Fantasy

What is it about fantasy that interests us so much?

For me it's not just really magic, but the swords and armor. I'm a huge fan of medieval types of weaponry and armor. The sword has always been my weapon of choice for just about everything. Especially the great sword.

I think it may be the fact that fantasy is just another alternate form of reality that most of us which was the actual reality. Who doesn't want to see a griffon? Or be a knight? Or a wizard? Pretty sure if I could walk around in plate armor with a great sword, and have a dragon for a pet... Hell I'd be set.

I wouldn't need the internet if such things existed because life would be exciting enough. I could be a blacksmith for my profession, or a royal guard. Or even a mercenary, why not?

The reason I'm mainly talking about fantasy, and not sci-fi, is because since sci-fi is typically futuristic, you wouldn't have to give anything up for it. Where as with fantasy, you give up luxuries for much less, in order to live in a renaissance fair style life with some magic thrown in.

I'd do it, and that's why fantasy style games are my favorite. I like hitting shit with swords.

Game of Thrones

Never read the book because I'd never heard of it. Started watching the show.

This show is super boss. If you're into fantasy, this show seriously is for you. Unfortunately I won't be writing too much about it because this show has a ton of story line, and I haven't watched too much of it.

I almost wish there was a game set in this universe and I'm only on episode 4 of season one. I'd write more if I could, but I'm going to get back to watching this show. Addicted!

Seriously... check this out.

The Hybrid

I did it again!

I was up until 8:30 in the morning Tuesday, so I slept super early that night after I got all my stuff done for the day and forgot to blog. My bad...

Anyway I wanted to give a shout out to my favorite thing ever, the hybrid.

No no... Not hybrid cars. Not talking about those. Talking about the class archetype in RPGs. Whether it be the Shadow Knight (favorite class ever in EQ1), Paladin, Shaman, Druid, Ranger (EQ1), Spellblade, Beast Lord, Death Knight, Warrior Priest, Disciple of Kane, the list goes on and on and on and on...

The hybrid has always been my number one favorite. Especially if it's a hybrid of a warrior and some dark caster. Shadow Knight was always my favorite. Plate, two-handed swords, and life taps. Seriously that's like my trifecta right there. It doesn't get much better. Seriously I loved just destroying everything in my path, outliving every opponent while I decimated its face. Oh and don't even get me started on Harm Touch.

Nothing says "**** YOU!!!!" like slapping someone in the face with Harm Touch. Greatest spell ever. I wasn't happy when they changed the sound from more of a fiery explosion to match the life tap sound and animation... But it was still fun to watch my enemy's life bar just plummet when I used it.

I've also been a huge fan of the Paladin as well, as long as I'm not stuck holding a shield. I do like playing support classes. Hybrids have always been a great addition to any group, and can usually fit many roles. They make great parties with each other as well since it will cover so many bases. We seem to stick together really well also. I loved grouping with a paladin, beast lord, or ranger on my SK, paladin, and ranger. It was sick.

What we lack in one area we make up for in our skills in another. It has always been a great idea, and I look forward to the new hybrids in upcoming MMO's as well.

Long live the hybrid class!

Nostalgia

I've talked before about what makes games valuable, and I talked a little about nostalgia...

Nostalgia is amazing. Nothing like reminiscing about your past, and the things you loved about it. Nostalgia has been escaping me a lot recently, so I want to take some time and delve into my adolescent youth and play some games that I played growing up.

Basically what this made me realize was how difficult it actually can be to make a good video game. There's not just the fact that you have to make it playable, enjoyable, if it's online it needs longevity, and there's creating that connection from game to gamer that really isn't an easy feat to accomplish.

The reason I'm blogging shortly, and specifically about it is how much the L4D Kokiri Forest map made me remember how much I loved Ocarina of Time.

What I'm going to try to get to work is streaming some N64 Ocarina of Time some time soon. I'll be hitting up some SNES games as well, more than likely. Hopefully with a friend to make things a bit more interesting.

Now I don't have a setup to get my N64 to play over the net, so I have an emulator and a ROM, which actually makes things a bit easier. Right now there's a couple bugs I need to figure out to get the emulator and rom to work, but that shouldn't take too long.

Ocarina of Time will always be my all time number one favorite Zelda game. It's actually probably one of my top favorite games of all time.

