Photos, games, and life.
This year has been an interesting one for my photography. As I said in my earlier post, I had some photos and a ceramics piece in a show at the Phelps Arts Center. My photo of the Sunset on the Erie Canal in Fairport got some more attention while it was there. A graphic designer, Chris, talked to me about possibly using it for the Perinton Bicentennial event poster & wine label. After talking with him for a bit, we decided that I’d email him a low-res copy of my picture so he could mess with some ideas to present to the board.A week or so later, I received an email from Chris saying that they loved it and requested that I write-up an invoice for the town and Casa Larga, so they could use the photo.
Chris put me in contact with a representative from Casa Larga, because they would want some background information for a press-release. It turns out they wanted more than that, they asked me to show up at their tent at Fairport Canal Days for wine-bottle signings, and they also want me to go to the wine shop for an event later this month. I had a wedding that I was attending the weekend of Canal Days, and the only day I was able to make it out there was Sunday. It rained most of the day, which sucked… but there were still a lot of people at Canal Days. I didn’t expect that many people to be out. Dad took a picture of me at the Casa Larga tent one of the brief times it wasn’t raining. I ended up signing a dozen or so bottles, and got quite a few compliments while I was there.
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After that show ended in Phelps – the pieces I had there, along with a new photo, went over to school for the Spring Arts Festival. The stuff in the show this year was fantastic, better than last year’s show I think. My photos got a bit of attention once again. The Canal photo that is getting most of the attention won second place for photography, and one of the other photos [bottom right in the picture] I entered was given an honorable mention, and the faculty at school purchased it for display around the campuses.
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My Xbox 360 died earlier this year; after 5 years it finally got the Red Ring of Death. That happened right around the release of Mass Effect 3… which I planned on playing on my 360. Instead of continuing my game, I was forced to start a new game on the computer [since I didn’t replace my 360]. I still haven’t made it all the way through the game. School was more important at the time, and I haven’t bothered getting back into it. I’m still looking into replacing my 360, but I’m not sure how I want to go about it. I could buy a cheap refurbished one, or I could take the plunge and buy one of the 360 Slims. I don’t know which I would rather do… that and I’d have to save up for the Slim. Getting a refurbished 360 would be much cheaper, but it runs the risk of getting another RROD. Whereas, if I picked up a Slim it would be more expensive, but I shouldn’t have to worry about the system dying for a while, and I would have more hard drive space. I would also have to buy the transfer cable to copy the stuff from the HD in my old 360 to the Slim. Also, it’s getting to the point that new systems should be released soon. I think I’ll probably just end up with a refurbished one.
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Diablo 3 came out in May. This is one game I’ve waited a long time for. I only played through the original Diablo a few times, but I can’t tell you how many times I played through Diablo 2, or how much time I spent farming bosses and the Secret Cow Level with friends.
I’ve heard mixed reviews about D3, personally I love it. It still has that old Diablo/Diablo 2 feel, but there are new features that give it a slight touch of MMO. The skill bar is the biggest one that I can think of; instead of having just the mouse clicks for attacks there is now the 1-5 buttons that you can assign skills to. There are five to choose from; the Barbarian [melee, physical], Demon Hunter [ranged, physical], Monk [melee, physical/magic], Witch Doctor [ranged, physical/magic], and Wizard [ranged, magic]. Unlike Diablo 2’s max level of 99, the level cap in Diablo 3 has been limited to 60, who knows if Blizzard plans on raising that in the future [with or without an expansion]. 
The stash starts out small [7 blocks x 2 blocks], but is expandable [up to 7 blocks x 10 blocks] by purchase with gold. Then there are also 2 extra tabs that can be purchased with the same amount of space. The stash is also bound to your account, not the characters, there is no more needing friends to hold a game open to transfer items between characters. I’m not sure which is my favorite, but the two I’ve played the most is my Demon Hunter followed by a pretty even balance between the Barbarian, Monk, and Witch Doctor. I think I’ve only invested about 5 minutes into the Wizard so far, but I’ll play that more eventually. Blizzard added a new mode. In Diablo and Diablo 2 there was Normal, Nightmare, and Hell… now there is also Inferno. My Demon Hunter is the only character that I have made it to Inferno with so far. All I have to say about Inferno is that the elite mobs make all of Hell mode look like a cake walk. Some of them are comparable to [mini] raid bosses in MMOs. 
Blizzard also replaced the Secret Cow Level that was in Diablo 2. In Diablo 3, the secret level is Whimsyshire… the land of flowers, rainbows, teddy bears, and unicorns; all of which are out to kill you… well, except the rainbows – they’re just pretty. The map is amazing, it looks like a little kid drew it. Once again, all the maps in game are randomly generated, so things aren’t going to be in the same place every time.
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I stepped away from Diablo 3 this past weekend because I participated in the Guild Wars 2 Beta. I played the first game a bit, but at the time I started playing the first Guild Wars, I was already playing [and enjoyed] World of Warcraft more and I just stopped playing Guild Wars. From what I got to play in the beta, there are a lot of new concepts… but there’s only so far you can go with a MMO.
I would have played more, but I wasn’t home all weekend, and the beta did not like running properly on my laptop… so I left it to when I was at home and could use my desktop. 
The story is interesting, the way it plays out is you are the hero, and every NPC knows it, when you create a character you give it background which changes how some NPCs interact with you [what god you worship, if you were noble or a street rat, etc]. Some of the chat sequences are a little like cut-scenes, it says they’re still a work in progress. It’s interesting and gives the game a bit of a single-player feel. Combat is cool, there’s the typical combat but there is also an interesting concept called “downed-state” [if you lose all your health]. Instead of dying right away, you go into a downed-state. In a downed-state you can fight using 4 skills [different from the typical class skills] that will do damage and help fill the bar, there is a chance you can survive if you manage to fill up the downed-state bar, otherwise [if it’s depleted] you die and have to respawn at a checkpoint. Other players can also come to you and help revive you while you are in the downed state. There is no tagging mobs for exp/loot. If someone is attacking a mob and you stop and help, you will get a little exp and possibly some loot. I don’t know if it cuts into their loot/exp table from the mob or not, but it’s nice to get a bonus for helping random people.
The attack buttons are pre-defined to the numbers above the alphabet on the keyboard, and I can’t find a way to change them [one thing I did in WoW was reassign some skill buttons to other keys that were easier to get to]. The first 5 skills [1-5] are based on what weapon you are using, and every weapon has a different set of skills. When you get a new weapon, you only have the first attack available. As you use a weapon more, you become more experienced with it and unlock the second skill, then the third, etc. Skill 6 is your self-heal skill, every class has one, there are no healers/dps/tanks. You have to keep yourself alive [use your skills, heal, and double tap directions to dodge]. Skill 7-0 are based on your class and what skills you chose with skill points.
I didn’t get into crafting this time [just disassembling gear for materials], maybe if there is another beta I’ll get a chance to mess with that more. You can disassemble weapons, armor, and some other things to generate the crafting materials, which is neat. You can also collect materials throughout the world [mining, herb gathering, and something else I can’t remember]. The bank is account wide, so if you put an item in on one character and hop to another, you can withdraw it from the bank on that character. The bank also has a separate tab that stores specifically crafting materials, so they don’t take up bank/bag space. I really like that, cause every time I upgraded gear, I disassembled the old gear for mats and my bag/bank would fill up very quickly.
