What a grind

Well I am back on the leveling treadmill again, although not quite running to level 70. With the Burning Crusade expansion launched I figured it might be a good time to get back to WOW. With not much to play on the pc I have been looking for something to get me back to my desk. I thought now would be a good time with the overall theme being everyone starting over. I actually haven't spent much time in the Outlands really. My Hunter who I don't really enjoy playing that much is almost 61 now. I have been grinding up my priest from 54 and he is now 57. I figure he will be worth getting to 70 as I enjoy healing. I also have been working on leveling up a Druid twink for battle grounds. So really I just log in and which ever character I feel like playing gets played. I actually have been enjoying my Hunter a little bit more since I have been using traps which I never really used before. Hunter is just so easy to play it gets boring for me at least.

What has surprised me is how much gold you get going through the Outlands. Between vendor trash and green drops and quest turnins I made like 30 gold off four quests the other night. I figure making that kind of money will help fund my twink characters. I really enjoy the 20-29 bracket in battlegrounds. Even though I suck at pvp it is still a whole lot of fun. I keep thinking I will start a Horde character but for some reason I can't get into them. I don't like their areas or quests. Anyway, that's what I have been up too this last week.

Jamaica here we come!!

Been a long time buddy

I must apoligize to my faithful following for I never intended nor do I intend to neglect you. I went back to work and have had to adjust to having to dress proper, be nice to people and bathe. It's been a hard transition from waking up at noon, wandering around the house in house shoes and wrestling with the urge to get out and do something or wallow in self pity, which was surprisingly fun. Oh it wasn't quite that bad. Needless to say I am a productive citizen again, contributing to the American war machine, supporting the government with hard earned tax dollars, and keeping the economy rolling by spending more than I earn. I will make a bigger effort to keep this updated as I am starting to get used to my schedule again.

I have just about gotten used to hearing the beautiful sound of the alarm clock in the morning and realizing today is a new day. But somehow it seems like the exact same as the day before.

Are you LOST?

Ah, Lost is back in full swing and it feels good to get the brain working through the theories and mystery. It almost seems like the show has taken a certain route and is just getting weirder for the sake of getting weirder. Reportedly the show has lost quite a bit of viewers and ratings are down which might be why they prompted the time change. Lets face it, American Idol stampedes anything showing at the same time. The other networks could go off the air during the show and it probably wouldn't matter. Watching American Idol is like having to admit you like musicals. You feel guilty but chances are the other person likes it too.

I did catch a video on Youtube called "lost fragments" which explains the significance of the numbers. Each set represents a major catastrophe for humanity and ultimately ends it. The Dharma Inititiative was started and funded by Hanso Corporation to figure out a way to derail the events so that humanity could survive. But ultimately they failed and the hatches and operations on the island were abandoned. And that's about all it reported. Ultimately I have given up most hope of figuring it all out and am at this point just enjoying the episodes and trying to keep up. I really hope the episodes don't get any more odd or they risk alienating most viewers who are tired of getting strung out between explanations.

Welcome to the UFC Mirko

hi ho, hi ho off to work I go

Started back to work yesterday and it feels good to be out of the house and actually doing something. It will take me a couple weeks to get back into the swing of things but hopefully it goes good this time around.

I was psyced for the UFC PPV event last night with Quinton Jackson and Mirko Cro Cop from Pride fighting joining the ranks of the UFC. Both won their fights but weren't terribly vicious. Most of that would be due to nerves probably, wanting to win their first matches in the UFC. A title match was supposed to be had between Anderson Silva who has the belt and Travis Lutter who wanted it. Unfortuneatly Travis didn't cut the weight and was over by a pound and a half. The fight was still on but not a title deffense for Anderson. Really pathetic that Travis didn't cut the weight. These guys train hard and know what is expected and have the time to make weight so the fact that he didn't is just disrespectful to the UFC who gave him the shot at the title and the fans.

Not only that but Travis was favored to win if it went to the ground because he is great at Jujitso and Anderson is primarily a stand up fighter. What happened? Travis got Anderson on the ground numerous times but didn't get anything done. During the last attempt on the ground Travis raised up and Anderson shot a foot into his face, when Travis came back down Anderson got him in a really nice choke submission and eventually Travis tapped. Needless to say Travis is probably not having a good day today.

