irrelevant).
That's pretty sweet, even if only 10% of them are viable.
The character creation seems to be detailed enough to give my wife something to do all night. I might log on and quest to get a feel for the game while she creates her harem.
Also: I now have a decent laptop. It should run Rift, which makes it good for me. As long as it runs diablo 3 when it comes out, I'll be thrilled. Refurbished, but so far it looks new and acts new.
Anyway, WoW, I think it's time for us to take a short break. We can still be friends. I'll visit and do a heroic occasionally. We can still have our raid nights. But I just don't think I'm going to stay logged on for a couple of hours every night. I just need space. Space from the whining.
(Unfortunately, from what I could tell by being in Rift for 3 minutes, there is still going to be a lot of WoW bashing / praising in general chat. I'll have to disable that.)
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Raids, Glaives, and Arena Ratings
Raiding is going to happen.
At some point. With some group of people.
Word on the cross-server is, Archon / Legends has accepted me and the wife into the guild. On non-max level characters. In fact, they accepted characters that neither one of us have played a whole lot lately (my lock and her DK).
I think this is cool. They're rather srsbsns about raiding (but not so much as to be 'hardcore'), and they weren't accepting applications for any class whatsoever (and the applications they had been accepting required level 85, heroic level gear, and 9-10k dps). But, since several of them had played with us before, they knew that we subscribe to the "Don't stand in things, do your job well, see content and clear it" brand of game play.
However, I haven't done serious warlocking in forever, and the wife leveled her DK to 80, did some heroics and then semi-retired her. Maybe we should switch accounts when we get over there...she's the best lock I know, and I'm pretty good with my DK...
In fact, my main is my DK, and hers is her lock. Or this *would* be the case, if our (awesome) guild would ever get a freaking raid going. We need a 10th person, and someone needs to iron out everyone's schedule.
PvP is officially fun again, now that I'm on my mage. I didn't like it on a rogue, paladin, or DK. It was only ok on my warlock. But my mage (who is going on 41,000 kills) is doing pretty well in both battlegrounds and arenas.
The new cataclysm battlegrounds are good. Very good. MUCH better than stupid eye of the storm or even isle of conquest (which isn't that bad).
Twin Peaks is a 10 on 10 capture the flag game. The map is set up well. Each base has three entrances -- a front entrance, a side entrance, and a different side entrance that is a bit more out of the way. There isn't an annoying roof camping spot. I rate it a 9/10.
The Battle for Gilneas one is a 10 on 10 king of the hill game, like Arathi Basin. Except there are only 3 nodes instead of 5. This leads to more fighting, less zerging, and better defending. It is much more fun than basin (which I enjoy, but only with at least 2 other people that I know).
Also, there is no cliff. There are only so many times a person can be mind controlled or knocked off the lumber mill flag without it getting just a little annoying.
For arenas, my wife and I are running in a 3's group with a paladin healer. We're up to around a 1600 rating, which isn't great, but it's not bad considering that both the mage and lock in the group are sub 2k resilience. Our problem groups generally have warriors in them. Or groups with a shaman healer. Paladin healers don't bother us so much.
We might end up running a 2's group instead, just to make it less stressful. Our healer is really good, but she's also really sensitive. I swear, you could sneeze wrong and make her cry. (And this may have happened once or twice. It's so hard to tell.)
Next Up: Kinect, Castlevania, and ... cookies?
At some point. With some group of people.
Word on the cross-server is, Archon / Legends has accepted me and the wife into the guild. On non-max level characters. In fact, they accepted characters that neither one of us have played a whole lot lately (my lock and her DK).
I think this is cool. They're rather srsbsns about raiding (but not so much as to be 'hardcore'), and they weren't accepting applications for any class whatsoever (and the applications they had been accepting required level 85, heroic level gear, and 9-10k dps). But, since several of them had played with us before, they knew that we subscribe to the "Don't stand in things, do your job well, see content and clear it" brand of game play.
However, I haven't done serious warlocking in forever, and the wife leveled her DK to 80, did some heroics and then semi-retired her. Maybe we should switch accounts when we get over there...she's the best lock I know, and I'm pretty good with my DK...
In fact, my main is my DK, and hers is her lock. Or this *would* be the case, if our (awesome) guild would ever get a freaking raid going. We need a 10th person, and someone needs to iron out everyone's schedule.
PvP is officially fun again, now that I'm on my mage. I didn't like it on a rogue, paladin, or DK. It was only ok on my warlock. But my mage (who is going on 41,000 kills) is doing pretty well in both battlegrounds and arenas.
The new cataclysm battlegrounds are good. Very good. MUCH better than stupid eye of the storm or even isle of conquest (which isn't that bad).
Twin Peaks is a 10 on 10 capture the flag game. The map is set up well. Each base has three entrances -- a front entrance, a side entrance, and a different side entrance that is a bit more out of the way. There isn't an annoying roof camping spot. I rate it a 9/10.