The world is massive, and as far as I can tell, there are no mounts to ride. There are waypoints you can discover and instant-travel to for money, but if you’re always doing that you will miss out on experience and world events that happen all the time in random places. The art is pretty cool, landscapes and creatures are cool looking, yet another reason to run and explore. There is also exploration [jumping] puzzles that will reward you if you find/reach the end [I got an extra skill point from one, and a better weapon from another]. I haven’t had any official groups/parties, just a few with NPCs in the starting areas and the world event auto-group thing. The auto-group thing doesn’t actually form a group/party, but if a few people are doing tasks for an event [ie – protect a farm from bandit invasion (kill bandits & ruin their morale)] and one person completes part, everyone working on that event gets credit. Overall, Guild Wars 2 something I’m going to keep my eye on and play any beta I get into.
Life’s Journey…
Hmm… three posts to cover 2011? This blog has not turned into what I originally intended. I was thinking a post a month at the very least would be good. Oh well… it is what it is, I guess.
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I had a fantastic time camping with my friends back in June. It’s been a while since I had gone camping. We stayed at the Wakins Glen campground Friday night through Sunday morning.
Friday night after everyone had finished setting up, we spent hanging around the camp site – drinking, talking, & playing card games.
We spent a chunk of Saturday walking the gorge. Of course I took my camera; my friends got a little annoyed with how long I was taking… but being a photographer, I couldn’t help but stop to take pictures. I was taking a lot of long shutter speed pictures and multiple exposures for HDR images. After walking around the gorge for a while we went back to camp; we made some new friends that were there camping across the way from us.
After that a group of us went out on wine tasting. I didn’t do any tastings, because I decided to drive. When we got back from the tasting tour, we went back to our new friends’ camp site and spent the evening partying.
When I had finished post-processing my photos and posted them, most of the people that had complained about me taking so long responded with something like, “I see what took so long, good thing you didn’t rush. These are some gorgeous shots!”
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I spent the fourth of July with a bunch of friends; there was a BBQ at Katie’s house. That night we drove to the city to watch the fireworks. I made my first attempt at taking photos of fireworks and think I did rather well. After watching the fireworks we made our way back to Katie’s.
Most of the group was ready to head to bed, so they left. Katie and I decided we wanted to watch Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog.
After that night, Katie and I started hanging out on a daily basis, up from our once every month or so. We started geocaching & going on all sorts of adventures together.
Katie and I went on our first date on July 19th; we took a day trip to Niagara Falls. She likes to think that she asked me out… in all honesty, she kind-of did, but I like to think of it as a joint effort [haha]: I mentioned that I still needed to get up to Niagara Falls so I could take pictures; she said that she wanted to go up there again soon, and said we should go together. One of us [I don’t remember who] made the semi-joking comment, “It’s a date.” Well, that semi-joking comment made us think, is it really a date-date or was it just a date we had set to go?
On the 19th, I drove out to Katie’s and we packed up lunch and snacks for a picnic, then left for Niagara Falls. After walking around for a while [and me stopping repeatedly for photos], Katie poked fun at me & told me that she was going to make me an “I break for photos” patch for my camera bag [which I’m still waiting for, lol]. After we had been there a while we began talking about what there was between us… were we just awesome friends, or was there more? Shortly after that, we made our relationship official.
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In August, I had my first legit paid photography gig – a wedding vow renewal. It was a bit nerve-racking, but it was my first paid gig, and it was a wedding. At least it wasn’t their first wedding [not to make it sound that the renewal wasn’t important], so it wasn’t as stressful as if I was in charge of getting all the pictures perfect or suffer the wrath of the family. They also understood that I was new to the events/portrait photography. It was a great experience and even though it was stressful, it was a lot of fun. I think I still prefer landscape/nature photography though.
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Katie and my next great adventure together was the Sterling Renaissance Festival, we went with our friends Kat and Shannon. They managed to get me in a kilt. Not that it was very hard, I think it went something like: Katie- “I want to see you in a kilt before we leave.” Kat & Shannon- “Yes!” Me- “I was thinking about checking them out anyways, but ok… if you insist.”
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My 10-year high school reunion was in August of 2011. I had some car problems and almost couldn’t go due to repair costs, but then I suggested being an unpaid photographer in exchange for free admission & got in to the reunion that way. It was cool seeing everyone again, even though I didn’t talk to most of them back in high school.
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Katie and I attended Uproar Festival 2011 with a bunch of friends… that was a great day. All day at the Darien Lakes Performing Arts Center listening to a bunch of great bands while hanging out with some awesome people. Katie and I ended up taking almost the same picture, just a slightly different angle, and I edited mine a little.
Last year was the first time I’ve dressed up for Halloween in a few years. Katie and I dressed up as Desmond Miles and Lucy Stillman from Assassin’s Creed.
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Katie’s little brother needed his senior pictures done, and her parents requested my services to take said portraits. Because of this, I ended up picking up my second paid photo gig.
We started off by doing a bunch of the traditional shots, where Katie was helping with getting Tommy into the positions that they wanted for indoor & outdoor shots. After we had finished with the traditional sets, Tommy and I screwed around and got a few fun pictures of him with his dirt bike.
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One of my instructors at school invited me to pick up my third paid photo job. There was an event at the Phelps Art Center where Stan Munro, the creator of Toothpick City was at the center giving a demo for some kids & there was a reception after.
It was a lot of fun & great getting to meet Stan. I had been to the Phelps Art Center a few times before to look at & take pictures of the display. It’s amazing what he’s done with just toothpicks & Elmer’s Glue.
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I have started playing video games a bit more again: Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Battlefield 3, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, and Red Dead Redemption [Katie got me this for Christmas].
I honestly haven’t played a ton of Assassin’s Creed. Between Katie, school, & Battlefield 3 – I didn’t have enough time to invest and get caught up in the story. Maybe I’ll hit it up some more later this week.
Battlefield 3, ah… Battlefield. I have heard friends say both good and bad things about BF3. All-in-all, it’s pretty much the same game as Bad Company 2. Sure, they’ve made it much prettier, added a few things here and there, and added a new physics engine… but it’s essentially the same game as every other FPS out there. Even so, I still enjoy the game immensely. It’s not a game I can spend days playing though, it gets too repetitive.
I was debating getting Skyrim, I’ve messed with most of the past Elder Scrolls games, but I never got very involved with them, I just got bored. Ever since I snagged Skyrim, most of my gaming-time is spent there. To say the game is amazing would be an understatement. The world is massive, there are tons of quests and things to be done. I have a level 37 Orc warrior that focuses on bows & two-handed weapons. I started a mage & thief characters around the same time as my warrior, but the warrior was the only one that has really kept my interest.
Red Dead Redemption is another game I wasn’t sure if I wanted. It was neat and all, but I had played a bit at a friend’s and wasn’t very impressed. The lack of excitement probably stemmed from a few weeks after it was released, when a friend tossed me the controller to a game that he was half way through and didn’t give me much of the back-story or any real instruction about what I was supposed to do. Katie got it for me as a Christmas gift and my interest in the game perked up again. It’s a pretty good game, kind of like a GTA of the wild west.
Skyrim is still consuming most of my gaming time, which is hindering progress in the other three games… but they are coming along, slowly.
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This past semester at school went really well too. I took my first Photography class; it was all black & white film, and I loved it. As much as I enjoy digital, it’s a blast developing and printing photos. I also took Computer Imaging, which was loads of fun… even though a good chunk of it was review. I finished up the Design & Foundation Drawing class chain taking the second part of each. The last class I took the past semester was Ceramics I, I decided to take this so that I could make things that I can actually use in every-day-life now that the classes are done.
The other day I received a letter in the mail from school, I was worried that it might be an issue with billing or something. Luckily, it was to tell me that I was added to the Dean’s List this semester because my GPA was above 3.5!
