Being Saleh: Dungeoneering, Part 2

Dungeons never got into my nerve, never, even Heroic on full blown WOW Cataclysm before nerf never once got me into the heat, this was before Explorable Mode Dungeon Guild Wars 2 came.

Sorrow's Embrace

I never ever lose my temper during the death on dungeon, even at a full wipe on a bad PUG groups, but Sorrow's Embrace Explorable mode is a death trap, an impossibly fast button mashing that can turn your fingers into jelly and irritate your eyes (at last that what happens to me when I ran it).

I first taste the explorable mode with guildies on a beautiful saturday afternoon, It was eventful but not too bad of an experience, so we're coming back with a different path on last night (Explorable Mode Dungeon has at least three different path to follow) and boy, what a surprise

The first path is bugged, but even without the bug the mobs are impossibly hardened that it caused us to run back and forth (means dead and teleported thorugh the waypoint for like thirty five times), the trash mobs are like tanks, and they hit with unblockable AOE attacks, it takes us like ten minutes just to clear one heap of them (which only five mobs, yep FIVE little runts), after one hour: exhausted and finally recognized the bugs we took another path, the one I'm slightly familiar with it

Surprise: They've been buffed, sure the trash mobs are still like butters but the bosses are extremely aggresive now since the last time. Their attacks are somewhat the same but they're more often now, and combined the fact that they have tons of HP wasn't really any help.

I lost my temper, really, I literally swear repeatedly on Raidcall, I can spend two hours with 35 gold repair bill on WoW Un-nerfed Cata Heroics (even Troll Heroics, yep Jin'do the PUGbreaker) but I still wonder why I quickly lost interest on Guild Wars 2 Explorable modes (even with my own guildies) and it didn't help my interest to make a complete set of a dungeon set, what do you mean people ran this over and over again? Are they borderline masochist? I WAS a borderline masochist for staying through a two hours failed PUG run on one of the hardest dungeon ever created on WoW and I feel fine but this... this... explorable mode thing is... almost a mental devastation for me and it's extremely exhausting, unenjoyable experience.

Maybe I'm not really there yet, maybe I'm just lack of madz skillz, still have to go through the 'learn ur class noobz', maybe I'm still just an ordinary b*tching casual who didn't deserve my Sorrow Embrace Pauldrons, but here's the thing: Guild Wars 2 have every element I love, even the PVP, and crafting, but I personally like dungeons from my past MMOs, and it's just a huge turn off to see that the dungeons are every single bit an.... utter disappointment

Yes, I'm basically saying Explorable Mode Dungeons (especially Sorrow's Embrace) are too hard, nerf it Anet or maybe you can modified it in some sort that it can be at least slightly enjoyable

PS: I do want to try another dungeon paths to see if it is the same, but as the rumor I heard that Sorrow's Embrace is the easiest of them all, I'm not really optimistic about the other

Being Saleh: Dungeoneering, Part 1

I've sharpened my swords, readying my scepter, polishing my staff, but to be honest I think nothing can prepare you on the first run on Guild Wars 2 dungeons, below I put on some words of my (cursing) time with them :D

The Hell and Heaven Runs on Story Mode

Welcome to Ascalonian Catacombs, where every Ascalonian dead elite fighters are still thinking that they're alive and everything that walks in two legs are charrs, AC is the lvl 30 dungeon located in Plain of Ashford, Charr's starting area, this is my first dungeon, tried the story mode a week after Guild Wars 2 release (still a cute lvl 27 at that time) but it's apparently bugged so we tried again on the next week.

The mobs are all ghosts, and they're nasty, when you have a party on minimal level prepare to die a lot, but as I told you before: dying is a requirement for Guild Wars 2. So we have nasty mesmers that confuses us, elementalists that rain down destruction from above, and some nasty archers that trapped and one shotted us. After several hours tried to clear the story mode we realized something else: our repair bills exhausted our pocket, we cleared it though.

A week later we tried the level 40 dungeons, the Caudecus Manor, located in Queensdale, humans are the denizens on this dungeon, regular bandits and regular difficulty, I was kinda surprised how CM is completed in only 20 mins rather than AC (which took us two whole hours), I've heard they fixed the diificulty (buffed it through the roof) on the latest patch, I haven't tried it again.

Since I was at max level now (I didn't even pay attention when I leveled up) so I've been running some more dungeon, Twilight Arbor is a nasty place with a lot of poisonous mobs, Sorrow Embrace is an exhausting place since it's a big dwarf city, Citadel of Flames are... well... fiery, and at Honor of The Waves the difficulty are plunging down again, in fact SE and COF final bosses doesn't require you to have some madz skillz, it's more like “stay away from the fire” kind of fight combined with using environments so the boss will somewhat hurt themselves (or taking a heavy damage from a tool) while we laugh in a safe distance, pretty easy, but the journey to that easiness is effectively hellish.

And yes, this is on story mode only, means you run it not for the rewards but simply an optional story, no loot table on bosses but they do awards you with some nice hat according to your class first time you complete it, which in my case: go straightforwad into the mystic forge just because I don't like the shape of it on my head when I wear it (most of the full-cap light armors hide charr horns, making me look like a superdeformed dolphin with fangs)

After The Runs

I sometimes think that the devs are experimenting with dungeons, there's a couple of interesting fight in there with mobs that have special abilities, but it's usually hard, and lots of dodging are required, on the other hand we have some boring standing generic bosses which are easier. The Dynamic Events (yes there are events in dungeon) are somewhat catchy but it requires awareness that you don't drag mobs from the events into another pack, the “pull it apart” strategy are common, it's more like crowd controlling but in a shorter time, one regular dungeon monster is enough to wipe you and they mostly did it.

There are lots of... 'unbalanced'.... difficulty on bosses, for example the first boss on COF is the most sadistic of all from my experience, try fighting a hard hitting whirlwind-ing boss while face a sentient invulnerable weapon of his (which also creates a whirlwind of fire), while the last boss of COF can even be faced naked, yes, naked, with no penalty since everything is coming down to you hitting him with a boulder he rolled at you and burn everything on him when he's stunned, after that it's just rinse, and repeat, also: you can't die on him since there's an invulnerability bubble erected from an NPC, so one of your party member can chill out while everyone tried to hit the boss's face, and the waypoint is right outside the room, so when you died and return you can still continue where you left off because one of your friends is bubbling and the boss will never reset while he's still there

I can't even suggest the devs to add/fix something from the dungeon, because it have so much extreme ups and downs on difficulties, but overall until this day I still think along the lines of “dungeons 'r hard”. For me Guild Wars 2 dungeons seems of a sort of punishment for me because of my usual facerolling on WOW Twilight Dungeons

I liked story dungeons, I do, but I probably won't repeat it unless I'm helping someone runs it, the story mode is not even the true dungeon, the real one is the Explorable mode when you face harder enemies and acquiring phat lootz. If the easy mode is not... well easy (for me and some guildmates of course) I think I need more time to try the Explorable Modes (like next month). I do want the Twilight Arbor's Greatsword =))

UPDATE: I finally managed ran two Sorrow's Embrace explorable mode on the last three days, next post is just up there

Being Saleh: Twenty Four Days in Tyria

I'm on vacation and typed this on my buddy's Ipad, i'm not going to complain that after i used the thing it makes my smartphone screens looks small and insignificant, damn you Apple!!! =))

Trying to grasp the immensiveness (that a word?) of Tyria can't be achieved by zooming your way to 80, it can be achieved by slowly exploring all nooks and cranny in a zone or just wandering yourself in every random Dynamic Event encounter that might happen in a zone and what the... i just leveled up!!!