The Battle for Gilneas one is a 10 on 10 king of the hill game, like Arathi Basin. Except there are only 3 nodes instead of 5. This leads to more fighting, less zerging, and better defending. It is much more fun than basin (which I enjoy, but only with at least 2 other people that I know).
Also, there is no cliff. There are only so many times a person can be mind controlled or knocked off the lumber mill flag without it getting just a little annoying.
For arenas, my wife and I are running in a 3's group with a paladin healer. We're up to around a 1600 rating, which isn't great, but it's not bad considering that both the mage and lock in the group are sub 2k resilience. Our problem groups generally have warriors in them. Or groups with a shaman healer. Paladin healers don't bother us so much.
We might end up running a 2's group instead, just to make it less stressful. Our healer is really good, but she's also really sensitive. I swear, you could sneeze wrong and make her cry. (And this may have happened once or twice. It's so hard to tell.)
Next Up: Kinect, Castlevania, and ... cookies?
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Heroic Challenges and Tanking Thoughts
So, somehow I'm back into tanking. I think it has something (everything) to do with why I started tanking on my paladin (Rowsdower) in the first place.
I don't trust other people not to stand in crap, facepull, or just to not be *bad*.
My tanking gear on my DK is just barely good enough for heroics (read: not good enough for heroics). Three guildmates and I (plus one pug slot that changed at least 3 times in this one run) made it to the end of Grim Batol last night, and we just couldn't get the last boss down. (This was more a function of being tired of wiping throughout the instance, so we gave the last guy 3 or 4 shots and called it).
It's a 'kill adds, but don't stand in things, and also you're going to take lots of damage from everything' fight. Also, if the adds don't die (or have someone on them to interrupt casts), they can (and will) heal the boss to full.
Heroics in general are actually difficult. I'm not sure how long they will *stay* difficult, but they are really pretty challenging.
For example, on normal mode, the first boss in Grim Batol is essentially a tank n' spank.
On heroic? He spawns shadow adds that *cannot* be killed next to the boss (yay ranged dps kiting), the other adds hit harder, his ground smash cone ability can one shot people, his charge can hit for 50k+, and he frenzies at 25% (50% faster attacks AND more damage per attack).
Ouch.
There's a boss in Lost City that is just a crocodile (with adds) in normal. In heroic, it's the same fight with harder hitting everything, AND there's a second boss afterwards. (Who has some clever line about how he stole the loots before we could get them from his reptilian friend's corpse.)
Not to mention the fact that you need multiple mobs crowd controlled on each trash pull.
I'm predicting a resurgence of the "Sheeping *target*, you break it you tank it" macro.
So, to Blizzard: Way to make heroics feel like something worth doing.
DK tanking isn't bad. It's like blood DPS was in WotLK, but ... you know...not really a damage spec. The mastery stat is kind of cool, and it provides a pretty big damage absorption shield based on the amount healed by death strike. However, this shield is only good for physical damage, so it isn't as useful as I'd like it to be.
I think the think I love about DK tanking is that there is always a button to press (also the same thing for frost DPS). Things going poorly? Use Icebound Fortitude (50% reduced damage for 12 seconds when talented). Need more aggro? Use Dancing Rune Weapon (50% more aggro while active). Mobs dishing out too much damage? Blood boil for a "10% reduced physical damage" debuff on them.
Everything going absolutely swimmingly? Who cares? Heal yourself with rune tap every 30 seconds for 10% of your life. (25% Extra if you have vampyric blood active!)
Boss spitting out an aoe stacking debuff? Ha! I scoff at your debuff. I use anti-magic shield! (absorbs incoming magic damage and converts it to runic power, and also prevents new effects from being applied).
And pulling...death grip is the best thing for any tank. Ever. Screw avenger's shield. I'll take deathgrip over that any day.
On the DPS side, I'm just not that big of a fan of unholy. The pet mechanic feels kind of forced to me. I mean, I like the idea of having an undead minion and that sort of thing, but it's just kind of boring. I also run out of things to do in unholy. Having to wait for rune cooldowns sucks...watch the white hits. Hurray.
The wife and I are working on our next set of characters. Her paladin and my mage. Against my better judgement, I have arcane as one of my two specs. It's retarded. I mean, it does great damage, and it's been wonderful for questing so far, but it's still retarded.
Arcane Blast. Arcane Blast. Arcane Blast. Arcane Blast.
Repeat.
Loot.
I kid. You actually loot after the 3rd arcane blast.
I don't really know why I'm leveling my mage. I'm not likely to play him much at 85. I guess it's because I'm saving my druid to level with a friend of ours.
Maybe it's for a pvp DPS character. He has over 40k kills on him, and almost all of those came back in vanilla wow. Yes, I am proud of that. No, I wasn't frost. I was fire all the way.
I did really like having a DPS/Tank/Healer all at max level during the last expansion. So I'm hoping to get that going sooner rather than later this time. (You always have a spot in a group if you don't suck!)