Chick flicks are ok.......I guess

Went to Chattanooga yesterday. Ended up picking up some classic NES games. I splurged and bout Tales of Symphonia for the lamecube. Spent a shit load of money even though we were in Mckay's which is like price heaven. Leave it to me to spend too much. It was all good though, Amanda bought a dvd and some stuff from the mall. We rocked some Famous Daves BBQ, then had to come up with a contengency plan to get our stuffed asses up.

She had been wanting to see this movie called Catch and Release. I swear the trailer made no sense or I just discounted it everytime it came on and ignored it. I got to pick the last movie (Rocky) which was wicked awesome even for a girl to watch, great flick. So I figured I was in for one of those chick is sad, then meets boy and is happy, then some coincidental misfortune happens sending said chick into a even deeper sadness. Then chick realizes dude is the bestest in the world and has to chase him down at the airport before he flies to California or New York (always those two).

But the movie wasn't about that at all. Girl's fiance dies and she finds out he was a different person blah blah blah don't wanna give it a way in case ya see it. It wasn't half bad really, it dragged in some parts but that's because the movie length was a bit too long so there were some spots that were filler. I was just glad we didn't watch that Will Smith movie. I hate movies that are 80 minutes of sadness with 10 minutes of extreme happyness just to get those tear ducts flowing. With exception to that statement, Antwone Fisher was fantabulous. Anyway I started playing Tales and just couldn't get into so I started playing Paper Mario again and got past where I was stuck so I am loving that. Sometimes I guess it takes getting a new game to bring light to one you have passed up.

Rebel without a Cause

(A non-disclosure agreement (NDA), also called a confidential disclosure agreement (CDA), confidentiality agreement or secrecy agreement, is a legal contract between at least two parties which outlines confidential materials or knowledge the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes, but wish to restrict from generalized use. In other words, it is a contract through which the parties agree not to disclose information covered by the agreement. An NDA creates a confidential relationship between the parties to protect any type of trade secret. As such, an NDA can protect non-public business information.)


Apparently I have been banned from mmorpg.com. I don't know if its temporary or permanent or whatever. I emailed asking why, it's probably because I pointed some people to the blog about Vanguard and LOTR Online beta impressions. I knew the NDA had lifted for Vanguard but I didn't check on LOTR. I don't understand NDA's anyway. The game is in Beta, people know that. Things will change. People know that. Mmorpgs are subjective. One person might like something, one might not. People know that.

I don't exactly understand why a non affiliated third party website who's goal it is to bring it's community in depth coverage of games released or not released would ban a member because he said he wouldn't by the game on launch because the damn trees don't sway. If anything I was ten times harsher on Vanguard. I suppose they want to keep the developers and publishers happy so they can get those in depth interviews where the developers tell them what they have told every other website and magazine already.

NDA has lifted on Vanguard. Are they asking about what bugs are fixed? Spawn rates? What they plan on doing with all that empty land they have in game with not much there?

I think they will have large land claiming drives like the one in Far and Away where Tom Cruise races past others on horseback with Enya playing in foreground to stake his flag in a parcel so he and Nicole Kidman can commence to getting it on and making beautiful children.

Ah I am being a bit harsh on mmorpg.com. Sorry guys. I believe with proper rehabilitation I can once again become a law abiding civilized gamer. I am willing to make that commitment. I can be a productive member of your society.

And if someone from Turbine Inc. happens to read this, I have talked to a few people and there is a rumor that a few folks know how the story ends.

I trade, you trade, we all trade for Itradevideogames.com

THIS IS A RANT, IF YOU DON'T LIKE LANGUAGE DON'T READ THIS POST.

One thing that has chapped my hide for quite awhile now is EB and Gamestop. I can't stand shopping there or dealing with the pimply fat faced unhelpful fucks that work there. If you work there and are reading this, ya I said it. I hate them on so many levels. I have actually had a screaming match with an employee who was trying to shove their damn preorder/reserve/warranty/subscription bullshit down my throat. I got no problem if ya wanna try to sell me on something but pick one thing and if I say no wring my shit up.