So I apologize for how hastily this was entry was written, but I'm just so excited to start this game again!

Am I jaded?

First of all I wanted to apologize for missing a blog day yesterday. I got distracted by a bunch of things I had going on, and just completely forgot. So I decided to do a post today to make up for it.

So here we go:

For some reason I find myself getting bored of these F2P games after about 1 week of playing. Actually, 

Dragon's Nest I played for about one day and already got sick of it...

What's my deal? Is it me? I'm so sick of quest grinding... That's all Dragon's Nest has been. That, and the fact that the dungeon's aren't random, so I ended up running the same one four or five times just to finish the damn quests. They're short too, so there's no real sense of exploration. Granted I was only level 6, so I have no idea how the game is later... but I'm ALREADY super sick of it. Spiral Knights too. 

For some reason that game is slightly more entertaining even though the combat is much more simple. Could be that the dungeons change constantly. What I'm not a fan of though, is the fact that I have to spend $10 just to craft my Tier 5 set. I know, I know... I'm complaining about $10 for a F2P game... But still, there's no way around it. 

I can spend the $10 of Crystal Energy to craft my suit of armor, and just run off mist energy to dungeon crawl... but then I'm only playing for about 20 minutes per day... not very involving. 

So once I figured that out I basically gave up on that. Because even if I just grind out the crowns (Spiral Knights currency) to buy the item itself, I'm still going to spend a ton to get into the dungeons themselves. 

Basically in order to get my gear and play as much as I would have liked, I'd be spending more than $15 in one month. Suddenly this F2P game is more expensive then the worlds most popular MMO.

Can't stand quest grinding at all anymore. Doesn't matter what the game is. I'm just fed up with "Go to <place> and gather x of <item> for me and come back." I realize not ALL quests are like that. For example there are actually quite a few quests that are fun in WoW... but they're just drowned in the amount of meaningless tasks you have to do to find them while leveling.

I just feel like I can't do quest grinding anymore. Even Borderlands is boring to me now, and it's FPS.

Hell, the quests in EverQuest were more involving and were mainly there for you to get gear. They were actually fun. Gathering tons of different and exotic items up from different places throughout Norrath. Not even the epic quests in WoW have the same feeling as EverQuest's did. Hell the quest line to get Crafted Armor for my warrior was a blast. Not even really sure why. Like I said, could be me.

Maybe I'm jaded... Maybe the gaming industry needs something new as far as MMO's though. I don't really know. Bioware is claiming their quests are a lot more involving and draw you in. Based on what I've read they're doing a pretty good job of it. 

I sure hope so... Because if I find myself playing another MMO where almost every quest has the exact same gathering objective with nothing to really back up why I'm doing it... probably gonna punch something. Get your own damn berries, and kill your own damn wolves... And why do only half of these stupid birds have feathers? I need eight feathers, and I've killed 20 *#&%ing birds! WHY!?

Gamer Respect

Have you ever noticed that we gamers almost have a secret society?

You look at someone differently once you find out they're a gamer.

Ever meet someone, and your first impression isn't the best, then you realize they're a gamer and suddenly they're awesome? Or you don't even know this guy you were just introduced to, but you think he's a badass because you found out he played the same games growing up as you did?

Hell yeah! This guy played EverQuest back in the day when I did! He's even talking about how the game was so much better before Luclin. He definitely knows what he's talking about.

Yeah... Gamers are as thick as thieves, and just as untrustworthy. We're really good at sticking together... Erm, as well as attacking each other... For some reason we're just not always as friendly online. I think it's the fact that as soon as we're pitted against each other we stop realizing what we have in common as people.

Now I can't tell. Are we friends or enemies? Frenemies? Yeah... Gamers are frenemies. Everything's all fine and dandy, and the guy is cool because he played EverQuest when you did... until you realize he played an Erudite. Ugh... Suddenly I hate this guy. Who does he think he is? I wish I could PK him right now.

We gamers have an exceptionally strange social build. We're friends or enemies over the stupidest things. I legitimately don't like people that play Alliance. Why? Because I played Horde.

That's my reason? Seriously? Ugh... But I can't help it. It's how we're wired. You kill, decimate, and conquer your enemies, and you stand by your allies... until they start spamming in chat. Or roll on your gear. Or rip you off... 