If there's something i want to add in Tyria it's the stop experience button, i know, i know the scaling make sure no mob get one shotted on levels below me, but i just can't help feeling something off when i saw my 60ish level wandering around in the 40ish zone, i guess it's the residual habitual experience from my past MMOs. i'm an explorer so I tend to open up all the maps just like what i did on WOW (stop experience ftw!!!)

In Guild Wars 2 you leveled up fast (for a casual) but if you're the person that blinked to your experience bar every three seconds you might thought it's a little slow (btw WWW is your answer). every time i logged in I simply picked a map that several level belows me and run through it, completing dynamic events and heart quests also uncovered some vistas and point of interests, and when i completed that map i just simply run around following people and helped them out in DE or meta events, or just gathering stuffs and by two or three hours I probably leveled up once or two.

For crafting disciplines i picked up artificer and tailoring, leveling a discipline is much easier now since the trading post is up and running. I forgot to add that one of my reason to roam around low level area is to gather tier 2 crafting materials, leveling disciplines are somewhat a bittersweet thing, the problem with the materials is that it's just too much of it and sometimes the drop rate are abysmal, i can grab 15 small claw on a dynamic events but on another DE that features mobs that dropped vial of weak blood i probably only obtained 5 of them, but one thing I like is that loot bag dropped from humanoid mobs can contain random stuff (although they contain mostly butter now), occasionally i just go hunt out there and come back on later day to level up my crafting, still a long way for 400.

My crafting stuffs are way below my level although some of the masterwork items are fine looking and can be used as skin. Thing is: in Tyria I tend to chase vanity items like crazier than ever. I stylized my character by previewing every single armor i came whether it's from crafting or dropped items, and since I rolled a charr it's so tricky to stylized him, and of course being a mesmer makes it a double trouble (especially the pants and shoes that made him look like a skinny cat, and the cloth caps that always turn him into a big hooded walking head). Some of the neater stuffs are in the Personal Story which are littering my bank and using the transmutation stone is somewhat becomes a requirement =P

Of course after runnning around, crafting, and stylizing a character there is nothing more fitting than show it to a group of friends.... In dungeon =))

Being Saleh: 40 hours later...

I catch a cold.... Thankfully I'm not on a tight schedule for work, as I said before my limit is 8 hrs per day =))

The early access are somewhat eventful, there's some serious issue about the interface not working on overflow server, the guild system is somewhat unfinished, still playable though.

I found nothing that can be considered gamebreaking (sPvP and WvsWvsW said to have some serious issues though), unless we count mail system and trading posts are down for half a day

I want to thank ArenaNet for giving their all to fix those issues, some of them probably haven't slept for days fixing everything while some of the community whine and nerdraged at them. Dedicated people are great, nuff said.

Time to rest

Being Saleh: Less than 24 hours...

...And I can't sleep (again), Guild Wars 2 will launch in 12 hours and I still agitated, seems like every cell in my body screams to Anet: "Release it now!" Why? I don't know, probably because it's weekend and I find all my usual hobbies become a stalemate before the launch, so I'm just gonna wait and hope that the three-- hours-- ---earlier-- open-- server is a truth.

So I'm gonna write random things, such as: not many people liked GW2, why? because it's chaotic and different, my friend got thrown off when fighting as an elementalist because he didn't realized that he has no mana and can cast while running, and he SHOULD BE running because ten centaur stampeding towards him is no big joke. As a mesmer I still curious about how my health depleted to zero in seconds because the unpredictability of a battle, and as a melee mesmer my curiosity doubled every time I leveled up, will everyone one shot me when in Orr? Will I'll be forced to play ranged in later time? Will I ever get my Gur'thalak? (wrong game). But my sword has some cool design (drifted off by shiny things), Guild Wars 2 just have too much surprise and some people just really like predictability, like rotations... and trinity system....

I also realized the 'addict' factor on Guild Wars 2 is unusually high even for me, even way beyond my WoW and RIFT experience, WoW did put me off on Patch 4.1 where I must grind troll dungeons, they introduced Raid Finder on 4.3 and I quickly sprung back to life, even when my chance of winning items has gone I ran it almost everyday. I logged on RIFT whenever there are invasions on three top level area for like two-three hours per day. Both of this hype never falters, I just simply stopped playing because there's nothing else to do there except one thing I like, one, and if I keep playing I'll burn out in no time with no new contents on horizon. I stopped played RIFT solely because I want to give myself a break before Guild Wars 2 (Real Life factor actually matters much here when I stopped playing, I just have to get out there)

On Guild Wars 2 my hype factor reinforced by two things: one, my old guildmates coming back, two everything is new on Guild Wars 2, the newness factor can hold on for three months but the guild factor can hold fast (we're casual, so we're kinda like having each other numbers and send dirty text messages...yeah no... ) I wonder how many hours I'll be playing on opening time, my best bet is eight before I collapsed in bed and completely skipped playing the day after =))

The continuity of my Lineage 2 journal, Being Saleh will now become my notebook about Tyria, and about how a Charr sing

Dual Wield: (Ir)Rationality

NOTE: Dual wield is solely my opinion, not my guild, not my parents, girlfriend (don't have one, anyway), not anyone, Sometimes I used quotes, sometimes I don't, it was simply the just cause of my trolling =))

I found myself as a non-grasper, wasn't quite able to distinguish something for it's literal meaning and tends to dig in order to find the meaning of that something to it's origin, like trying to determined who owns a dog from just looking at the dog, apparently I also quite bad at doing that since my mind wanders off a lot =))

This writing was begun when I found that from the initial 150-ish local gamer who already pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 are all males, for some reason I can't quite remember seeing 150 people gathered in a space and all of them are males (except in an army display), What happened here? I asked for opinion from them and apparently it was ended in vain (after 300 lines of opinions) since I can only found one valid answer and forced to accept the truth (local female gamer is a myth) :P :P :P

So I changed the question, and asked different circles of my friends "are you a gamer?" of course the answer is no, the strange thing is: When they're asked if they will come in an official game convention (like a local E3 or game convention, they said they would go and play games, they don;t mind being called a gamer in those events)

The Stigma

My local community can accept cat lovers, skateboarders, even face tattoo and piercing as a hobby, apparently when they said game as a hobby, some of them won't admit it.