So here's to variety, and here's to not sucking.
I don't trust other people not to stand in crap, facepull, or just to not be *bad*.
My tanking gear on my DK is just barely good enough for heroics (read: not good enough for heroics). Three guildmates and I (plus one pug slot that changed at least 3 times in this one run) made it to the end of Grim Batol last night, and we just couldn't get the last boss down. (This was more a function of being tired of wiping throughout the instance, so we gave the last guy 3 or 4 shots and called it).
It's a 'kill adds, but don't stand in things, and also you're going to take lots of damage from everything' fight. Also, if the adds don't die (or have someone on them to interrupt casts), they can (and will) heal the boss to full.
Heroics in general are actually difficult. I'm not sure how long they will *stay* difficult, but they are really pretty challenging.
For example, on normal mode, the first boss in Grim Batol is essentially a tank n' spank.
On heroic? He spawns shadow adds that *cannot* be killed next to the boss (yay ranged dps kiting), the other adds hit harder, his ground smash cone ability can one shot people, his charge can hit for 50k+, and he frenzies at 25% (50% faster attacks AND more damage per attack).
Ouch.
There's a boss in Lost City that is just a crocodile (with adds) in normal. In heroic, it's the same fight with harder hitting everything, AND there's a second boss afterwards. (Who has some clever line about how he stole the loots before we could get them from his reptilian friend's corpse.)
Not to mention the fact that you need multiple mobs crowd controlled on each trash pull.
I'm predicting a resurgence of the "Sheeping *target*, you break it you tank it" macro.
So, to Blizzard: Way to make heroics feel like something worth doing.
DK tanking isn't bad. It's like blood DPS was in WotLK, but ... you know...not really a damage spec. The mastery stat is kind of cool, and it provides a pretty big damage absorption shield based on the amount healed by death strike. However, this shield is only good for physical damage, so it isn't as useful as I'd like it to be.
I think the think I love about DK tanking is that there is always a button to press (also the same thing for frost DPS). Things going poorly? Use Icebound Fortitude (50% reduced damage for 12 seconds when talented). Need more aggro? Use Dancing Rune Weapon (50% more aggro while active). Mobs dishing out too much damage? Blood boil for a "10% reduced physical damage" debuff on them.
Everything going absolutely swimmingly? Who cares? Heal yourself with rune tap every 30 seconds for 10% of your life. (25% Extra if you have vampyric blood active!)
Boss spitting out an aoe stacking debuff? Ha! I scoff at your debuff. I use anti-magic shield! (absorbs incoming magic damage and converts it to runic power, and also prevents new effects from being applied).
And pulling...death grip is the best thing for any tank. Ever. Screw avenger's shield. I'll take deathgrip over that any day.
On the DPS side, I'm just not that big of a fan of unholy. The pet mechanic feels kind of forced to me. I mean, I like the idea of having an undead minion and that sort of thing, but it's just kind of boring. I also run out of things to do in unholy. Having to wait for rune cooldowns sucks...watch the white hits. Hurray.
The wife and I are working on our next set of characters. Her paladin and my mage. Against my better judgement, I have arcane as one of my two specs. It's retarded. I mean, it does great damage, and it's been wonderful for questing so far, but it's still retarded.
Arcane Blast. Arcane Blast. Arcane Blast. Arcane Blast.
Repeat.
Loot.
I kid. You actually loot after the 3rd arcane blast.
I don't really know why I'm leveling my mage. I'm not likely to play him much at 85. I guess it's because I'm saving my druid to level with a friend of ours.
Maybe it's for a pvp DPS character. He has over 40k kills on him, and almost all of those came back in vanilla wow. Yes, I am proud of that. No, I wasn't frost. I was fire all the way.
I did really like having a DPS/Tank/Healer all at max level during the last expansion. So I'm hoping to get that going sooner rather than later this time. (You always have a spot in a group if you don't suck!)
So here's to variety, and here's to not sucking.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Undead Rocker on a T-Rex on a Laser on a Shark
The title says it all. Or it should.
Wife and I hit 85 (I keep saying / typing 80 instead of 85...habit) Sunday night at around 11. The last level was by far the longest, at over 9 million experience required. (Compared to around 5 million to get to 84)
During our questing binge, we were given the task of disarming some bombs that happened to be surrounded by crazed gnomes.
There were tons of the little buggers.
So, the quest also gave us a holographic projector with which we could distract said gnomes.
And what did the device project onto the scenery? An Undead Rocker on a T-Rex on a Laser on a Shark.
It was one of the funniest things I've seen in WoW, and I'm going to go back and do those quest lines with other characters just to see that again.
Leveling from 80 to 85 could really be done in two solid days of playing. Or one 24 hour session, if you were really that motivated (read: insane/lonely).
So far, Cataclysm has had the most entertaining quests of the three expansions. To me, it has a more epic feel. It seemed like WotLK relied heavily on established lore from WC3, and so they didn't really make it feel as in depth as they could have. Not that they didn't do a good job, it's just that it felt like it was spread thin.