I guess my point is that Gamer Respect is kind of... random. You never know who may turn their back on you for virtual items. Or talk shit over their mic on Xbox Live or Playstation Network just because you're on the other team. Or, high five you because you play on the same server and didn't even know it.

Snacks!

Snacks.

The gamer's best friend.

Nothing says, "I'm about to sit down and blow shit up until my fingers bleed." like a tall can of iced tea and a fresh tube of cheddar Pringles.

Alright, alright... Maybe that's a Lothian specific snack, but you get the idea. Snacks are bomb. Fuel for the body to keep... sitting there...
Erm... Maybe this is how people get fat.

Seriously thought what's better than getting home from work or school and just slamming your ass into your chair or couch with a primo set up of your favorites?  I was thinking about this today when I got home tonight. About how even though I'm full, it's just comforting to have them ready for me.

I know Pringles, Cheez Itz, and some imported ceylon Peace Tea (See picture above... also my couch is in that shot) has gotten me through some good times, some bad times, and some hella bad ass times. Greatest thing I've ever done while gaming was have three iced teas, two tubes of Pringles, and a box of cheez itz at the ready. The MMO addict's greatest asset is a hoard of snacks.

Whether it be a twelve pack of Mountain Dew and a bag of Doritoes, or some mini powedered donuts and Coca Cola, snacks are the greatest thing to keep you going when you're trying to take down the other team's healer, or disarm the bomb.

Well... until you have to pee.

Dragon's Nest

Since we were on the topic recently of free rpg type games, I figured I'd talk about Dragon's Nest, since it's new enough.

My brother pointed me out to this game a couple days ago, and I was a bit skeptical about it at first. Another Nexon game... Maple Story got old pretty quickly, and I'm kind of over the whole Korean F2P MMO deal. I tried it out anyway, because really, there's no reason not to try out a free game.

I gotta say the combat is a fresh twist. Live action. Fast paced. I'm liking it so far. I'll admit I've only done the first quest, but it was pretty sweet taking out those groups of goblins. I like the fact that there's normal attacks, special attacks, AND abilities. Lets me chain together my own combos.


Taking a look at the classes, there's class branching (which I'm a fan of), and one of them is a Swordsman. Yeah that's got me written all over it. Greatswords and gauntlets? I've got a thing for both.

I'm pretty stoked to see how this goes. So far it's pretty awesome. There's micro-transactions obviously, but from what I've read and heard they're not required to advance like Spiral Knights. Don't get me wrong, I still like Spiral Knights, but I'm not a fan of the idea of having to spend about $10 whether I farm crowns or craft the gear myself, just to get full tier 5.

I know, I know... it's a one time deal, but that's on top of buying energy so I can play for more than what seems like 20 minutes per day.

Hopefully Dragon's Nest will kick my skepticism in the nuts. So far it seems like it's going to do just that.

Click here if you want to check it out for yourself. It's pretty sweet. Wish the characters were a bit less chibi though.

So much Lolz in L4D!

So I know I already talked a little about the player made maps on Left 4 Dead 2, but I have to talk about these two that I just played.

So the first one I found on l4dmaps was Kokiri Forest. It's a replica of Kokiri Village, the forest maze, and the forest temple. It was freakin' sweet. It has a lot of the same puzzles, and even the little tunnel you crawl through to get the Kokiri sword. (It's a katana with the kokiri logo on the handle).

It has the sounds and music from the game, hearts you can pick up, rupees (that I'm pretty sure do nothing), and the puzzles are freakin' sweet. I would give this map a 5 out of 5 for sure, if I could properly rate it. The only thing that sucks is that since it's such an advanced map compared to normal L4D maps, it makes it really hard to play with two bots.  But it still has small keys and apparently a sweet boss battle. (Yeah... haven't gotten to it yet. Lame.)

The second is a Crash Bandicoot level. Thing is silly as hell and I couldn't stop laughing. Has a lot of the same sounds and music. It even has the little peaches with the appropriate slurping nom sound from the game. Overall it was pretty easy up until the very end when you're fighting a giant spinning statue with a billion health and tons of zombies just continuously attack.

It has its own little plot which obviously isn't a big deal, but the bonus prize room along with the little tiny triggers and the silliness made it awesome. I seriously want to play it again.

I don't want to give too much away, so you'll have to download them to see for yourself.
You can get both of these maps from L4D Maps just by searching for them. Happy hunting!