Why? Because gaming is a nerd hobby and a deep dark hole toward rejection of society

That's not true!! Oh Yeah? try putting MMO on your resume/CV and replace music I know you can't play drums

You won't do it, ah yeah I guess you understand my meaning.

In US, Europe, most gamer said gaming stopped being a stigma years ago when Blizzard propels World of Warcraft into important pop culture

Important Pop Culture there, not here

I say: In here, locally, people follow majority, apparently majority said the most important western pop culture in my country is Lady Gaga

So yeah, I reject society and a nerd, I also have zero social life *bleep* (puts a thick glasses)

The Sad Truth

Even by saying "game as a hobby" you will always still stuck in a second gear here, why? Because the majority doesn't play, and can't appreciate why colored pixel sticks you good in front of your screen. "Painting can appeal more people" said the 'rational' guy

Apparently hobby can't be measured by rationality, but it can be blocked by skepticism which hide behind rationality

The most popular sport on my country is Soccer (or Footbal in EU), I wonder why stay up night for 90 minutes just to see someone scored a goal? I can always read the results tomorrow, this probably will become a chaotic argument where the pro will said about the beauty of every kicks, the adrenaline, the heart pumping saves, and after those the anti will said: "Hey, guess what: it's s the same thing on <insert hobby here>

But when you said "hey that's what I saw in an MMO game" the argument will continue about thousand other things better other pixels on screen until it washed out down the drain a.k.a rationality wins

And FYI I like soccer, I just dont follow it that much, Collina still has to be the next UN secretary general though

Try look up in the local streetshops, is there even a cloth with your favorite game logo in there? No? That's how stigmatized you are

Rationality wins again

Dual Wield : Stay away from my sweatshop

NOTE: Dual wield is solely my opinion, not my guild, not my parents, girlfriend (don't have one, anyway), not anyone, Sometimes I used quotes, sometimes I don't, it was simply the just cause of my trolling =))

My birth country, Indonesia is a haven for gold sellers and all forms of MMO or internet exploitation, the community are total hell since it's dominated by 15 year old kids and adults who exploited them to sell or buy in game currency, or sweatshop runner, ruining the community for profit, the sole reason why I used to never played an international MMO with my fellow countrymen (or women, which is still a myth)

But thanks to the internet, like-minded people have it so much easy to gather, from a thread created by my friend Kurogakure, Guild Wars 2 probably will mark the beginning of a new fresh and clean gamers from my country (even if it's just a fraction of the total hell).

Of course, like-minded is still like-minded and most of the local old-school gamer (which I prefer to call sweatshop employees) can never understand the urgency the community needs to stay clean, playing the game like it should, to pass time, to meet people, to gather for an event, or something without REAL CASH involved (unless they have cash shops). A few weeks ago my friend come into a clash with a hardcore sweatshopper, the sweatshop listed some of the most ridiculuous argument like: "How the hell should I pay for a game, if I can gather gold from it and sell it for REAL CASH PROFIT???"

Me: "Selling currency is illegal"
Sweatshopper: "Other people in other country do it too"

From the two lines of argument most people, even non-gamer can understand it was going nowhere, when people break the accepted law, they probably won't have a problem break anything else

I played MMO as a hobby, one of my hobby actually, something that defined by online dictionary as something that I did in my leisure time, outside of work, My friend also describing something like: "A chef can play online games for a hobby while professional game tester can cook at his spare time"

It was a completely different matter.

Apparently gold seller can't understand that, if a game is not profitable anymore they will quickly packs, sell out, and move into another one, they're not gamers, never was

So a gamer and a  gold seller is not even on the same boat, one wants a community, while the other wants community to buy from them (and they don't even own the game)

Sweatshopper: "Why can't I? The big company's making millions, why can't I make my own dough?"

In my country pedestrian walks on street, because the side pavements is used for personal shops, the analogy fits

All they want to say is: "Stay away from my sweatshop"

So Arenanet, please make your game free of gold seller and exploiter okay?

A test post

I'm checking blogger's mobile application, looks neat enough for now

Cat Day

I found this on massively, just gonna put it in here...

resistance is futile

The End of a Saga

Apparently I never logged in to the City of Steam for last weekend, not that I'm lazy or anything, but because I found this:

This is a seven hours movie compilation for Xenosaga Episode 1: A PS2 Japanese RPG from the year 2002, It's a huge and long story, filled with memorable and colorful characters, the company that made them called Monolith Soft (MLS) which helmed and crewed by several Squaresoft (now Square Enix) ex-employees who worked on Xenogears. It was released under Namco's (now Bandai Namco) flag and called the most ambitious Japanese RPG project at that time, It ended prematurely (from six to three episode) when Namco pulled the plug and sold MLS to Nintendo.

The thing is Xenosaga is watchable and also playable, since the cutscenes makes the most of the game, I think it's probably the best game ever created on  PS2, although many people will dispute me, I partially blamed the shifting interest from Turn Based RPGs to a more action games on those years, and the 'company profit vs idealistic projects' attitude

I sincerely hope MLS will continue the story of Xenosaga someday, it's huge, and when it continues it'll be even bigger than Bandai's .hack series (wonder why it's still continue, and spawned several movie and animes), the company already have a new project called Xenoblade on Wii platform, it gained a solid 9.0 on Gamespot, and yeah... it made me want to buy Wii

Consecutive Beta Weekend: Part 2: City Of Steam

The world is flat, and it's a bunch of clockwork gear locked in a mechanism in a vast cosmos, and it's called... The Mechanism!! This is the world where the story of City Of Steam revolves, an independent --free to play --alpha stage --browser based MMORPG developed by Mechanist Games.

When I was first grab the alpha key I knew nothing about City Of Steam but have heard some passing news that it's a decent project, there are 4 class in it: Warder (melee fighter), Arcanist (Magic type), Gunner (Ranged type), and Channeler (healer-hybrid type), there's also 4 human races, 2 elven races, and 3 greenskinned races to choose, each with their own story.