Being able to fly in old world is great. And since my wife has the touring rocket, I generally get to sit back and enjoy the ride. Except when I see an herb I need. Then I practically kill myself trying to get off the mount and to the ground.
Oddly enough, it only gives me a parachute if SHE cancels the rocket. And it will do so even if we're standing on the ground. (annoying)
As cool as flying is, I keep forgetting that we can do it. There have been several times where I sat for a minute while trying to figure out how to get up to the Quest Guy Over There. Then /facepalmed and mounted up.
So far, we've seen Hyjal, Deepholm, and Uldum. We started in on the Twilight Highlands before hitting 85. All of the zones have been well done.
Hopefully the underwater areas aren't nearly as annoying as underwater levels in any other game. (mario, sonic, *insert platformer here*)
Wife and I hit 85 (I keep saying / typing 80 instead of 85...habit) Sunday night at around 11. The last level was by far the longest, at over 9 million experience required. (Compared to around 5 million to get to 84)
During our questing binge, we were given the task of disarming some bombs that happened to be surrounded by crazed gnomes.
There were tons of the little buggers.
So, the quest also gave us a holographic projector with which we could distract said gnomes.
And what did the device project onto the scenery? An Undead Rocker on a T-Rex on a Laser on a Shark.
It was one of the funniest things I've seen in WoW, and I'm going to go back and do those quest lines with other characters just to see that again.
Leveling from 80 to 85 could really be done in two solid days of playing. Or one 24 hour session, if you were really that motivated (read: insane/lonely).
So far, Cataclysm has had the most entertaining quests of the three expansions. To me, it has a more epic feel. It seemed like WotLK relied heavily on established lore from WC3, and so they didn't really make it feel as in depth as they could have. Not that they didn't do a good job, it's just that it felt like it was spread thin.
Being able to fly in old world is great. And since my wife has the touring rocket, I generally get to sit back and enjoy the ride. Except when I see an herb I need. Then I practically kill myself trying to get off the mount and to the ground.
Oddly enough, it only gives me a parachute if SHE cancels the rocket. And it will do so even if we're standing on the ground. (annoying)
As cool as flying is, I keep forgetting that we can do it. There have been several times where I sat for a minute while trying to figure out how to get up to the Quest Guy Over There. Then /facepalmed and mounted up.
So far, we've seen Hyjal, Deepholm, and Uldum. We started in on the Twilight Highlands before hitting 85. All of the zones have been well done.
Hopefully the underwater areas aren't nearly as annoying as underwater levels in any other game. (mario, sonic, *insert platformer here*)
Friday, December 10, 2010
From the top!
This is going to be a history.
A history of my gaming career.
If I bore you, if games bore you, or if history bores you, skip this post, and go here instead.
Somehow, I managed to talk my parents into getting me a Nintendo for my birthday at some point during my childhood. 6? 7? My mom was dead set against it (for whatever reason, I never really found out why), but my dad seemed to think that it wouldn't do any harm. (Thanks, dad!) This led to many years of me asking for the new console or a new game for most major (and several minor -- ever heard of 'children's day'?) holidays.
My dad had a difficult time setting up the system. In retrospect, I have absolutely no idea what the problem was. You had an RF adapter, it went to the TV, and...that was pretty much it. If you had an antenna, you could hook it in to the back of the adapter - in series!
The first game I really remember owning was Top Gun for the original NES. I remember you had guns...and missiles. For your A and B buttons. That was it. You went up and down, left and right, and shot either bullets or missiles. Let's use this as my baseline gaming experience. (I'm not going to discuss Pong or anything like that. We'll go with Top Gun. Ok? Ok.)
The next big milestone was Zelda. The original. The Golden Game of Goodness. I actually had chicken pox, but I also had Zelda waiting for me at home. Fortuitous. Maybe my immune system and game-center of my brain worked together to make this happen. If so, kudos to them.
Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the main character's name was Link. So I named him Zelda. (Yes, a girl's name. But I was 7 or 8, what did I know?)
For those of you who owned the original Zelda, you'll recognize that naming your character after the game was the secret way to get all of the dungeons to change locations and get weird. Which made it really hard to discuss the game with the only other person in my grade who owned the game.
Once I figured out that I should name Link something that wasn't a frilly girl's name (like Ace. I did Ace a lot. I have no idea why. Probably because it was easy. A, skip, C, skip E. Filling out names and passwords back in the day was really annoying.), the game got fun.
It's dangerous to go alone, take this.
Soon I was shooting swords and catching fairies and upgrading my armor from green cloth to red cloth to white cloth. Because we all know, white shirts do a *much* better job mitigating life-threatening injuries than green shirts.
Also during this particular era, I played/beat Duck Tales a few times.
The next genre of games changed my life. Honestly, I really think my life would've been much different if I had never played Final Fantasy. It taught me about heals and damaging spells, leveling up so you don't die in a dungeon, saving money for that awesome sword, how good pixels should triumph over their evil counterparts, and that my parents were super hyper conservative when it came to anything fantasy related.