What gets me though the most is the fact that they almost seem to not even enjoy games or the gaming community. I'm sure they go work there because they love games and want to talk about games all day. Well shit, you don't have to work there to do that.

Almost every single time I have had a conversation with one of their employees it goes like this:

ME: Is this (holds up triple A game huge release that warrants my 60.00) any good?
THEM: Dunno, haven't played it yet (dumbfounded look on face).

So a guy who's obviously into games and works in a game store and talks to more people about games all day everyday hasn't played the newest hottest release. Now to be fair I don't buy games just off what they say, I do read reviews online and in magazines. But it does help to here from a fellow gamer:

Them: It's alright, little slow at first but the later levels are better.
Them: Played it for like ten minutes and lost interest.
Them: It's the shiznit, best thing out right now.

It's kinda like buying something and the guy next to ya is like "Hey ya I have one of those and love it". It just boosts your confidence in your new purchase a bit. One of the biggest reasons I hate them and what my end point with this post is their buying games back from consumers. Their prices are shit. "So you gonna give me 5.00 for this game that just came out last month that I paid 60.00 for?" Then they price it 39.95 and put it on the shelf. Their standpoint is the game might not sell so they will have to reduce the price during the time it is on the shelf. Well with a helluva margin like that someone is bound to pay more than 5.00 for a game. That game could sit there for months and still net them a tidy profit. It's not like it is costing them to maintain it or anything. It sells, they profit. They make most of their money now from used games and all the bullshit they push on you at the counter. They keep stiffing people no one is gonna trade in their games. I don't understand the mentality of companies. You can make money and have a positive reputation with your customers. It just so happens the majority of your customers aren't aware they can trade games and get new ones without you just yet.

I heard about a website that lets you trade games. Unlike EB they price your games at market value. Bought a new game ya don't like, log on and the value will be 50-60.00 depending on condition. You list the games you want to trade and someone else comes along and wants your game. They message you and you accept to sell them the game. The website takes the money (Ibucks) out of thier account and holds it til they receive the game you sent. Then they deposit the Ibucks into your account for you to spend when you see a game you want. These websites have sprung up lately largely due to games becoming expensive and gamers wanting to trade games without getting dry assfucked by stores. This website stands out for being clean and uncluttered without pop ups and other crap distracting you.

I used and have to say as long as more people use it and the catalog of games available for trade grows I'll be there awhile trading.

www.itradevideogames.com

Now pardon me I have to send Company of Heroes to Jim in Colorado.

You want how much?

Tomorrow me and Amanda are going to cruise down to Chattanooga. She is wanting to go do some shopping and I am itching to get out of the house. I am still waiting on a prospective job to go through. They are taking way too long to come to a decision. The interview went really well so I'm fairly confident I have the job, they are just taking their sweet ass time. Apparently they are waiting for paperwork to go through so they can hire for the position. Enough about that.

I'm hoping to maybe pick up some NES or SNES games. I have a pretty extensive game collection crossing PC and the major consoles. But the games are just so damn expensive and honestly there aren't any coming out that look very interesting or dare I say FUN. If the game industry doesn't stop placing emphasis on graphics and neglecting gameplay we'll have another videogames crash. Doesn't seem like it but it can happen. Budgets are in the tens of millions of dollars and development cycles of two years or more. Eventually people won't buy Tony Hawk 54 and Need for Speed 15. I still have no idea why Madden sells year after year when it looks marginally better than Madden 2003.

So realizing when I have kids I want them to experience NES and some of the early games I have decided to concentrate on those consoles for awhile. I have been hanging out in forums and communities of hardcore NES collectors and I never knew how deep the rabbit hole went with collecting. I just want a healthy collection of those games especially the ones I am fond of. NES games are fairly inexpensive, somewhere around 2.00 a cart for common ones without box. That's more my style.

So Ebay obviously and friends who you can trade with can get you into some games without spending alot if you choose not to. I think we are going to hit some used game stores so I know they'll be over priced. I already have a few games that I really wanted being sent to me so I'll just be looking for cheapies. SNES games are bit higher in price so I dunno what I'll come back with. Usually all I see when I go hunting is crap sports games that people didn't want. Anyway, I'll post what I come back with tomorrow evening.