Story is the main reason I got hooked at first on City Of Steam, I randomly picked a Stoigmari (rugged, militaristic human) Warder and my story begins on a train to Nexus, the City Of Steam, surprisingly I'm not alone, I traveled with my brother Aleks, and so the story unfold, and it was interesting to see your character progress through it. I didn't realize that the web has an abundant of lore in there until I played for like three hours or something, and they're good, not so original but I can see that the developer got things together with their games

Combat are easy to approach in City of Steam, just click an enemy and use skill 1-5 to pound them, and the thing is they're flashy, all classes carried four weapons in their back and sides, it gives a real feling that your character is an effective fighting machine (and I really don't have to choose between equipping that one handed sword or that two handed axe because I can equip them at the same time), the skills are flashy and explosive enough that it gives vibes of old RPGs, combats are on real time and nothing original, the mobs are... interesting since most of them are clockwork creatures. Skills can be strenghthened by spending skill points on it, the skill tree looks like a bunch of valves and steampipes, but you'll get the hang on it, there's also overclocking oil to double their effects (my guess it can be bought on the cash shop)

The crafting system are somewhat dodgy, most of the items you got from level 1-10 are useless a.k.a weaker than your initial equipment, but all items are upgadeable, start with breaking down some useless items to gain some of their materials and combine them with your own armor to upgrade it, however there's RNG involved (can be supressed with buying catalysts, also dropped by mobs, rarely though), if you succeed your item got stronger, if not your materials gone to waste but not your equipment though thankfully

Well, they're still on alpha stage, I'll be back for more action in their next alpha weekend on August 3th, there are several keys on Gamersbook and MMORPG if the game interest you

Consecutive Beta Weekend, Part 1: Path of Exile

A week ago I took part for the Guild Wars 2's Last Beta Weekend, the last of the two race: Sylvari and Asura is finally playable, I took a time exploring their homeworld and their starting area (risking spoiler, I know), Mesmer's gameplay is still engaging, my sylvari's chosen story still feel quite unappealing though, so I'll switch back to charr for the release. The game itself still need smoothing around the edges, and I love the new feature: vista, unlockable stereoscopic vision of an area in a map, they're quite fun to find and reach to (usually involving some jumping puzzle) and it cures some of my past traumas about jumping puzzles (not gonna tell you about it) :P

And last week i decided to suppress my Guild Wars 2 withdrawal with taking on Path of Exile public stress test and City of Steam public alpha stage, I already followed Path of Exile for a while, it's an action MMORPG in a fixed 3d environment just like Diablo 2, created by Grinding Gear Games (GGG) an independent game studio, it'll be free to play when it came out with 'ethical' cash shop

Path of Exile

Path of Exile tells a story of an exile in the world of Wraeclast , a land filled with the worst of nature and sorcery, undeads, mutated kiwis (yep, the developer are New Zealanders :P), there are six class: Marauder (strength-centric melee class), Ranger (ranged), Witch (Intelligence), Duelist (hybrid strength and dexterity), Templar (hybrid strength and intelligence), and Shadow (dexterity and intelligence), although you have your premade setup you can still mix and match every class to your playstyle, your character can wear any weapon and armor if your stats meet the requirements just like Diablo.

Above: Diablo

The original mechanic is somewhat cool, for example: there's no money in Path of Exile because an undead carrying 1 gold coin is absurd and the story implied that money is worthless in Wraeclast, in return you have two scroll, scrolls of wisdom (identify in Diablo) and scroll of portal (yep, town portal) as a currency, when you sell that yellow rare rugged looking breastplate that somehow dropped from a cthullu-looking boss into an NPC you'll get a piece of scrap that can be combined (10 of them) into one scroll of wisdom, you can also getting an orb piece, that can be combined into an orb which present the second awesome mechanism in Path of Exile:

An orb can be used to level up an item, turn plain items into magic ones, add a magic attribute, reforge their quality, randomized some their properties, reset their slot, add a slot, change slot color, or even REMOVE the entire customization you put into the item. It sound complicated but after spending half an hour experimenting with them it was FUN: take a plain saber, turn it into a magic item, toy around with the properties and slots, and equipped it to meet some crazy miniboss, the result is satisfying (a.k.a exploding corpse)

And exploding floortiles

The character skills are also unique, you're not learning your skill from a spellbook or anything, you got them from skill gem (which dropped from chests and sometimes mobs), gems are then slotted into your equipments, and are placed in your hotkey bars, gems come in three colors, red (str), green (dex), and blue (int), you can slot any gem you want and they'll level up in battles, as they level up so does your skill, there's also attribute gem, a gem that can be linked into a linked slot next to your skill gem (if they;re linked) and add an attribute to the skill ex: fire damage linked with cleave = awesome burning foes, you can swap gems in the fly, bringing you lots of skill combinations and attributes, but the rate of level gems also determined by your build, if your stat doesn't have enough int yet then the blue gems probably won't level, this is where the passive skill tree came up

Everytime you leveled up you gain skill points to be invested into the Passive Skill Tree: A skill tree that looks like a Final Fantasy X sphere grid, here you build your character's stat, if you choose Marauder for example: only one tree is unlocked, the strength skill tree but it breaks down into specialization of weapons such as dual wield, single wield, two handed, shield defense, axe, sword, mace, etc. If you choose duelist two skill tree is unlocked: The strength and the dexterity which governs bows, daggers, dual wield, attack speed, evasion, and so on. Yep I drooled when I first see it, imagine what you can build into those characters with so much to choose

With so much customisation and so much properties, gems, and everything else curiously I don't feel stuck, repulsed, or baffled by it. There's some game with complex custom things that repulse me a lot before, but Path of Exile did just right for the customisation (which is still ABUNDANT), I'm having fun playing it, there's also some things to be smoothed though, like the unclear drop rates for gems, also the public party system that doesn't list an instance reset time (let's kill a boss, OMG he's already dead, who killed it? --silence--) but overall trekking through the land filled with undead, demons, goatmans, and mutated kiwis (yay) into an inland unknown feels so.... good (with a lots of 'o'), as usual for the guaranteed beta access and some cash shop coins you can also prepurchase here, I'll admit Path of Exile is a good game and worth your pennies, for investors there are also a diamond pack worth $1000 there, I think I'll stick with the starter pack though :)

Big pool with bloods and human parts? count me in :D

I'll cover up City of Steam on my next post, and for the meanwhile, let's stare at this picture again:

Cute

The Amazing Ultimate Unlimited Review: The Amazing Spiderman

I should've get an achievement called "I finally get my lazy bum to the nearest Theater and watch The Amazing Spiderman (in 3D)", it also creates the hardest review I ever wrote... so the short words would probably: "I'm awesome":))

So let's get to the The Big Question first: Is this Spiderman BETTER than the rest of them? I can honestly answer no, it's not, but it's still a good movie though, you see the real problem with reboot is you always compared them with their predecessor, and in this case: with Sam Raimi's spiderman, you will start comparing the casts, the story, the director, the special effects (if there was).