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All that being said, I leave you with an inspirational video for the start of the year. ❤
The words in this video are from Dr. Seuss’s “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.
And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town. It’s opener there in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.
Oh! The Places You’ll Go!
You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.
You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.
I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.
You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.
You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And if you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.
No! That’s not for you!
Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing. With banner flip-flapping, once more you’ll ride high! Ready for anything under the sky. Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!
Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all. Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don’t. Because, sometimes, they won’t.
I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ‘cause you’ll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.
And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.
But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. On and on you will hike. And I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.
You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)
Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!
Minor Update for a Major Gap.
I can’t believe how long it’s been since I updated. I’ve been pretty busy with photography & school, that’s probably why I haven’t updated.
Back in January before classes started I went out to California again. That trip wasn’t for pleasure… I went out to visit and support my mom, while she had surgery. Everything went well, and she’s recovering relatively quickly. I wish I could have spent more time out there with her, but I had to get back for classes.
Right before school started, I quit World of Warcraft. It’s weird not playing, but it’s nice. I have more free time to do all the other things that I would put off because I was being lazy. I replaced WoW with more productive things like taking pictures, messing with Photoshop more, hanging out with friends, playing some of my Xbox 360 games I still haven’t finished [Dragon Age: Origins], catching up on movies/tv shows via Netflix. Ok, those last two aren’t so productive… but I can only sit in front of a computer messing in Photoshop for only so long, and I can only do so much with night pictures.
I spent time playing Battlefield 2: Bad Company again, I’ve missed that game and some of my friends have played it recently. Actually, it’s the same with Borderlands too… a few friends have messed with it on occasion the past couple of weeks and I’ve joined them a few times.
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This semester is going better than the past two… I’m enjoying my classes a lot more! My favorite classes are Design and Foundation Drawing. I love doing something for the class and not sitting there and listening to lectures. English is surprisingly good, even though the class is mainly lecture… Dr. T keeps the class interesting. It’s a bit small, so there’s not much discussion which kinda sucks. The one class I’m having the most problems with is Art History… I wish the professor was a bit more captivating.
I switched majors about two weeks into the semester; I went from Information Technology to Fine Arts. My school doesn’t have a Photography degree. Once I finish up my Fine Arts degree, I’ll be transferring to a school with a Photography degree. I’m thinking about doing a double major Photography/English or Photography/Journalism, but I haven’t decided. I guess it depends on where I want to go with the course my life has taken. I’m going to take some time and think about it, see where this semester leads.
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So… I stopped typing this update mid-March [saved a draft] and now resume it mid-April. I’m really slacking with the blogging thing this year… gotta work on that! >_<
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I have to reload my laptop after I get stuff backed up. Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 [64-bit] pulled a number on the system… most systems from what I’ve found online. It now takes 20-30 minutes from hitting the power button til I’m logged in and the machine is “ready” to run. I put ready in the quotations because even though the machine has booted… it takes about 10 times as long to do anything. I can’t even boot into my Ubuntu partition now, which is even more frustrating. This is what I get for being lazy and not reading up on any issues the Service Pack might have before I installed it. >_<
On a brighter note, it turns out the only thing wrong with my desktop is the RAM is fried. I thought there was more wrong with it… from what I could find online – I thought it was the motherboard or CPU. I’ll be replacing the RAM as soon as I can.
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I have to swing back out to main campus and drop off a form. Since I last worked on this post, I’ve decided that I am changing my major again… slightly: I’m going to do a double-major of Graphic Design & Fine Arts.
This semester has my first ever art classes [actual classes, not counting art in Kindergarten]. Andrea [my Foundation Drawing professor] is awesome… over the semester I’ve gotten to know her pretty well. She asked to see some of my photography when I mentioned how much positive feedback I was getting for just starting out. I brought my laptop in one day so that she could see some of my stuff. After she saw some of my work she told me I should start networking and she introduced me to Liz.
Kurt [Liz’s husband] is a professional photographer… Andrea told Liz that she liked my photography and she thought Kurt would be a good contact for me. Liz suggested I email Kurt and mention that Andrea & Liz and she had sent me to him. She also suggested asking about going to see his studio and meet up with him sometime. I’ve since heard back from him, Kurt invited me to come and sit-in at one of his shoots [should happen in the next few weeks]. He said he would email me once he had a date finalized… I can’t wait! ^_^
Andrea is also encouraging me to put some of the work I’ve done this semester in the Student Art show on campus. I’m my own worst critic… I know this. I don’t feel like any of my stuff is good enough, but a lot of that is because I’m comparing my work to extremely talented artists that have done it for a long time. She pointed out two things that she thinks I should put in the show; I probably will enter them. What’s the worst that can happen? They tell me I need more practice? I’ll be practicing either way. I also have to look into if I can submit stuff that wasn’t done for class… if I can – I’m going to submit some of my photos.
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I think that’s enough for today. It’s late and I was up most of the night last night and I had class early this morning… time to kick back and watch some Netflix before bed.
Absence.
It’s been a while… I’ll keep this update short and focused on games. The reason for the lack of posts is because I got caught up with projects & homework for school, not to mention Thanksgiving & Christmas.
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Deathengine went as a farmer for Halloween [erm… Hallow’s End].
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm came out the beginning of December. I have mixed feelings about this release… mostly due to the quest related issues I’ve been having. Deathengine has been bugged since day one; only half the quests in each of the new zones have not been available to him [with the exception of Twilight Highlands]. There’s one faction I can’t gain any reputation with because the quest line was cut off before I started gaining any reputation.
The new zones are absolutely beautiful. Blizzard put a lot of detail into the new areas. In my opinion, one of the most stunning [as well as the most annoying] zones is Vash’jir… the underwater zone.
Heroic dungeons have gotten an interesting upgrade… they’re like mini-raids. Groups really have to pay attention to what they’re doing in order to succeed. If you get into a dungeon, you’re usually hoping there’s enough crowd control for the run [or a good enough tank/heals/dps to make up for the lack of crowd control].
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I was debating dropping my Blood [tank] spec on Death for a Frost [DPS] spec.. but I already have my Unholy spec for DPS… what’s the point of two DPS specs? In the end I kept the Blood spec and have started gathering gear here and there so I can tank instances. He currently has enough gear to tank normals, but I don’t think he’s even close to being ready for tanking heroics. Right now he’s dual-wield Unholy, but someone was saying yesterday that Blizzard wants Unholy to use tw0-handed weapons and are looking at making DW less viable. If that’s the case I’m going to have to get another two-handed weapon for DPSing. I’m working on Archaeology right now, and looking to get Zin’rokh, Destroyer of Worlds. I still have a few other pieces that need upgrading too, my helmet and relic are kind of pathetic. I had the best-in-slot [pre-raid] helmet swiped from me by a healer the other day, annoying. Now I’m doing guild-only runs whenever possible.
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My guild wants to get started with raiding soon, I’ve only raided with them once or twice so far back in Wrath of the Lich King. From what I’ve seen… most players that are the “Casual” rank don’t get to raid with them which bothered me. Once discussions started about raiding, I noticed I was promoted to the rank of “Raider”. Needless to say, I can’t wait… of course I know it’s going to be lots of wipes until everyone gets the fights down [that’s gonna be expensive].
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I also picked up Dragon Age: Origins again, strictly because I haven’t finished it yet. I’m slowly working my way through that. It’s still not great, but decent… and it’s something I need to finish. I played it maybe two days before I needed a break… can you tell how much I like the game? I don’t normally trade games in, but that’s one that I’m pretty sure I will.