New Worlds

So in an attempt to play some new mmorpgs after growing bored of WOW and EQ2 I got into the beta for Vanguard Saga of Heroes and Lord of the Rings Online. I knew what to expect from Turbine with LOTR. I figured there would be some instancing and your standard quests of killing wildlife in big areas. In some alternate universe online game developers live in, Deer and Bears don't spook when you approach them and in fact will kick your ass if you dare poke them with a sharp stick or sword even.

With LOTR one of the things that put me off was the world just didn't seem alive. Trees didn't sway in the breeze. The ambient sound track wasn't well done either. That goes a long way with me as exploring and adventuring is what I get out of these games. The character models just looked plain goofy. I have no idea why developers can make a female avatar look nice and move fairly realistically but the male ones jerk along like they have spent three days with out their cocaine. One thing WOW got right was armor and equipment. You can visually see your character improve when you get the fabled Dragon Sword of +5 whoop ass. So I left the beta thinking it isn't for me. Plus the notion of adventuring with a group of people constantly referencing places and creatures to the books does not sound appealing.

Him "Halt, thy be the cave of Eramoore, home to the foul swine beast"

Me "Does though beast have thy crystal shard for me quest? Cause I been looking all day for this damn cave and I have to make dinner here soon"

Him "Aye, twil be a long and difficult journey for the lair is frought with many dangerous encounters along the treacherous way"

Me "Ok, well look, can't we wall hack or something? Maybe you could just run through and aggro all the trash mobs then I could just nab the shard while he isn't looking or whatever. Anyways lets just get on it with it"

Him "Awe, can't, mom is telling me I have to clean up my room, thnx 4 grp, bye"

So a few weeks ago I found out Sigil Games were giving out beta invites for Vanguard to all those who had a Fileplanet subscription. I signed up for Fileplanet which was like six bucks and immediately cancelled. I had been looking forward to Vanguard for a year or so. They were promising wide open lands filled with things to explore. I thought the characters looked good in videos, armor looked very nice, a little too similar but nice all the same.

Now I understand betas are not finished product. I am one of the ones that geniunely tries to help the developers. I provide honest feedback on quests and spawn rates and everything. This game is literally 6 months behind in production. When I started beta it was 30 days before launch. Now bugs in games especially in online games are one thing but this game just didn't have things right. Spawn rates of mobs were terrible. There would be five or six people standing around waiting to kill a mob as soon as it spawned.

There was a quest in the gnome starting area to kill spiders. They would spawn like three at a time every ten minutes. You would see a shout and all these crazed gnomes with their knives and swords out running like hell towards these spiders. Very scary indeed. Also in these games it is important to have different types of enemies that are about the same level so that you can kill different things and they can have the same types of quests for different mobs. It keeps repetitiveness low. They didn't have that. You would get a quest and kill a certain type of mob then kill them for the next half hour to level. Then you would notice there aren't other mobs that are your current level to kill so you go back to the other mobs that are a level lower and grind kill those.

I see this problem as Sigil Games at first were going with an Ultra hardcore mmorpg alot like the original Everquest was. Somewhere along the way they stopped and thought of the following:

WOW - 6 million subscribers at the time
WOW - Not Hardcore in most aspects
WOW - Not a big death penalty in game

Vanguard - Hardcore
Vanguard - Not many other hardcore mmorpgs are successful past 500,000 subscribers
Vanguard - mmorpg players tend to always look for the next big game to try because they want something different and new.

Vanguard - We have screwed ourselves, we need to be different but alot like WOW as well.

So what you have is a mix of a hardcore grindy game that didn't really guide you along the way that got added with more quests and user friendly functions that blends as smooth as oil and water. The game will be good if they improve the new player experience and add more mobs to all that empty sprawling landscape they created and improve spawn rates. So I will be tempted to check the game out but it will be three or four months after it launches.

Everyone has a different opinion on what happened with Sigil switching from Microsoft to Sony but I would say Microsoft seeing the game was to hardcore and wouldn't trump WOW which is the only reason Microsoft gets into something, which is to kill the competition told Sigil to hit the highway. Sony seeing they would be able to get some hardcore players they had lost over time back into the fold and EQ2's reputation of not being the true sequal to Everquest decided they would add another game to their roster.