In my case though rather than just comparing This Spiderman with the original Tobey Maguire's I also started to compare it with an old cartoon series from Saban: called Spider-man Unlimited, it aired during the late 99, here's a synopsis from it:

"While covering the launch of John Jameson's one man mission to Counter-Earth (another Earth located on the far side of the Sun), Spider-Man attempts to stop his two symbiote adversaries Venom and Carnage from boarding the shuttlecraft. Blamed for Jameson losing contact with our Earth, Spider-Man becomes a target of persecution by the media and the public. Believed to be dead after saving a person's life in a fire, Peter Parker uses the ruse to embark on a mission to retrieve John Jameson on Counter-Earth, using nanotechnology borrowed from Reed Richards to design a new suit that incorporates stealth technology and sonic weaponry. Making his way to the planet, Spider-Man learns that Jameson has fallen in with a band of freedom fighters opposed to the High Evolutionary whose Beastials, hybrids of animal and humanoid attributes, are the dominant species whilst humans are the second-class minority" (Wikipedia)

I love the series, Of course I was still in high school at that time and can't dedicate much to watch it, but it was the first time I watch Spiderman in all time badassery, Peter Parker is cool in and out of his suit, and that blue-black-red nanobot suit is badass, the war theme is badass, even Jameson.Jr is badass, of course it's a short lived series but I still can't shake the image, when I first saw Raimi's Spider-Man I always think Tobey Maguire portrayed a rather timid Peter Parker but it fits perfectly with other character especially J.J Jameson, but the ting of badassery resurface again in The Amazing Spiderman, Andrew Garfield portrayed a high schooler Spiderman, true to it's comic theme, complete with it's all teen angst, he's also portrayed a genius, capable to solve complex equations and (again: stay true to the comic) invent his own web-shooter, in other words: This Spiderman is a vigilante punk.

The story is a soap opera, yes, it's a love story between Parker and Stacy without any secrets between them, just a nice flowing sometimes agitated first love, the same captivating theme as in Eureka Seven series without any major shouting dramas, but the problem of the movie is the villain, The Lizard is probably the most forgettable person in the movie despite him being the major villain, it's because the protagonist build a good theme surrounding Parker. the movie is reek of goodness of Parker, if the Tobey-Spidey is the most unknown person in his Parker persona, trying to make ends meet and college on-offing in the harsh uncaring city of New York while being unknown superhero that roams the night, Andrew-Spidey is a shining persona in his friend and family, he's also sometimes portrayed without masks on some occasions (the same reason why Spiderman 2 is the best movie from the previous franchise), the movie humanizes Spiderman and merge him and Peter parker together that you'll start to see they're the same person, known to some people and unknown but still a human to other.

The future of the franchise is also intriguing, you know who's the first Spiderman franchise's most memorable character? Yep,the Green Goblin a.k.a Norman Osborn, the character portrayed by Willem Defoe is so strong it's overshadow Spidey in the first movie, the character is never shown in Amazing Spiderman but always hinted strongly that he'll be the major villain on the next movie. It'll be interesting who's gonna portray him next, I personally like Defoe's Goblin and want to see if the sequel suffers from sequel syndrome. Also this Spiderman is more fit to join the Avengers rather than Tobey-Spidey, everyone will always need a punk running around among the superiority-complex men =))

Overall: Good movie, fresh reboot, heartwarming drama, 7.9/10

I'm just gonna post it here, image from Link

Guild Wars 2 Last Beta Key (CLOSED)

So, it's that time again huh?

1. Guild Wars 2 Guru has a 5 day contest for you
2. Alienware has batches of keys left, grab it in the designated hours
3. As usual Boon and Condition has some interesting contest
4. SteelSeries giveaway
5. Tyrian Order, just put your favorite race there
6. I know it's kinda misleading name but Diablo3x has some beta key left
5. Twitter contest from Kill Ten Rats
6. Gamersbook has several too
7. GW2WvsW, made your own weapon and grab a key!!
8. Caption contest from Chronicles Of Tyria
9. Dragon Season
10. Hello PCGAMER
11. No Beta Key, No Problem, The Pale Tree got several
12. Exitializ Guild got some too
13. GuildWars 2 Journal joined the squad
14. GuildMag
15. You can follow GuildWars2live for some key too
16. Nvidia joined the list
17. Guild Wars 2 Guru replaced GW2WvsW in weapon making contest (EDIT: this is a part of their 5 days giveaway)
18.  Fragcast has some of them left, grab it while you can!
19. An intriguing contest from The Border House

As usual, always see the giveaway/contest closing time, rules, and where to go if you got your key, anyway those sites have respectable rep, I won something from Gamersbook the other day =D

Gamebreaker.TV take a few step forward, rather than beta keys they're giving away one Guild Wars 2 Collector Edition, too bad it's open for US Citizen only, but as I checked out the latest entries it counts 21 thousand entries!! well if you want to test your luck, it's the ultimate challenge =)).

UPDATE: All contest has ended, see you in tyria :)

It's Finally Here: Guild Wars 2 release date

I know, I know, I'm a few days late but Guild Wars 2 finally have a release date: August 28, 2012!!! After so many years jumping from one MMO to another finally me and my fellow guildies will be together again on Darkhaven (which probably will be the fullest server) =))

Love the Asura jumping :)

The Secret World third Beta Weekend: Ugly, Shiny, Zombies!!

PS: Yep, I missed beta one and two

You're awake in the middle of the night, sweating and coughing, just like you've just swallowed something, really? In your sleep? Strangely you're also feel so cold so you reach for your coat, as you tried to, it burst into flame, a blue flickering one, you're stunned, you tried to reach it again and the flame dissipated, leaving your coat seems untouched. Three days after that you're sitting in the corner of your room, this new 'power' is getting out of your hand, it ruined your daily life, and also your room, as you tried to suppress your building emotion it burst into life again a form of splash, a burst, also a breeze, it seems growing... and you begin to recognize it. Two days after you're already spinning a ball of the unknown energy into yourself, you're in control now, the newfound power begin to grew again, you feel stronger, and you begin to realize the power it yours alone but (un)fortunately it is not because tomorrow someone will be knocking and your door and you'll be part in something bigger than just juggling a ball of light...

This is what happens when you sleep right after eating

In Funcom latest real world stage MMORPG: The Secret World, you play the role of an agent from one of the three secret societies, the proud Templar, the hedonistic Illuminati and the chaotic-controlled Dragon, in the universe of the secret world all of your urban legends and myths come true: your neighbour is a zombie, real life fire breathing dragon existed and they don't like you, Vampires really sucks your blood dry and they're not even handsome or pretty, that seemed abandoned ship on your coast? No the government didn't seize it, it's filled with spirits that a certain hellspawn is brought to wreak havoc on your city, so yeah above all that secret organizations are trying to get something whether it's pride or profit from these bizzare events, by cover-ups, government infringement, and also media controlling, when you're not part of the secret world you'd better be because you probably won't survive it when you saw it.

Hello :)

Combating Evil

Remember those light balls? They're called anima, and they're your powers on The Secret World, it can be extended by weapons whether it's ranged (Shotgun, Dual Pistols, or Automatic Rifle), Melee (Fists, Blades, and Hammers), or just plain magic symbol (Blood, Chaos, and Elemental), there's no class on The Secret World (although you still have to pick a role on dungeons, trinity is bad, bad, why Funcom?) and also you can mix and match every weapon you want, but you can only carry two at a time, and can only equip seven active and passive abilities at once.