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A few friends and I are looking to set up a Dungeons and Dragons: Midnight campaign. Hopefully we’ll be starting it later this month. We’ve got to meet up at some point to set up our characters before we can start the game though. Hopefully we’ll be able to do that sometime soon, otherwise we might not get to start the campaign til February.
Walking the paths set before me.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I got caught up between school, gaming, and nurturing a new passion. What’s gone on the past two months you ask? I’ll tell you!
Since we last parted, I have made a little progression with Deathengine. He now has the Fiery Warhorse, as well as the Kingslayer title. I’m still running Zul’Gurub [still trying for the mounts] before Cataclysm is released… but I’m not getting my hopes up. I’m also in the process of farming gold & Emblems of Frost so I can continue on the Shadowmourne quest chain. I’m still on the first step [The Sacred and Corrupt], I need to get another 16 Primordial Saronite. At the very least, I want to complete this section of the chain so that I can get my hands on Shadow’s Edge.
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I picked up Battlefiled: Bad Company 2 for the Xbox 360. I’ve unlocked almost everything; all I have left to unlock is the last weapon in the Assault class. 
I enjoy the Recon class the most… give me a sniper rifle and I’ll go to town.
I also picked up Halo: Reach. I finished Legendary in co-op mode, & I have one mission left to complete in solo campaign. A few of my friends and I are really enjoying Firefight lately, we will set up a game that lasts hours. The last game we set up was 10 sets, I don’t remember what difficulty we played on… but it took almost 2 hours! [click here for my Reach stats]
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I have continued with the photography, although I’ve taken a few breaks due to school & games. One of my best friends moved back from Florida a month or so ago. We haven’t gotten to hang out too much, 
but the last time we hung out; she brought her puppy over and I ended up taking quite a few photos of her.
Indiana is a beautiful dog. She has gorgeous eyes and no problem whoring herself to the camera! I’m sure I’ll get plenty more opportunities to take photos of her.
I went to Watkins Glen over the weekend for a hike. We hiked from the top of the gorge to the bottom and stopped for lunch. After lunch we went back up to the top and made one last trip back down to the bottom. We did about five miles total during the hike.
Normally five miles wouldn’t phase me, but that’s talking five miles on a flat surface. Damn, all those hills & steep inclines made things interesting! I was a little sore on Monday after the hike.
I want to get a better camera now, I would like a Digital SLR. I was looking at a few online… I found two that I want [one or the other], the Canon EOS 5D Mark II or the Canon EOS 60D. I just have to figure out where I’m going to get the extra $2500+ for the 5D Mark II or $1000 for the 60D. I’ll probably go for something more like the 60D for now… just have to find an “affordable” one!
Don’t get me wrong, I love my camera [Nikon Coolpix L18, for those of you that are wondering]. For being a basic point & click machine, it does a very good job. I just want to be able to mess with all the settings, not just the preset ones that came with mine. I can’t change the shutter speed on my camera… also, there is no manual focus, this makes me sad.
So far all I’ve done nature photography and some sets of domestic animals. I would like to do a bit of photography with people as well, nothing major… unless I’m mysteriously amazing at it. I’m not sure how I would go about photographing a person, model specifically. 
I prefer to capture the moment and not script something [IE – set up a photo-shoot with wardrobe/theme].
I was thinking about it last night [technically Wednesday morning, about 4am while lying in bed awake… again]. I got thinking about different friends that I think could model & one person jumped out to me.
So Wednesday morning after I woke up [around 11am] & mulled things over a bit, I sent her a message on Facebook running the idea by of her doing a photo-shoot with me. I know it wouldn’t be anything professional [obviously], but I let her know what I had thought about.
I can’t say I was really expecting her to jump at the idea, seeing as we haven’t really talked in about four years and it was out-of-the-blue. I was surprised by a very enthusiastic response!
She asked me why had thought of her before anyone else. Honestly, that’s a good question, I’m not even sure why. She just popped into my mind when I started thinking about who would be a good person to do a photo-shoot with, who I felt would be an ideal match for the step into the world of photographing models.
Anyways, we are now in the process of trying to decide more of the specifics of what kind of photo-shoot we want to do. In a way, I wish I had some sort of studio so I could practice the indoor “staged” shots. But at the same time I’m glad I don’t have a studio, I’d rather avoid the prefabricated look. 
We will probably end up doing our photo-shoot outside. It’s a great time of year to do an outdoor set, with the leaves changing and all… even though its freaking cold out.
As soon as we have everything decided and we have free time, we’ll do a set and see how things go. If we think there’s possibility there, we’ll probably set up future shoots to do. With the way things have gone lately, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we did multiple sets.
I should ask around if any of my other friends wants to do a photo-shoot. Although, I’m not sure who I would ask. The biggest reason I mentioned it to my one friend is because of how she just popped into my head when I started thinking about it. If I do end up talking to more friends about doing a photo shoot… worst case scenario, we’ll end up with stupid pictures to post on Facebook. Who knows, maybe someone will even end up with a new profile picture!
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I stopped in at school today to see an adviser about possibly changing my major. Because I went in without an appointment, I was only able to speak with one of the lowbie-advisers, oh well. Information Technology is seeming less and less desirable of a job lately. As much as I enjoy computers & technology, I don’t know if I want a career that’s focused on that. I’ve hated not knowing what I want to do for a career. Even when I finally chose IT, I wasn’t entirely thrilled about it. Yeah, it’s interesting… but all I’m interested in is stuff I’m planning on doing to my computer[s] & network[s]…
I have a meeting with the head career-adviser at school on Thursday. I’m thinking about switching my major over to something a bit more photography-oriented, possibly photo-journalism.
The more pictures I take [especially of nature], the more I think about photography as being a career… like working for National Geographic! That would rock!
Primordial Saronite
Expansion.
I’ve decided to expand this blog beyond just a gaming blog & include a little more insight into my life… how much insight will be given has yet-to-be decided. I will continue with my thoughts & ramblings about the games I play, so don’t worry.
I added a new menu in the top right [the idea came from looking at the layout at Keep Me Running Wild]. It has a mouse-over drop down function [just for the Gaming and Life tabs: as I create more posts this feature will be more useful] that has different categories available if you would like to focus on something specific.
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Still no luck with any of the mounts I was attempting to get on Deathengine. But I only tried for about another week before I went on vacation. I spent the first two weeks of July out in California visiting fiends & family. I took my laptop with me & actually ended up playing more games than I wanted to… leveling alts mostly. I also had a problem with my debit card shortly after I got out there, so I had no money to go and do anything for most of the time I was on vacation. My brother took me to the shooting range where I got to shot a few different guns [for the first time]. I want an AR15 now, heh.
I went to the beach for the first time in a long while. I love the beach & miss being able to go there regularly, I can’t wait til I can move back out to Cali.
There were many barbecues while I was out there. I had a great time hanging out with friends & family. Thankfully, I managed to make it into San Francisco one day and meet up for lunch with a friend I haven’t seen in a few years.
I played disc golf with my family while I was out there. It was, odd… but fun. After I got back, I picked up some disks so that I can play with some friends around here. So far we haven’t been able to get out and play a game, our schedules keep clashing; hopefully we’ll get a game going soon.
When my brother took me to the airport for my return flight, he kept poking at me to stay… I was almost to the point of not returning. If any of my nieces or nephew had been there & even mentioned the thought of not leaving, I probably would have not gotten out of the car & told my brother to drive back home.
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Since I got back, I’ve invested more of my gaming-time into the 360 & finishing a few games that still needed work. I managed to finish Mass Effect 2. I forgot how much fun that game is, I’ve already started a second-play through. My first run I went through as a Paragon. For some reason I always play the “good-guy” when I play games that give me the option to be “good” or “evil”. My second play-through I’m playing as a Renegade… it’s time to change things up.