Uh oh.
That's right. We were driving somewhere for a family outing of some sort, and I was excitedly rambling on about this game my friend had, and how there was white magic for healing, and black magic (this was my mistake) for damaging, and how red mages could do a little of both, plus stab people...
My parents (dad, this time) heard 'black magic', and forbid me from owning Final Fantasy. I was crushed. No, seriously. I loved that game.
Eventually, they came around. I owned it, and all was right in my gaming world.
Other games in this era: Bubble Bobble (1oo levels...twice? I can't believe I put up with that), Dragon Warrior (first RPG I ever beat. I was shaking and excited afterwards. I got a 'that's nice, dear' from the parents -- they never quite 'got' video games), and Castlevania...oh, and Ninja Gaiden.
Mega Man was another staple. Holy crap, fun games. I started with 2, and played most of the ones through SNES. (Remember the red and blue dots that served as passwords but were really just the ugly hybrid of bingo and Go?)
I'm specifically avoiding talking about Zelda 2, because it sucked.
Moving on. Time for Super Nintendo.
My friend from school got one. With the mario game for it. Oh man, I was so curious. Yoshi? What the...who the...GREEN DINOSAUR THAT EATS THINGS!
I went over to my friend's house after school one day, and his mom answered the door. (This was my first visit). "Hi, is Logan there?" I ask.
"Oh, you must be his friend here to see the nintendo," she surmised.
I took this to be a judgement against my motivations. How dare she assume that I was just there for a video game! (I wasn't, actually. I liked the guy.)
"Um...I'm here to hang out with Logan..."
She laughed and let me in.
He was in the living room playing -- he had a Yoshi. And oh man. The graphics. The *graphics*. I was in awe. We spent hours playing, I went home and promptly asked for a super nintendo for Christmas. (Sorry, folks. I know I made shopping difficult...always asking for the gamer version of tickle-me-elmo. Thanks for always coming through for me, even if you don't quite understand video games.)
Between Mega Man X, Zelda (A Link to the Past), and eventually Super Mario Kart (!!), it was a good time for a good system.
Final Fantasy II, and Final Fantasy III were two of the best games I have ever played. And I've even gone back and played II recently (released as IV for the DS), and it was still great. Nice work, Squaresoft.
It was awesome when Cecil converted from a Dark Knight to a Paladin (even though he looked really gay afterwards) by fighting ... um ... a mirror of sorts. I don't know. It was a spiritual journey. It's best not to question.
One fight after the conversion: "Cecil gained a level. Cecil gained a level. Cecil gained a level. Cecil gained a level. Cecil gained a level."
Guess they couldn't figure out a way to have his Dark Knight level transfer over to New Holy Knight level?
Final Fantasy III -- The mech units walking through the snow in the opening credits. I got the game for Christmas, and I was playing in the basement under a blanket next to a space heater (it was a different time! we weren't scared to death of space heaters!) and I was so excited that I sprinted upstairs to drag my parents down to show them how awesome the snow pixels were. Also, it was a fun game. Aside from having to use an equipment slot on sprint boots so that walking around didn't take forever and a day.
And Chrono Trigger. Frog's theme song. I don't even need to say more, if you've played it.
(And The Secret of Mana. I had a friend that lost one of the three characters because it *melted*. It was turned into a snowman by some random ice monster. And he saved the game afterwards. So the character still had dialogue, but couldn't fight or do anything. I think he beat the game with the main character and the girl...sans 3rd guy)
It's important to note that I was a Nintendo kid. I didn't have a Sega (my wife did), but I did enjoy Sonic when I had a chance to play it.
Nintendo 64:
Mario in 3 dimensions for the first time. Yet another Zelda game. This console was a huge step past SNES, but for some reason, the games weren't very memorable for me. Probably due to the lack of Final Fantasy-esque type games.
Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun playing Mario Kart 64 and things like that, but it lacked (what I would consider) a killer game.
Playstation fixed that.
Final Fantasy VII. This game was amazing. I rented it. There was a slight problem, though. I also had to rent a Playstation to play it. Ok, that's fine.
Except that the console didn't come with a memory card. WTF is a memory card? Why can't I save directly to...oh. CD. Crap.
So, I left the Playstation on all weekend. And my friends and I played all weekend. Except we couldn't save. So if we died, we lost and had to start over (this did happen).
We actually made it to the end of Disc 1, I think.
Needless to say, FFVII and Playstation were on my Christmas list.
Thank you, Cloud, for being so entertaining. And Ifrit, the first summon.
The story for Gamecube is similar to those from N64. Metroid was awesome. Still no real epic games.
PC Gaming:
Warcraft, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Heroes of Might and Magic II, III, Diablo I, II
(Blizzard, Blizzard, Blizzard, 3dO, 3dO, Blizzard, Blizzard...)