Although The Secret World works on 'no level' jargon you still gained experience when you killed mobs or completes a mission, if the experience bar below you is full you gained Ability Point (AP) and sometimes Skill Points (SP). SP is used to power up or learned new rank of an ability which determine your power on using that weapon/item and also restrict your equipped item level (don't expect with no level you can zoom straight into a flesh golem and taking it down solo), mission and mob difficulties is determined on your equipped weapon and ability's quality, so yeah even there's no level, there's still Ilvl system in this game.

Shotgun and zombies, typical but effective

Ability Point is used to learn new ability of that weapon, the ability system is called ability wheel which describes all of your passive and active abilities for all of your weapon and magic, although there is some misc ability which describes some PVPy stuff, the system works this way: on the outer circle all weapons have two set of abilities, they have different names but the idea is one of them is offensive and the other is defensive/support, you have to learn all abilities in this portion to unlock the next set of inner circle which breaks down into four or five type of ability set (each set contains like seven abilities) so a LOT to learn and only fourteen can be equipped, so...happy mixing

The combat itself works like this, move a lot, yeah it's like Guild Wars 2 but still feels clunky on some portion, you can dodge once everytime your active dodge bar is full to avoid nasty AOE (ground marks) or charged attacks, mobs came on you on groups (like SWTOR), luckily the two foremost of your ability is AOE based so have fun slaughtering horde of zombies (although like Guild Wars 2 you'd best do it with groups), you can heal yourself but it came from an ability in which you have to learn so if you don't learn it prepare to die a lot, most of the mobs are unforgiving and battles can be exhausting if you do it solo, I started with pure blood magic type but later switched to shotgun and feels my AP and SP spent on offensive blood magic are wasted since I ended up using all offensive abilities from the shotgun, wonder what the cost to respec is, probably a cash shop item.... okay, that'll be bad, don't do it Funcom. And I was mistaken, there's no all rezzing type like Guild Wars 2, when you die you just have to corpse run but there are perks from being dead, which I'll be covered below, it is a different world after all.

Questing is Believing

There's only two area open in the BWE, Kingsmouth and Savage Coast, and it crawled with zombies, also the town is covered with strange fog, the coast is filled with icky wet humanoid things, the Innsmouth Academy is infested with ghosts and hellspawns, how's these things connect one another? This is your mission Agent of Pride/Opportunity/Chaos, in The Secret World quest/mission are split into some parts, the story quest is why you're there, in the area, it consists on several chapter and lots of cutscenes, the second one is the Main mission, usually provided by NPC (yeah you still have to talk to NPCs), the third one is the side mission which you can find scattered on the area in form of objects, NPCs, or even dead things, last one is the dungeon mission which can be used to enter an instance dungeon. You can have one story quest, one main quest, one dungeon quest and three side missions at once, when you accept another type of mission while the type of your mission is occupied you'll be prompted if you want to 'pause' the old mission and replace it with the new one, missions are broke down into 'tier' (sub-quest) and when you pause a mission you can take it later in the same state/tier as you previously pause it, so no more cancelling missions when your quest journal is full, HURRAH!!! (Okay, I like dynamic event more though) :D 

Let me tell you something: there are no NORMAL NPC on The Secret World!!! By the power of the ESRB M rating the colorful casts of character made me fall in love with the storyline, for example: Deputy Andy seems normal although when you follow his storyline you'll find out that he has some serious daddy issues (involving a really nasty story), that's just a fraction of Kingsmouth. NPCs offer you quests in form of a color bubble near them and when clicked  start a cutscene that gives you background about the mission (GTA style), there's also regular speech bubble where you asked the NPC about themselves or something else, just an idle talk? No my friends, this is where the fun begins.

I can't remember this guy name but let's call him Dante :P

 There are several type of Main Mission, beside the regular whackjob where you run around collecting items and killing mobs, there's also Stealth Mission where you have to infiltrate a place and you have to avoid guards and traps (which resulted in instant death when triggered), I tried them all in beta, they're aren't too hard IMO unlike some certain game :D. The other one is the Puzzle Mission, yes, all of you Point and Click Adventure Games Veteran behold your future!!! Puzzle Mission is where you will spend all of your time in game running around looking for clues, there's no arrow, there's no area indicator, only cryptic words from the mission itself, so yeah all of you who skipped cutscenes, not reading pop up messages, and didn't do idle talk with NPCs are screwed, this is the shiniest part of The Secret World, for example there's a mission where you have to find a serial killer from several years ago, up until one point you realized that the suspect is already killed himself in the sherrif office cell and leave a will that his ghost will answer all things, so how are you going to communicate with him? He's dead, sure Kingsmouth crawled with ghosts, but how are you going to find him? If you truly are puzzle solver you can find the asnwer at the end of my sixth paragraph :)

If this happens to you it's not my fault!!

Puzzle mission deals with codes but sometimes the clue can't even be found in game, so what are you going to do? Easy, press B, it'll bring up a browser window, a REAL BROWSER, with Google (damn you Google), yes some of the puzzle requires REAL world interaction, since some of the puzzles modeled after the real world, even some symbol and quotations. This brings a new approach to quests, blending real world and the virtual, also your own memory of a scene or words or a place, the quests make you THINK and deduct some of the answers. Well of course there's also some people who choose to asks about them on general chat, and in a few months the wiki will be filled of answers and walkthroughs, but who like spoilers right? Not me, although I admit I have to browse several answers just to cut my game time so I can do something else, it is beta after all but IMO again: Puzzle Missions are awesome.

In addition some of the townsfolk have twitter accounts.... and they're updating....(ominous music)

The answer... to all things...

Polishing Everything Else

The Beta runs smoothly, no random disconnect, stable server, there is still some bugs on the Savage Coast missions and the subtitles disappear from some of the dialogue, but The Secret World is probably the most Resource-Hungry monster that takes away some of my enjoyment of battle and exploring, I can see people also complains about it on their forums and Facebook page, the fps drops, the lags where there's a huge open area with lots of objects that affect the visibility of spawning mobs, but something that didn't appealed to me is the crafting system (called assembly) because I really have no idea how to assemble things, there's no tutorial or quest on that although some of the Innsmouth quests used it,  through trial and error I finally found out that I must lined the ingredients into the shape of a weapon and item... WTH??? I also can upgrade and downgrade several materials on the same assembly window, attaching glyphs which gave some iem and weapon attribute boost, they really should give this thing a decent tutorial of 'what can be done on this window'.

The battle can be a bit sluggish though but the design of the mobs are grotesque enough to feed your own horror lusts, the visual appearance of the game is over the top although your character is probably the ugliest part of it, Funcom needs to add more options on their character creation and fixed their movement so it doesn't feel too 'robotic', voice acting is good, cast of NPCs are colorful enough to gave them a bit of personality. I really can't complain, it's a good game although I must whine... why? why there's still a trinity system???!!