Two of my friends just got Borderlands, so I started playing that again, I forgot how much fun that game is. I’m debating getting new Downloadable Content for it, I already have Zombie Island. There’s a DLC that increases the level cap to 61… I might pick it up. I’ve been messing around with a Soldier and a Hunter lately, levels 19 and 26 respectively. I might wait to pick up the DLC until I get those up to the current level cap [50], or at least close to it.
I haven’t played much more of Final Fantasy XIII, I was too preoccupied with finishing ME2. Now that I’ve finished that I’m going to invest a little more time in FFXIII & get that finished up as well.
I still have to finish a few other 360 games & will be doing that over time. And other than Halo: Reach, there aren’t any more console games that I’m very interested in picking up [at least at the moment], so I can catch up on all the other ones I slacked off at.
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Since I got back, I haven’t played much World of Warcraft. I’m probably going to take another small break from it again, at least until Cataclysm is released. If I don’t take a full-on-break, I’m definitely will be cutting down on my time spent in WoW. Saturday was the first time I’ve logged into WoW for more than 30 seconds… not to mention it was only the third time I’ve logged in since I got back. It had been so long since I played a computer game, let alone WoW & Deathengine that it took some getting used to again, haha. It probably didn’t help that I was really tired from spending the day walking around Park Ave Fest.
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I started doing a little more photography & messing around in Photoshop. I don’t have a ton of new stuff, but a few things, they’re up on my DeviantArt page.
It’s been a long time since I’ve done any sort of photography, photo manipulation, or digital-art. I really need to get back into it. I’m not phenomenal or anything, but I do have my moments. I’ll only get better if I practice.
I went to see Inception yesterday [now that it’s 1am] with a friend. That was an intense flick. Good thing I went with a buddy, we had to bounce ideas off each other after the film ended. One of those films that really make you think, & I love movies like that.
I also saw Kick-Ass with some other friends. That was definitely not what we were expecting. We didn’t pay much attention to the trailers or rating. We didn’t know much about that one other than the talk about how the movie was awesome and it was some sort of super-hero wannabe movie.
I feel your Icy Touch…
Has it really been almost a month since I updated? Wow, apparently I’ve been busier than I realized. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised… between work, school, homework, a concert, & a rave I kinda ran out of time. Haven’t had a ton of time for gaming, but I made sure to still get in a little bit.
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It’s been a few weeks since I’ve played Final Fantasy XIII. I got a bit further into the game & got a chance to mess with an Eidolon, they are pretty slick. Unfortunately I can’t remember enough to include a lot of info about them in this post, it’s been a while since I’ve played the game.
From what I do remember though, when a Eidolon is summoned the party members other than the one that summoned it are “dismissed” until the Eidolon leaves the fight, like they did in Final Fantasy X. One of the differences this time around is that the character that summoned the Eidolon will attack along with it. The Eidolon can also transform into a vehicle of sorts for the summoner to ride on & do team attacks.
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A week or so after my last post I hit 80 on Deathengine. The second Heroic I ran after hitting 80 was The Culling of Stratholme. We managed to make it through the instance fast enough to fight the timed boss [Infinite Corrupter], I was the only person who had not gotten the Reins of the Bronze Drake. Fresh 80 and an epic flight mount… now I just had to save up for the epic flying.
I was surprised when my third Oculus run I was awarded with the Reins of the Blue Drake [see picture to the left] from the bag of gems awarded at from the chest at the end of the instance.
With the help of Dungeon Finder & random Heroics, I managed to save up enough emblems to buy the full Tier 9 DPS set for him. He is almost fully decked out in epics as well. I believe his cloak is the only thing left to upgrade from Heroics. I hope to get in an occasional raid with my brothers & friends so that I can upgrade his gear further.
Just a few days ago [about three weeks after hitting 80], I managed to save up the 5,000 gold needed to buy epic flying. I was finally able to use the two Drake mounts I had won in the previous instances.
I also decided I wanted to try a dual-wield Frost/DPS spec for him without giving up his current Unholy/DPS spec. Luckily I had purchased the Dual Talent Specialization a while back in case I wanted to tank with him. I have yet to get decent tanking gear, so the Frost/DPS spec was quite viable! I’m pulling roughly the same DPS in both specs.
The Frost spec I’m using is a bit more enjoyable because I don’t have that annoying ghoul following me around. OK… you got me… I enjoy them both the same. It’s just when running in the Frost spec I don’t have to wait for my minion to be re-summoned each time I dismount [and that animation can get annoying if you’re mounting a lot, ie- farming]. o.O
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I have also since transferred Stasís over to Silvermoon from Staghelm. Pretty much everyone I ever played with on Staghelm has quit the game. It’s a good thing I never transferred Texhnolyze from Silvermoon to Staghelm, huh? lol
She is in the same gear as she was the last time I posted about her.
I ran a few Heroics with her shortly after I transferred her over. I have to learn how to play Mage again, my DPS was not that great [not bad, but not great].
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Between Deathengine and Stasís, I managed to save up enough emblems to buy some of the Bind-on-Account gear. I now have a level 12 Priest that has the BoA chest, shoulders, and staff. I’m thrilled about the 20% experience boost from the [chest & shoulder] BoA gear, it makes leveling so much easier! I also purchased a set of shoulders for my Rogue. He is level 16 so far. I’ll get him a BoA chest piece once I have enough emblems saved up. I will be messing with my two new characters on a semi-regular basis [as far as my WoW time goes].
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I made an account on Chess.com and have been playing Chess with a few friends from work. I haven’t played Chess in over 12 years, so I’m not all that great, but I’m learning again. It’s quite fun, and really nice because there is a Chess.com Application for my phone [HTC Hero, Android OS]. We usually play with a 24 hour limit [to make your next move]… but the games are only last a few days [at most].
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I have a few new projects at school, so I’m going to have even less time to game the next week or so. So far all my classes are going well, but I’m doing better than I expected! Being out of school for five-ish years & I have a full-time job on top of full-time school has made things difficult, but I’m managing. 🙂
Spring break…? Not entirely.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Why assign projects to do over spring break? I thought the reason for spring break was to give us a break… guess not. Still working on finishing up my movie research paper, having more trouble finding articles I can use than I had originally anticipated. I don’t have a ton more to do, I’ll have it finished tomorrow. I’m definitely taking a break to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with some friends though
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I did a little bit of instance grinding with Deathengine yesterday [Tuesday] afternoon. I managed to snag a few upgrades and hit level seventy-eight, go me! Since level seventy-three I’ve been strictly instance leveling with him, time between instance pops I’m spending leveling professions & generally screwing around. Cooking & Fishing are both almost three hundred, JewelCrafting is going to be a bit harder to level since I picked up Skinning as my second major profession. I can always farm up the materials I need on Texhnolyze. I picked Skinning because it’s extremely easy to level & I can use it as my gold “farming” profession. Once I get a bit of savings, I will most likely be swapping Skinning to Enchanting.
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Hrm, so I started this entry yesterday thinking I would come back to this post last night before I passed out. Didn’t happen, I was out until 2AM with my two best friends… even though I had work at 7AM. It was St. Patrick’s Day though, not a regular event.
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I busted out a bit more Final Fantasy XIII the other day as well. At first I wasn’t sure what I thought about the combat system. I’m really starting to like it though, it’s a bit more of a challenge than any other combat system that has been used in Final Fantasy games. One of the things that bothers me though is if the main character [Lightning] gets Knocked Out, the game ends: you are given the choice to restart the battle or quit. Unlike other Final Fantasy games, every time you win a battle, all your character’s health is returned… this is handy.