I have said it before and will say it again. If you are going to make an online RPG you need to stray that muthaf$%^&er as much away from WOW as possible. The market is already flooded with traditional fantasy mmorpgs as it is. Would it kill ya to maybe, Oh I don't know.......come up with something new?

Traffic Jam

So I noticed I have gotten a small bit of traffic on the blog here. I belong to some different forums and post regularly but probably not enough that people would recognize me if I showed up. I have had the blog listed in my forum signatures so maybe that's where this activity is from. Hopefully for the minute or two that people glance over it they will be entertained a little. I added a couple music links to some songs I like also. Please bookmark the blog, subscribe or tell someone to visit and say hi and I welcome all comments even the ones calling me racist, lol.

Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 years

I really think it's cool when people do unusual things and this struck me as odd at first but then kinda sad. I think it would be a bit disturbing to see 6 years gone that quick.

Mario Out of Control

So a few days ago I checked one of the local pawn shops for snes games. I thought it might be a good idea to track down some classic games. When I have kids I hope they experience the same kinds of games I did when I was young. Plus I really liked the snes when it came out and would like to build a small collection of games for it.

The guy said he didn't have any but he had 30 in the back that he would be putting out on Saturday. So of course this morning first thing I do is hop in the car and run down there. I was thinking maybe Chrono Trigger might be in there or Super Mario RPG. You never know what you might find when hunting bargains. I get down there and the guy says the owner paid them out of pawn. So I casually looked through some of their PS2 and XBOX games because I am one of those guys that has to buy something because I didn't get my way. I ended up picking up Super Mario Sunshine for Gamecube. I thought that it was a pretty good deal at $11.00.

I started playing it and the controls are god awful. It's one of those games that when playing you think if they just did this and this I would be hooked on this forever. Really disappointing. Nintendo has always had a bad habit of just making you conform to the way the game was designed. They think if you monkey with controls the game is somehow corrupted from their original vision. Must be because they are Japanese.

Best Rapper Ever

Marlboro Man

God I've smoked way too long. I started when I was in the military at 21. I saw everyone going for smoke breaks and thought it might be a good idea to start. Along with that practically everyone I was around at the time smoked. Really the last year in the Army was a haze of smoking and boozing. The smoking never really affected physical training though. I would hear others complaining that the smoking was the reason why they failed their run. Hogwash.

I actually hated and still do breathing other peoples second hand smoke. It bothers the piss outta me, especially when I eat. I have quit a few times. Some I knew I was just delaying the inevitable and others I really did wanna quit. I guess I haven't had a good enough reason but I would like to quit before there is one. Everytime I hear a non smoker or someone who did quit say it's easy I wanna punch them in the f$%&ing face.

I actually think it would be easier to quit Heroine. I know that sounds horrible but at least you could see the damage it has done to you. There's no way it would be easy but shit look at the motivation you would have. I guess I'll end up quitting in the next day or so. Being temporarily unemployed has the benefit of not really being stressed out too much but also having a whole lot of time to be grumpy and eat everything in the house.

Mens Journal has it all wrong

So after yet another job gone sour I find myself back in the job market. What a fun place to be. I get Mens Journal magazine and have to say I don't enjoy reading it anymore. It seems like they profile the top 1% of the happiest working people in the world. Admidst pages of exotic locales are young, handsome, healthy and fit men who maintain jobs like Ski Instructor, White Water guide, Rock Climber.

This top 1% is not the wealthiest in the world. It's the people who spring out of bed ready to greet another fun filled day of doing much of nothing for the world and somehow living better off than the rest of the population working upwards of 50 hours a week. Just once I would like to be perched in a tree with a sniper rifle outside said Rock Climbers door.

Mens Journal to me seems the opposite of what a Man's Journal would look like. I would expect articles like "101 ways to eat a Pop Tart" or "Your gut could kill you". Jesus Christ, your average middle aged man just wants to do the following:

1. Eat lunch in peace
2. Fall asleep when he goes to bed
3. Have sex often (partner preferred)

Ok maybe it wouldn't be a big magazine. Maybe a newsletter is better.