The game has potential, for me it gives a refreshing feeling about the quests, it's been a while since I'm really 'exploring' a game, looking for clues, writing it with a plain pen and paper like my old Myst and Gabriel Knight days, but my big nagging question is whether it can appeal to the crowd, the majority (a.k.a the 'WOW' crowd)  I don't think my friends will pay $15 a month for a combat mission interceded with puzzle, as for me, I won't buy the game even if I give the storyline and the quest 11 from the scale of 1 to 10, because Guild Wars 2 is already taking the spotlight, although I must admit... I want those puzzle mission...  on Guild Wars 2 =))

And there's the last beta weekend this week, Funcom inviting everyone, so grab your key by registering at their site

Guild Wars 2 Second Beta Weekend: Mesmerizing the Thief

I survived my one month Guild Wars 2 diet and let everything loose at it's second Beta Weekend, brought along a superb machine so I can play on high quality graphics without suffering a bad FPS drop (like ONE FPS on my previous notebook), on this beta weekend I narrowed my choices into two classes: the mesmer and the thief, while I still miss bashing enemies with hammers and axes as warrior the elegant combat from both classes drawn me in more, I'm also not a theorycrafter so I don't delve deep into min/maxing things and stats, it's all more like how I connect with the class, also I'm a through and through PVEr so never expect me to talk seriously about PVP

The Melee Scholar

I once called Mesmer a cross between fun and exhausting, not anymore, I really have no idea what the devs do about the class or the environment itself (or maybe the class is just started to grow on me), the thing is the exhausting part is gone and I can quickly get into fray even without remembering that my class is initially a caster class. Mesmer can use a variety of weapon, it can melee with swords and dual wield, it can also use the common magic weapons like staffs and scepters, mesmer depends on illusions and various clones which can be shattered to gain several benefits to the player.

Of course the class who wears a fancy jacket
can't be missed :D

My choice of weapon is to dual wield sword, although mesmer can use the gun in off hand to create some of the coolest debuff and clone effect, but when I take up an enemy I don't melee all the way like warriors or guardians, dodge is my friend and I usually created two clones before slashing enemies, I can also parried some of the enemy attack with a skill. There's a great system for Mesmer called distortion which means you can't be hit when you are on that state, it comes with limited use and must be triggered by some skill and shattering the clones, I choose the dueling and chaos traits to empower my critical strike and toughness to stand more blows. 

The ranged weapon for mesmer is somehow can be used to create chaotic situation on battlefield, the staff shoot chaos bolts with minimal damage but apply stacking debuffs to multiple enemies, it can also creates a huge dome of debuff field that randomly debuff enemies, self protect shields and so on. The scepter also dealt minimal damage but their auto attack skill creates clones that can be shattered to create a huge burst of damage or divert enemy attentions, the off hand weapon such a focus, gun or a torch complement the scepter and the sword although their choose is also depends on playstyle, I once considered sword + torch to accomodate my needs of stealthy business but dropped it, I like to mix and match based on a whim and I saw that mesmer is easy to master with any weapons.

The downside is on the term of soloing a mob that has two or three level above me, that's when I quickly lost the edge, my swords didn't do much damage and my ranged weapons promised a long fight, especially when the mob joined by a ranged or caster I was bitterly reminded that I'm a caster class and quickly bites the dust, but well Guild Wars 2 doesn't even created to be played alone anyway and the penalty of death is never a punishment,I played it through level 20 and found it satisfying.

The Asassin Without the Oh S*it Button

I played a combat rogue on WOW and I found it to be an extremely fun class, the damage, also the survivability, rogues fights dirty and I have no problem with stabbing an enemy then vanish or activates an ability that parries all the attacks, but rogues on WOW have journeyed a long way, through the various nerfs and buffs and controversial decisions, but it came all right and although I only played it like a year I like it very much.

Flashy suit enhanced my anonimity :P

The Thief on Guild Wars 2 probably a reminder that the melee with light armor can be a pain in the a**, on the term of developing or playing, here's the thing: Thief in Guild Wars 2 has some interesting mechanic but none of them stands out in a real fight, they have steal which not a real steal or disarm, it creates a copy of a weapon in form of a skill that can be unleashed ONCE, also it can be saved until later, thief dodge animation is cool but the vanishing effect didn't do anything to block incoming damage, unlike the other class thief's ability doesn't have cooldowns, it depends on initiative points above the skill bar that recharges through time or by activating certain utility skill so it's up to you to queue several same abilities together as long as your initiative permits it.

Because of my fanatical belief for combat rogue I decided I'll go with the sword+dagger combo for weapon, I tried the dagger pistol and sword pistol before but none of them is too appealing, despite my fast paced attack rate I just DIED too much because yes I can dodge and I can shoot'n stab but it never enough when you faced with two or more ranged class, my heal+vanish ability only can do so little in this situation and random downed vanish can do nothing to improve my gameplay, I feel so underpowered in term of attacks and survivability, one of my biggest disappointment is the skill pistol whip is not a ranged skill and the evade + stab skill do nothing to evade attacks (I still got hit, probably a bug), I once explored a cave alone with a skill point inside and whether the enemies are bugged to spawn fast or my utility skill and vanish sucks, I never got the skill point even when I tried with another player, we just wiped all over again. 

I realized something is missing from the thief ability, it's the oh s*it button, WOW rogues have dodge that evades most attacks, combat readiness that parries all incoming attacks,  and the Mesmer have distortion mechanic, Anet pulled the caster into melee zone with everything clicked properly but thief has no such thing, I feel like a naked warrior, died in one or two hit, I supposed to glorify the shadow and dwell in it, but all I have is underpowered three second vanish+heal and blinding smoke bombs, also traps which is not my utility choice, I have a feeling that I was being forced to play ranged with dual pistol or shortbow (which gives me a huge edge) somehow but I want to play melee while stay away from hits and conditions which in turn probably need some REAL evade skill.

Closure

But as they always says: it's beta and anything can change, I really hope they won't change mesmer since I really clicked with it, on the other hand thief.... needs A LOT of imrovement, probably not along the line I said but I just hope they did something to it, I heard on the world chat that many people are kind of disappointed on the class (probably a whole lot more on forum) I'll be back for BWE 3 and hopes for the best from Anet for the class. Mesmer still my first choice though.

It's Raining Beta Keys!!! (Closed)

It's literally downpouring outside since yesterday, lots of gaming site: big or small, even some notable gamer public figure are handing down Guild Wars 2 Beta Key, I'll try to list some of them, most of them has various closing time so grab them before they're gone (crossed means they're closed but I'll update if they're reopening)

- Talk Tyria

- Boons and Conditions

- Gamebreaker.tv

- Gamersbook

- JodyR's and Gamespot (probably it'll be better if you join Gamespot, it's a great game site)

- (Update) Guild Wars 2 Journal

- (Update) Fragworld (they still have some)

- (Update) Dragon Season (they did some riddle based contests.... which I'm bad at) =))
- (Update) GWOnline (they ended in Sunday midnight PDT, grab it quick!)