Each character has a role it plays [Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Synergist, Saboteur, and Medic – I will discuss these a bit later]. The combination of roles you have set for characters is called a Paradigm. You can have up to six Paradigms saved and can switch between them at any point via the menu or Paradigm Shift during combat.
There is another new feature I’m a huge fan of, Stagger. On the top right of the screen there’s a bar, and two percents displayed. The first percent is based on the damage & attacks you do to your current target, the second number is that target’s Stagger point. As you do damage, the Stagger bar fills up. When no damage is being done though, the Stagger bar drains to zero. Once the target hits the Stagger point they go in to a Stagger State for a limited amount of time & the damage you do to them goes up… a lot. From what I can tell, the damage increases the higher the you get the Stagger percent to. An example of the difference in damage would be something like this; at my current point in-game, characters are doing anywhere between 50 and 150 normal damage, once a target has been staggered I’ve hit things for almost 2500.
Role Discussion:
Commando: Uses physical damage slowing the rate of Stagger decay and does a medium-high amount of damage.
- This Role is key for building up the Stagger bar since without a Commando, the bar empties fairly quickly.
Ravager: Uses magic based attacks [Fire, Blizzard, etc] that do a low-medium amount of damage, but does a lot of percentage to the Stagger bar.
- Very effective in building up the Stagger bar, especially when combined with a Commando’s slowing the Stagger decay rate.
- After the Stagger point is reached, Ravagers keep the Stagger percentage going up which increases all the damage done to the target.
Sentinel: Taunt the target into attacking them while using defensive skills to take less damage.
- Essentially the tank, they make sure no one else in the party gets hit.
- Sentinels don’t do any damage.
Synergist: Buff the other party members with spells like Shell, Barrier, and Brave.
- Status Buffs for party members help them absorb damage, do more damage, and other things.
- Synergist only Buff the party, they don’t attack.
- I wouldn’t recommend having a character set to be a Synergist the whole fight. Swap them in when your party needs Buffs re-applied.
Saboteur: Debuff the target with spells such as Deshell and Bio.
- Debuffs decrease a target’s armor, magic resistance, or do damage over time.
- Other than Bio, I don’t think Saboteurs do damage.
- I wouldn’t recommend leaving them in your party after the whole fight. Swap them back in if Debuffs need to be re-applied.
Medic: Well, this one is exactly what it sounds like… the medic. they use spells like Cure, Regen, Raise, and Esuna.
- Keeps everyone alive!
- If needed, raises KO’d party members.
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There is a different leveling system, the Crystarium which resembles the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. There is no experience rewarded after battle, instead you get Crystogen Points. Every character has multiple Crystarium [one for each Role] that you can distribute points into. Within the Crystarium are different abilities/spells you can unlock as well as more Strength, Health, or Magic.
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I have only unlocked one of the Summons, or “Eidolons” as they are called in this game. I haven’t gotten to use it yet though, as soon as I acquired it the game shifted from Snow back to the rest of the group.
So much to do, so little time!
One week until Final Fantasy XIII is released. I have to say, this is the first FF that I have really looked forward to since I was disappointed by FF VIII. Even though I enjoyed IX, I didn’t look forward to it at all.
From what I have seen, I don’t believe I am going to be disappointed with XIII. The Japanese trailer for FF XIII is located here and English trailer is located here.
I have my reserve paid off for the 360, as much as I would like to get it for the PS3 [one disk instead of three]. I don’t have a PS3, nor do I have the money to get one any time soon. At least I can burn [“install”] the disks to the 360, which will improve loading time.
I don’t know what is going to happen with Mass Effect 2 once I start playing FF XIII, I have a feeling it is going to be put aside until FF is done.
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I wish there was more time in the day. I have so many projects running at the same time… it’s getting difficult to juggle them all & remain productive. Studying for my two exams haven’t helped the process of being productive with anything else either. Then there is my research project… I have to watch & analyze the character interactions & communication in a movie of my choice. I chose American History X, it’s a great film, I love it. But analyzing all the character interactions isn’t exactly what I have in mind when sitting down to a movie.
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As an additional note on the Authenticator post the other day. If you do not have an authenticator attached to your account, and your account gets hacked… the person who hacked your account can easily put an authenticator on as soon as they have access to your account.
This happened just yesterday to one of my brothers. His account was hacked while he was at work. Our other brother was at home & online when one of the characters on the hacked account popped online. He tried to log on to the hacked account to change the password; whoever hacked the account attached an authenticator to the account. Luckily, Blizzard has restored [or is in the process of restoring] my brother’s account back to the state it was in before his account was hacked.
No more server hopping.. maybe.
I haven’t done a ton with Mass Effect 2 lately… it’s not one of those games I can just start and stop when I want. I get hooked in the story and don’t want to stop playing. I’ve had too much homework to take any real-time to dedicate to it. Hoping one of the next few weekends prove to be more viable for a bit of time spent progressing through it.
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I still haven’t finished Assassin’s Creed or started AC2. I’m debating if I’ll ever finish it, I might just start the second and skip out on the last bit of the first. I’d rather not though, but with school and starting up World of Warcraft again, I don’t know if I’ll ever have the desire to finish Assassin’s Creed.
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Speaking of WoW…. my brothers started playing again a week or so ago. They refused to start on another server or transfer, and my friends and I were already set on Staghelm and we didn’t plan on moving.
I guess it’s a good thing I never transferred my Paladin [Texhnolyze] to Staghelm. Even though I don’t play him anymore. I’ve fallen in love with the Death Knight and Mage, I’ve spent all my time playing on one of those two.
I’m also messing around with a new Rogue a little bit; my brothers, one of my nephews, and I all started new characters together. We’re staying relatively the same level so we can group up for quests and instances together.
I have gotten stuck server hopping so I can play with my best friends and my brothers before. I hate server hopping, I’m bad enough with alts on a single server…
But as it stands now, it looks like all my real-life friends that I play WoW with are leaving the game “for good.” If they do stop playing though, I will be going back to playing on Silvermoon “full-time” [as much as I can without screwing up school and work], which will be nice: no more server hopping. Also, if they stop playing, I *will* be transferring my Mage [Stasís] over to Silvermoon. I wonder if I can convince them to toss me any extra gold & spare mats before they stop playing [haha, doubtful]!
I’m also debating swapping Authenticators for WoW. I have one of the key-chain ones, but I also have the HTC Hero that runs the Android OS. Now there is the Authenticator application available for download on the Android Market. I always have my phone on me, I don’t always have the key-chain Authenticator with me.
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I really wish I could go to PAX East this year, really I want to go to any PAX. I’ve never been to a gaming convention. Unfortunately due to obligations, finances, school, & work… actually getting to go is not gonna happen, again.
Free time, time to continue.
Classes are burning a lot more time than I originally thought they would. I’m sure after I get into the swing of being back in school, things will even out and I’ll be able to game a bit more.
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I haven’t gotten to play a ton of Mass Effect 2 yet [only two, maybe three hours]… but from what I have played, wow. Especially that beginning sequence.
There are still some issues with bump map loading that existed in the first, but it’s nowhere near as frequent.
They tweaked the combat system slightly. I think the changes they made are a nice improvement, it’s a lot more fluid.
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I’ve renewed my World of Warcraft account again. I’m not playing on Silvermoon anymore, at least not as my main server. I started playing on Staghelm again, up and running with some real life friends.