Warcraft was my introduction to RTS -- and I think it was for most of the people of my generation. It never became my favorite genre, but I really did enjoy playing through the campaigns. Command and Conquer and Red Alert were both great games to play with and against friends.
Like building resource silos all the way into their base so you could construct tesla coils next to their barracks...and then send in Yaks for the kill! (Best name for an airplane ever.)
Xbox:
I went out on Black Friday. When the Xbox was released.
I purchased one with the 'emergency' credit card my parents gave me. I brought it back to the house. I said 'um...I bought my Christmas present. I can take it back if you want, but they had one, and I wanted to make sure I got it'.
It came with Halo. That was really the first FPS I enjoyed, and I enjoyed it to death. To the point where I was playing it through on Legendary. (That is/was/always will be hard). I didn't actually MAKE it through. But the point is, I liked it enough to try (and die a billion times. Curse you, The Flood!)
Current Generation:
This brings us to (basically) the current generation of games.
I played FF:XI for a while. It was difficult to get into a group as my favorite class (dragoon), so I gave up and went for one of the most desired, but least fun to play (bard) just so I could level.
It was work. The I realized, "Hey, this is work. And they aren't paying me for it! Screw that!" So I quit.
Then World of Warcraft came along. It was revolutionary. It was like Diablo mixed with FF:XI, with a generous helping of Warcraft lore.
I loved it. I leveled to 60 on my rogue, who was an enchanter. Because I thought enchanting would be cool. (Incorrect)
40 man raids. Random AFKs, facepulls, guild drama, loot arguments, etc. If you did them, you don't need an explanation, and if you didn't, no explanation will adequately convey the frustration of dealing with that stuff.
The best part of original WoW incarnation? PvP. I leveled a mage after seeing a friend of mine play his, and he became my main. I hit the rank of Commander (Alliance side -- Lieutenant General for Horde) and bought myself the cool black cat officer's mount. (Saved meself 500 gold, I did.)
3 or 4 people in the group I ran with ended up hitting the top PvP rank. That was a freaking accomplishment back in the day. But we had Arathi Basin down. If we didn't 5 cap, our team leader was pissed. Good times.
A special message to all of the horde side from that time (before and during patch 1.12) - I'm sorry for all of the times I frost nova'd you right outside of the tunnel to our base, as our flag carrier was about to cap. I didn't realize that you were, in fact, the cooler faction, and if I had it to do over again, I'd burn that little gnome to a crisp.
Present Day Games:
Borderlands is the best mix of FPS and RPG I've ever played. The berserker is hilarious. BWAHAHAHAHHAHA! *deep breath* AHHHH!!! AHHAHAHAHAHHH!!!!! RAAWWWWRRR!!!!
And so on for about 30 seconds. While punching things in the face. Like dive bombing birds. So great.
Fable 3: I didn't beat this yet, and I probably won't for a long time. I have other games to play, and I watched my wife do it...so that will just have to do for now.
Starcraft 2: Protoss should be my race. They should. It fits my play style so much better. But I know Terran well enough that I'm sticking with that until I get back up into the Platinum bracket.
WoW: Cataclysm...will get its own, more detailed post.
A history of my gaming career.
If I bore you, if games bore you, or if history bores you, skip this post, and go here instead.
Somehow, I managed to talk my parents into getting me a Nintendo for my birthday at some point during my childhood. 6? 7? My mom was dead set against it (for whatever reason, I never really found out why), but my dad seemed to think that it wouldn't do any harm. (Thanks, dad!) This led to many years of me asking for the new console or a new game for most major (and several minor -- ever heard of 'children's day'?) holidays.
My dad had a difficult time setting up the system. In retrospect, I have absolutely no idea what the problem was. You had an RF adapter, it went to the TV, and...that was pretty much it. If you had an antenna, you could hook it in to the back of the adapter - in series!
The first game I really remember owning was Top Gun for the original NES. I remember you had guns...and missiles. For your A and B buttons. That was it. You went up and down, left and right, and shot either bullets or missiles. Let's use this as my baseline gaming experience. (I'm not going to discuss Pong or anything like that. We'll go with Top Gun. Ok? Ok.)
The next big milestone was Zelda. The original. The Golden Game of Goodness. I actually had chicken pox, but I also had Zelda waiting for me at home. Fortuitous. Maybe my immune system and game-center of my brain worked together to make this happen. If so, kudos to them.
Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the main character's name was Link. So I named him Zelda. (Yes, a girl's name. But I was 7 or 8, what did I know?)
For those of you who owned the original Zelda, you'll recognize that naming your character after the game was the secret way to get all of the dungeons to change locations and get weird. Which made it really hard to discuss the game with the only other person in my grade who owned the game.
Once I figured out that I should name Link something that wasn't a frilly girl's name (like Ace. I did Ace a lot. I have no idea why. Probably because it was easy. A, skip, C, skip E. Filling out names and passwords back in the day was really annoying.), the game got fun.