And many more, really, Use Twitter, Facebook, don't have it? make one then follow them since their sites are kinda interrelated/affiliated or something, hopefully you can grab one :)

**IMPORTANT** 

There's seems to be an increasing numbers of scam about beta key, notably from some site called "gw2beta(dot)org" yes the dot is the real dot, Anet has a post about them here so you might want to be careful about scam sites, always pick a site that is recommended by another trusted fansites. I know the hype can be sweet and blinding :D

Right Side (A Gameless Weekend)

I missed SWTOR, I missed my light-sided Juggernaut, my dark-sided Jedi Shadow, and of course I also missed my  trying-to-be-neutral Commando, I agree this contradict every other 25.678 other posts about how SWTOR sucks, or Bioware sucks, or EA (really) sucks (which is true anyway since I still want my digital download, don't try to tempt me to import it, if players got to hop several loophole just to get a copy and set a subscription that's not good), oh hey check this out, they're only have 1.3 million subscribers!! I really don't care, playing on trial and reporting closed beta texturing bugs doesn't seemed enough for me but the publisher and (the latest bug reports) kinda put me off.

See these fingers? It'll go right up your behind

Also I'm on withdrawal from the last Guild Wars 2 BWE, and I also can't play The Secret World on this beta weekend (my notebook finally joined my 'must be replaced before it takes toll of your life' queue list) so I'm officially single and gameless this weekend. And since I can't put an order to a new game gear for at least a month, I think I'm returning to a normal state of a human :D

There's something I've gotta take from the last GW2 BWE, the feelings of on the same side (Kill Ten Rats have a pretty good article here), you see... partying on MMORPG kinda rough sometimes, the maximum numbers of members, the reluctant feeling when someone sent you random group invite just to kill some big bad... dragon on an unshareable quest, the amount of LF healer or LF tank/DPS or everything else in between, the keyboard facebump moment when you just one mob close into the completion of a mission and the orc that just spawned beside you got tagged by another player. In Guild Wars 2 you just jump in the fray and kill a big bad... mother of a big lizard and her spawns with those hundred other players and you got the credits, you're all on the same side, fighting environment together, you can even ressurect other, heal other, combo attacking with one another, there's no preparation to be made, no pre-requisite moments, gear check, or whatever, everything that other player throws at the enemy become your advantage while everything that the enemy throws at you won't be your 'team' disadvantage because there's so many fighting chance you'll have even in death. So yeah... there won't be any WTF <insert class here> comments (that slowly becomes an unofficial jargon of WOW) in Guild Wars 2

This also won't happen again :D

Kill Steal have been another matter that early players (and in some high level players on some MMORPG now) experienced, it's been softened a bit though on some AAA grade MMORPG, WOW makes it EXP from monsters less impacting on gameplay and even made regular mobs easy to solo (and also make some mobs on Fireland patch non taggable), Rift have Rifting event when you can temporarily joined a public group to crush element plane mobs (even when you don't join you still got the credit and bling blings based on your contribution), SWTOR (especially on early levels) always pits you on fight with group of mobs and sometimes kill stealing is not quite a kill stealing and more like a 'welcomed reinforcements'. I'm pretty sure Guild Wars 2 will made kill stealing so much an ancient thing that every other MMO created after it (if it still sports tag system) will be questionable and bashed, also probably will be cautiously tried (or step away from)

Well, I think that completes my reminiscence for today, Think I'll go out and socialize now, thanks :)

Diablo III Real Money/Currency Auction House: An Opinion

The most intriguing thing about Diablo 3 for me now is not the characters or even whether it has a good gameplay mechanic or not, but the feature of real money auction house which basically Blizzard's way to monetize player's trading legally while attempted to shut down the dreaded illegal Real Money Trading of a game. Basically as the name said: You trade virtual goods with real money currencies

The plan was revealed about a year ago on Blizzcon, and finalized some days ago, you can read the full disclosure here, short version: Blizzard will take some of your money, it's 15% from the price of equipment and @ 1.50$ for materials, gems, and other stackable commodities. If you want to transfer your earnings from battle.net balance to your bank/paypal account Blizz will take 15% from the total amount transferred

These ones below are purely my thought:

So if I have a stack (20) ex: iron ore (or any other crafting materials, I never played Diablo 3 and D3DB doesn't have any craft database up yet), sell it for $1 each, I'll get $20, blizz will take 15% of it so that's left me with $17, then I transferred everything to my PP account, Blizz take another swag of 15%, left me with $14.45, listing fees only deducted from the amount of my sold items and when my mats doesn't sell the listing fees will be returned to me.

I have $14.45 enough to cover my internet bill, or pay other subs, or I might left them on my battle.net balance so I can resub to WoW (UPDATE: apparently you can't buy subs with your battle.net balance since it's not listed here, thanks for samII to point it on Tobold's) imagine if I have rare longsword of something and I sold them for like $50, blizz will only take 1.00 from it and I left with about $41.225 when transferred, I can buy any X360 games!!!

and all I do, is play Diablo III!!! Of course this one is just a theory, but in my opinion Blizzard has just opened a virtually endless watering hole in which everyone can sell those waters, my line of work is mainly trading and I understand the law of supply and demand, but in this one the supplies are nearly endless so the price will become undercutting race between players because all you need is to have enough to pay the listing fees and when it didn't sold it'll be returned to you with the fees, in 48 hours, in just a short time you can arrange anything you want to sell or buy again, at those time you probably already acquired a legendary helmet because you're such an awesome player which you probably can sold at $100, probably...

But of course in my experience everything that involves a massive amount of money is always targeted, Blizzard needs to strengthen account security to prevent notorious hackers trying to get their hand on REAL money on battle.net balance, while in game adept Auction House Players will tried to control supply and demand with undercutting and overpricing. And yeah, players will always tried to exploit and circumvent any bugs and condition they've met, botters for example probably will rampage around while Diablo III is not a true MMORPG but it'll affect the amount of supplies, demands will become tricky since we already have stigmas that players who brought everything with real money currencies are considered exploiter and have instant gratification mentality, but in this one the instant gratification mentality is probably will be the best buyers =))

May 15th and three months after will be the test of this monetized system of Blizzard, will they gain profits or the system will be endlessly exploited and circumvented that it'll hurt Blizzard and the players themselves? Time will tell again I guess

Me? Oh no, I won't be playing it, beside having a stone age notebook the dungeon crawler genre kinda rubs me the wrong way, of course if I have the time on my hand (which is not) I'll buy it and roll a monk (or witch doctor), beside It'll be nostalgic too meet Tyrael again :)

Yeah, he's probably will still be faceless