Stasís is now 80, and has full Tier 9 gear, and epics from random heroics. She still has two blues equipped [cloak & a trinket], but that’s only because I haven’t found replacement gear yet [or gotten enough badges to exchange for upgrades].
Played a bit last night, decided to tank a few instances on my Death Knight [Iscariott, 61] just so I could avoid the fifteen minute [or more] queue as DPS. According to every group I got into, I’m really good at tanking compared to most other “low level” DKs. I stuck with a few people from the first group and did chain instances.
After a few runs, a Balance Druid that was three levels higher than me joined the group, almost immediately he complained that it was “another shitty DK tank.” Both the healer one of the DPS that was with us told him to shut-up because I was good compared to most DKs. He didn’t believe them at first, but after a few pulls, he admitted… “wow, a DK at this level that can hold agro, that never happens!”
I’m debating if I want to transfer my Paladin [Texhnolyze] over to Staghelm, or if I want to just leave him on Silvermoon. I might transfer him eventually, when I have more time and money.
Break…
I haven’t really been doing a ton of gaming the past few weeks, with being sick & the holidays. I still haven’t even gotten to start Assassin’s Creed 2.
l’ve thought about re-upping my WoW account, I’m not sure though. I’m going back to school, so I don’t want to pay for an account I might not even use [or slack off in my classes because I’m distracted by WoW]. Some of my co-workers are starting to play, which i kinda pushing me more toward re-upping…
Did some interesting Sudoku puzzles at work.
We’ll see I guess. I’ve gotten really good at keeping on task when I could be gaming, so I might give it a shot.
My other brother and nephew are now both playing Modern Warfare 2 as well. I know a lot of time is gonna be burned in MW2 for a while.
And Mass Effect 2 comes out later this month, I want to play that too.
Too many games, to little time!
Happy Holidays!
Hope everyone is having a good & happy holiday season!
Just a minor update for me today… thanks to Christmas, I’ve added a new game to my collection – Assassin’s Creed 2 [didn’t fully expect that one from my dad, heh]. Now I have to finish up the first AC so I can start AC2!
I decided to take a step back to a few games I still need to finish playing through today… Assassin’s Creed & Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Apparently in Assassin’s Creed, I only had three more people to assassinate, now I’m down to one. I can only deal with the repetitive quests so many times before I get annoyed.
I do enjoy the freedom to do the quests in whatever order I feel like. I’m not a huge fan of each city being sectioned off and being locked out until very late in the game… it’s not like an RPG where mobs in restricted areas are a higher levels, it’s the same guys you see everywhere else.
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I wasn’t nearly as far in Batman as I thought I was, when I started today, I had only made it about 45% of the way through the main story. Apparently I spent a lot more time exploring & looking for all the hidden things than I had originally believed.
The combat system in Batman, is pretty damn good… I’d say near flawless. There are times that you can issue a command [for example: counter] and Batman will either stop mid-movement and [sort of] transport to the enemy that was attacking, even if they’re a few feet behind him… or he’ll stand there like a statue and get hit. Now, the lack of response might just be today because of the low battery in my 360 controller.
There are minor problems within the game that I’ve noticed, but nothing that reduces the enjoyment of gameplay. I think other super-hero games [Spider-Man, Superman, etc.] need to take a lesson from Batman: Arkham Asylum.
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Tonight my brother and I finished the Delta section of Spec Ops in Modern Warfare 2 on Veteran. We now have only the Echo section remaining… which is going to be a pretty good challenge [not that the rest of Spec Ops wasn’t]. I’m kinda worried about doing Echo… in Alpha, Beta, Charlie, and Delta, the “Resistance” rating has varied from “Light” to “Medium” to “Heavy”… all three of the Echo Ops have a “Resistance” rating of “Massive.”
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I saw a new trailer for Mass Effect 2 today… I can’t wait. 😀
Forgetful me…
Well, it figures I would forget something in my last post. That’s what I get for posting when sleep deprived… overtime and a lack of sleep will do that to a person.
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I picked up Dragon Age: Origins for the 360. It’s a fairly simple game to get a hang of, that is, after you go through the process of customizing the look of your character… which could take a long while if you have OCD, like me. I figured I needed to be a little less OCD about the way my character looked after I took a good half hour making my character look just right, then deciding I didn’t like the way he looked any more about ten minutes into the game, deleted him, and remade him… with the almost the same results.
I have not played all of the origin stories, but of the ones I have played I only found 2-3 that actually peeked my interest. The Human Noble and both Dwarf Noble and Dwarf Commoner. I’ve mostly played my Dwarf Noble, but it seems I’m making better progress with my Human Noble because I have more of an understanding of the talent system and game-play.
It probably didn’t help my Dwarf Noble, who is a warrior, because I was using the Auto-Assign skills to all the party members [except my main character, who I was setting up to be the tank]. So, Alistair was being auto-setup to be the tank, just like I was specifically setting my Warrior. For a while I had to keep Alistair in my group because I didn’t have enough party members, there wasn’t enough DPS to kill things quickly. Things have picked up since I got other characters to replace Alistair.
My Human Noble on the other hand, who is also a warrior, is built more for the brute damage of a two-handed weapon. I’m also assigning the points for each party member instead of using the auto-assign. I let Alistair keep his tanking role, I wanted to try something a little more DPS oriented this time around.
My Dwarf Commoner on the other hand, is a Rogue. Naturally, Alistair has to keep the tanking role. I haven’t gone nearly as far with this character as I did with the my other two characters. I just finished the origin and “starting area” with this character.
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My brother and I have done quite a bit of the Spec Ops in Modern Warfare 2 over the weekend, yesterday, and today. We’re going through the whole thing on Veteran. So far, we’ve completed all of Alpha and Bravo, every mission except the last in Charlie, and the first 3 in Delta. I’ll just say, they’re lots of fun, and they can be challenging… especially those Juggernauts. Oooh, those Juggernauts… *shudder* they’re insane on Veteran. I haven’t played Spec Ops on any easier modes, but I’d imagine they’re a bit easier to kill. I’m almost dreading the last two Ops in the Echo section. That just seems like a suicide mission to me.
We need to take a break from the Spec Ops though. We’re missing the multiplayer versus [we haven’t touched versus since we started playing the Spec Ops]. Our favorite versus modes are mainly Team Deathmatch and Ground War.
Distractions…
Downtime at work can be fun… I’ve had a chance to work on my Sudoku skills. I managed to do this one the between yesterday and today, not bad if I say so myself. 🙂
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Hmm, I think I finished Fable II… I can’t quite recall at the moment now. Of course, if not, the reason being… better games. Also, Batman: Arkham Asylum is still sitting in the que to be finished, I’m picking at it on occasion. There are just so many games that catch my attention. I really need to work on completing a game before I start another.
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I have spent a lot of time playing Borderlands, although, I stopped playing Mordecai [the “Hunter”]. I started playing Lilith [the “Siren”]. When I started Lilith, I started playing online. I thought it was good before, it’s even better online, especially with friends! I don’t know why I even thought about playing that game solo. The only downside to playing online is people talk & it gets hard to hear what NPCs are saying in game.. you miss a bit of the story.
From what I’ve heard, there is another downside for playing online… but I have yet to experience it. The loot drops on the ground, anyone can grab it and leave the game for no reason. I’ve only ever played with friends, so I have yet to see that. My friends and I chose the drops based on what character we are playing and who it would benefit most.
When you distribute skill points properly, Lilith becomes vicious. I managed to get her to level 50 on her before I got Mordacai past 25. She becomes even more dangerous once you get her some nice weapons. I managed to get some pretty beastly weapons for her. She rips almost anything apart, even in 4 player games. There are a few areas that I need to find a weapon specific to the mobs in those areas.