It's dangerous to go alone, take this.
Soon I was shooting swords and catching fairies and upgrading my armor from green cloth to red cloth to white cloth. Because we all know, white shirts do a *much* better job mitigating life-threatening injuries than green shirts.
Also during this particular era, I played/beat Duck Tales a few times.
The next genre of games changed my life. Honestly, I really think my life would've been much different if I had never played Final Fantasy. It taught me about heals and damaging spells, leveling up so you don't die in a dungeon, saving money for that awesome sword, how good pixels should triumph over their evil counterparts, and that my parents were super hyper conservative when it came to anything fantasy related.
Uh oh.
That's right. We were driving somewhere for a family outing of some sort, and I was excitedly rambling on about this game my friend had, and how there was white magic for healing, and black magic (this was my mistake) for damaging, and how red mages could do a little of both, plus stab people...
My parents (dad, this time) heard 'black magic', and forbid me from owning Final Fantasy. I was crushed. No, seriously. I loved that game.
Eventually, they came around. I owned it, and all was right in my gaming world.
Other games in this era: Bubble Bobble (1oo levels...twice? I can't believe I put up with that), Dragon Warrior (first RPG I ever beat. I was shaking and excited afterwards. I got a 'that's nice, dear' from the parents -- they never quite 'got' video games), and Castlevania...oh, and Ninja Gaiden.
Mega Man was another staple. Holy crap, fun games. I started with 2, and played most of the ones through SNES. (Remember the red and blue dots that served as passwords but were really just the ugly hybrid of bingo and Go?)
I'm specifically avoiding talking about Zelda 2, because it sucked.
Moving on. Time for Super Nintendo.
My friend from school got one. With the mario game for it. Oh man, I was so curious. Yoshi? What the...who the...GREEN DINOSAUR THAT EATS THINGS!
I went over to my friend's house after school one day, and his mom answered the door. (This was my first visit). "Hi, is Logan there?" I ask.
"Oh, you must be his friend here to see the nintendo," she surmised.
I took this to be a judgement against my motivations. How dare she assume that I was just there for a video game! (I wasn't, actually. I liked the guy.)
"Um...I'm here to hang out with Logan..."
She laughed and let me in.
He was in the living room playing -- he had a Yoshi. And oh man. The graphics. The *graphics*. I was in awe. We spent hours playing, I went home and promptly asked for a super nintendo for Christmas. (Sorry, folks. I know I made shopping difficult...always asking for the gamer version of tickle-me-elmo. Thanks for always coming through for me, even if you don't quite understand video games.)
Between Mega Man X, Zelda (A Link to the Past), and eventually Super Mario Kart (!!), it was a good time for a good system.
Final Fantasy II, and Final Fantasy III were two of the best games I have ever played. And I've even gone back and played II recently (released as IV for the DS), and it was still great. Nice work, Squaresoft.
It was awesome when Cecil converted from a Dark Knight to a Paladin (even though he looked really gay afterwards) by fighting ... um ... a mirror of sorts. I don't know. It was a spiritual journey. It's best not to question.
One fight after the conversion: "Cecil gained a level. Cecil gained a level. Cecil gained a level. Cecil gained a level. Cecil gained a level."
Guess they couldn't figure out a way to have his Dark Knight level transfer over to New Holy Knight level?
Final Fantasy III -- The mech units walking through the snow in the opening credits. I got the game for Christmas, and I was playing in the basement under a blanket next to a space heater (it was a different time! we weren't scared to death of space heaters!) and I was so excited that I sprinted upstairs to drag my parents down to show them how awesome the snow pixels were. Also, it was a fun game. Aside from having to use an equipment slot on sprint boots so that walking around didn't take forever and a day.
And Chrono Trigger. Frog's theme song. I don't even need to say more, if you've played it.
(And The Secret of Mana. I had a friend that lost one of the three characters because it *melted*. It was turned into a snowman by some random ice monster. And he saved the game afterwards. So the character still had dialogue, but couldn't fight or do anything. I think he beat the game with the main character and the girl...sans 3rd guy)
It's important to note that I was a Nintendo kid. I didn't have a Sega (my wife did), but I did enjoy Sonic when I had a chance to play it.
Nintendo 64:
Mario in 3 dimensions for the first time. Yet another Zelda game. This console was a huge step past SNES, but for some reason, the games weren't very memorable for me. Probably due to the lack of Final Fantasy-esque type games.
Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun playing Mario Kart 64 and things like that, but it lacked (what I would consider) a killer game.
Playstation fixed that.
Final Fantasy VII. This game was amazing. I rented it. There was a slight problem, though. I also had to rent a Playstation to play it. Ok, that's fine.
Except that the console didn't come with a memory card. WTF is a memory card? Why can't I save directly to...oh. CD. Crap.
So, I left the Playstation on all weekend. And my friends and I played all weekend. Except we couldn't save. So if we died, we lost and had to start over (this did happen).
We actually made it to the end of Disc 1, I think.