I know I complained a little about the inventory system in my last post. It was annoying at first, but now that I’ve expanded it to 45 slots, it’s not as bad. And there’s a chance that it can expand even further, I just have to do all the quests in the second play-through: on the second play though, there’s only a chance you’ll get extra inventory space, so far out of 4 quests I’ve received 1 upgrade.
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Alas… Borderlands has been pushed to the back burner a bit. Modern Warfare 2 came out. *glee* I have been waiting for this game since the first Modern Warfare came out [not really, but you get the idea]. I borrowed my friend’s MW2 for Xbox 360 for a few days while he was at work, & I waited for it to be released on PC. For some reason, Steam didn’t release it for a few days after it was sold in stores. I played through the campaign on the 360 on Normal, and did a little bit of the Spec Ops missions, but I only did a few, and solo.
I’ve since installed MW2 on my PC and played through the campaign [yes, again] on Hardened. My brother and I are playing Multiplayer pretty much any time we are both on the PCs. We have yet to hit up any Spec Ops, probably sometime this weekend.
One thing that is slightly disappointing is how quickly people are hacking & cheating in the MW2 multiplayer. I’ve run into a few different forms of cheating that’s quite annoying. One of which any time I looked at an enemy [they were near the middle of my sight] my view would spaz out like I was having a seizure just in my arm and swinging the mouse all over [character would look around very fast in random directions until I was killed].
Then on top of that, there’s lag. Now, I know there’s bound to be issues with this due to playing online. But it pisses me off when I’m behind someone and toss a grenade at their feet, then unload a full clip into them because they didn’t die [grenade and every shot registers as a hit], only to have them turn around, sprint tot me, and knife me dead. Then when I watch the kill cam, from their view, stand there like a complete idiot staring at them. That’s just stupid.
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One thing I’ve determined… I need to get a new mouse. My gaming mouse broke about a month ago, I’ve been using some shitty Microsoft mouse for the past while. I also need to find some sort of desk-like surface for my keyboard & mouse. My PC is hooked up to my TV, I don’t have a monitor, I sit on my futon when playing games, it’s quite a hassle when trying to play fast paced games, such as MW2. Sitting with the keyboard on my lap & mouse on the futon next to me sucks. Haha, my own fault I guess. I decided to ditch the monitor & desk for the TV setup.
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I let my World of Warcraft account expire again. I’ll return eventually.. I’m sure. I just don’t see the point in paying for WoW when I’m not really playing it. I logged for a few hours a day or two before it expired and managed to get Deathengine to level 71. I’d like to be able to hit up some gaming with my other brother, but with the lack of desire to play WoW it kinda makes that difficult… he’s not going to be getting MW2 until sometime after the holidays.
I’m a gamer, no denying.
The past month or two my computer has been out of commission. Rather than fixing my PC right away, I decided I needed to take a small step a way from games (mainly World of Warcraft) and get out with my friends more. It’s difficult since I work in the morning/early-afternoon and most of them work in the mid-afternoon/evening, but it’s a lot easier since I stopped working overnights. Even with staying up “late” to hang with friends, I’ve been getting more sleep then when I was on overnights.
I dusted off my 360 to play some games that I left untouched, since I have some free time when everyone else is working. It’s a lot easier to pull away from games that don’t require more time (WoW- raids, endless grinding to level, etc).
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Finally finished up Mass Effect [the last 2-3 hours I skipped out on *sigh*], I think it had great story & excellent game play. My only concerns are the load screens/time, and some bump-mapping issues. Quite often it takes a second or more for the textures to load during scene changes [conversation sequences, doors opening, amongst others], and right after load screens. The inventory system could have use a bit of work as well… it felt a bit jumbled at times. Despite all the load screens & bump-mapping issues, Mass Effect is worth it. I plan on picking up the sequels.
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I’m still not too impressed with Fable II. I don’t find the story line very interesting, there are many load screens, & if you get a lot of NPCs in one area the game bogs down and gets jumpy, there are also bump-mapping issues at times as well. What really kept me playing the game was the achievements that would add points to my gamer-score, and the fact that I could just go around murdering whole villages or saving the entire countryside on a whim. I’m not sure if I’m gonna pick up Fable 3, we’ll see though… I’m hoping for improvements.
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I’m a big Batman fan, so Batman : Arkham Asylum was a natural choice. It’s pretty good, I still need to play more of the story, I got distracted doing the challenges (specifically the Scarecrow one that was downloadable). The story, graphics, and game play are all excellent from what I’ve seen. There are Challenges given by the Riddler throughout the game that you can solve for extra achievements & game completion if you enjoy that kind of thing, I know I do. That’s probably a big reason I haven’t beaten the game yet, I spend a lot of time “treasure” hunting.
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I’ve beaten Halo 3: ODST, the story line was interesting with the way they hopped between each of the squad’s stories. I was slightly disappointed in the difficulty of the Legendary mode, it seemed a lot easier than Halo 3. Since you’re not playing as Master Chief, I would think it should be more difficult without the over-shield and not being genetically enhanced.
Firefight is amazing. Although it has no random grouping functionality (like Halo 3 matchmaking). There have only been a few times I’ve actually had enough friends on at the same time to play and it be worth-while (and even then it’s only been 2… maybe 3 out of the [almost necessary] 4 possible). I would love to play it more, but in order to get far enough to make it worth while, my friends and I are going to have to make some sort of schedule for it.
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Borderlands… ah, Borderlands. Probably the best description I’ve heard about it is, “it’s like the Diablo games and the FPS had a baby.” I chose to start with Mordecai, the sniper. I’ve reached level 19 on him, it’s a lot of fun. Now my newest sniper rifle has enough power to completely blow enemies heads off, and lower level mobs can be blown to pieces with said rifle. One thing that gets me is the fact that some non-sniper weapons have a zoom scope almost as good as my sniper scope, I don’t think I need that good of a scope (or any) on a shotgun, but some I’ve seen do have absurd scopes on them.
The inventory system is alright, only 12 slots to place things when you first start, but it’s expandable… right now I’m sitting at 18 slots. The lack of space can get annoying at times, since any extra guns, shields, or first aid kits all take up space. If you want to carry a first aid kit or two to be safe, be ready to give up precious inventory space. If you get hurt bad enough, you can chose to fight for your life or respawn back at the last save spot you walked by in what is essentially a clone body… this costs money though (currently $600-ish per spawn). I should probably start carrying a first aid kit, just in case I need it, but I would rather be able to carry that one extra gun that will add to my arsenal, or my wallet if I sell it. You also start with the ability to carry a main weapon and secondary weapon, as you progress you unlock the ability to hold up to 4 weapons, all choseable by cycling through them or hitting a hotkey.
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I still have a few other games to work on that didn’t impress me too much for one reason or another: Blue Dragon (RPG, might just need to get further into the story), Assassin’s Creed (while pretty, it is very repetitive), & Grand Theft Auto IV (I’ve always taken my time with the GTAs, so this one will take a while) just to name a few.
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Obviously I’ve since fixed my computer. And yes, I’ve started playing World of Warcraft again, but nowhere near as much. I still enjoy the game, but I know I need a break from playing it as much as I used to, so I’ve been limiting myself. When I do play, I’m hopping between my Death Knight [Deathengine] on a server with my brothers and my Mage [Stasís] on a server with some friends. I hit 70 on my DK today, and did a few of the Headless Horseman quests for the Hallow’s End event. I’m debating if I want to power level to 75 so I can complete the quest to kill Headless Horseman, the event ends next Saturday.
Experience of one... 