Needless to say, FFVII and Playstation were on my Christmas list.
Thank you, Cloud, for being so entertaining. And Ifrit, the first summon.
The story for Gamecube is similar to those from N64. Metroid was awesome. Still no real epic games.
PC Gaming:
Warcraft, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Heroes of Might and Magic II, III, Diablo I, II
(Blizzard, Blizzard, Blizzard, 3dO, 3dO, Blizzard, Blizzard...)
Warcraft was my introduction to RTS -- and I think it was for most of the people of my generation. It never became my favorite genre, but I really did enjoy playing through the campaigns. Command and Conquer and Red Alert were both great games to play with and against friends.
Like building resource silos all the way into their base so you could construct tesla coils next to their barracks...and then send in Yaks for the kill! (Best name for an airplane ever.)
Xbox:
I went out on Black Friday. When the Xbox was released.
I purchased one with the 'emergency' credit card my parents gave me. I brought it back to the house. I said 'um...I bought my Christmas present. I can take it back if you want, but they had one, and I wanted to make sure I got it'.
It came with Halo. That was really the first FPS I enjoyed, and I enjoyed it to death. To the point where I was playing it through on Legendary. (That is/was/always will be hard). I didn't actually MAKE it through. But the point is, I liked it enough to try (and die a billion times. Curse you, The Flood!)
Current Generation:
This brings us to (basically) the current generation of games.
I played FF:XI for a while. It was difficult to get into a group as my favorite class (dragoon), so I gave up and went for one of the most desired, but least fun to play (bard) just so I could level.
It was work. The I realized, "Hey, this is work. And they aren't paying me for it! Screw that!" So I quit.
Then World of Warcraft came along. It was revolutionary. It was like Diablo mixed with FF:XI, with a generous helping of Warcraft lore.
I loved it. I leveled to 60 on my rogue, who was an enchanter. Because I thought enchanting would be cool. (Incorrect)
40 man raids. Random AFKs, facepulls, guild drama, loot arguments, etc. If you did them, you don't need an explanation, and if you didn't, no explanation will adequately convey the frustration of dealing with that stuff.
The best part of original WoW incarnation? PvP. I leveled a mage after seeing a friend of mine play his, and he became my main. I hit the rank of Commander (Alliance side -- Lieutenant General for Horde) and bought myself the cool black cat officer's mount. (Saved meself 500 gold, I did.)
3 or 4 people in the group I ran with ended up hitting the top PvP rank. That was a freaking accomplishment back in the day. But we had Arathi Basin down. If we didn't 5 cap, our team leader was pissed. Good times.
A special message to all of the horde side from that time (before and during patch 1.12) - I'm sorry for all of the times I frost nova'd you right outside of the tunnel to our base, as our flag carrier was about to cap. I didn't realize that you were, in fact, the cooler faction, and if I had it to do over again, I'd burn that little gnome to a crisp.
Present Day Games:
Borderlands is the best mix of FPS and RPG I've ever played. The berserker is hilarious. BWAHAHAHAHHAHA! *deep breath* AHHHH!!! AHHAHAHAHAHHH!!!!! RAAWWWWRRR!!!!
And so on for about 30 seconds. While punching things in the face. Like dive bombing birds. So great.
Fable 3: I didn't beat this yet, and I probably won't for a long time. I have other games to play, and I watched my wife do it...so that will just have to do for now.
Starcraft 2: Protoss should be my race. They should. It fits my play style so much better. But I know Terran well enough that I'm sticking with that until I get back up into the Platinum bracket.
WoW: Cataclysm...will get its own, more detailed post.
Gaming Commentary, Take Two
So, about two years ago, when my wife (then girlfriend) and I started playing Warhammer Online, I started a blog about the game and our experiences with it.
I stopped posting because we were being stalked by crazy people who worked in my office. And I mean the 'stab you in your sleep' kind of crazy. Needless to say, it was a little unsettling.
If we had played WAR for much longer, I probably would've kept posting anyway.
Buuuut...the game went south, and my wife was interested in trying out World of Warcraft. 2 years and 5 level 80 characters later, she's still playing.
In fact, her toast to me at our wedding included the line "may my dps always be higher than yours".
So maybe that wasn't a toast to me as much as it was to her own dps...hmmm...
At any rate, I've decided to try my hand (again) at gaming commentary. Minus the crazies, please.
I stopped posting because we were being stalked by crazy people who worked in my office. And I mean the 'stab you in your sleep' kind of crazy. Needless to say, it was a little unsettling.
If we had played WAR for much longer, I probably would've kept posting anyway.
Buuuut...the game went south, and my wife was interested in trying out World of Warcraft. 2 years and 5 level 80 characters later, she's still playing.
In fact, her toast to me at our wedding included the line "may my dps always be higher than yours".
So maybe that wasn't a toast to me as much as it was to her own dps...hmmm...
At any rate, I've decided to try my hand (again) at gaming commentary. Minus the crazies, please.
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