Scattered Entertainment Comments
Let's see... what to recap on?
I reinstalled Galactic Civilizations 2. What a glorious time-sink that can be. I'm sure it doesn't apply to everyone, but I like building up an empire with which to take over. That countdown to the next learned technology or built ship, however, puts quite a temptation on hitting the end turn button just "one more time." And when the larger maps can take several hours to play through... yeah, I need to be careful. ;) On the down side, "normal" AI isn't able to keep up with me and most games end up reaching a tipping point where either A) I have such an advantage in resources and technology that it's just a matter of time before I win or B) I'm so far behind it's futile. That may be why I stopped playijng it at some point - when you see the signs, there's not much incentive to really finish.
WoW security's touchy these days. Last year (or was it the year before?), a friend helped me get through some of the PVP stuff I couldn't stand to finish out the big holiday meta-achievement for a mount (and free max flying speed at the time, which is now purchasable). This last week, I returned the favor by doing some of the more tedious item collection for Noblegarden. Naturally, I had to borrow her authenticator and password for this. It also tripped a (presumably IP-based) "the system has detected a change in your login behavior" message that meant having to jump through additional hoops with links sent to her email to change the account password before I could get in. It was a hassle, but y'know... I'd rather have that layer of security than not.
WoW Patch 4.1 is out, and I've barely gotten my feet wet with it. I just went through the Zul'Gurub (re-)introduction questline this morning. 10-15 quests running around Stranglethorn Vale getting introduced to the dungeon bosses in a remote sort of way. It wasn't bad, but having a troll following me around in spirit form actually made me feel sort of "used." Darn Horde. ;) From reports thusfar, it seems the two new 5-man heroics will be hard and time consuming for a while. I'm not looking forward to that, but I do want to get to try them out soon - with guildmates. It also looks like we get a little chunk of guild experience and gold in the guild bank for the first 7 (level-appropriate) dungeons and the first 1 raid boss done by guild groups in a week. I don't expect that to make a radical difference, but it's nice to see. And while I don't think it will seriously impact gameplay, that 20 second cooldown on Word of Glory does feel a bit long.
And preview stuff is up almost immediately for patch 4.2 and the Firelands raid. The models look neat, and I wonder which the paladin armor will be designed after. An interview all but confirmed new crafting patterns will be raid drops. We should see more about the daily quests, though it sounds like they're trying to get pretty fancy with phasing. I have some doubts there, but we'll see how it works out. What really caught my eye so far is the legendary staff, Dragonwrath. I would absolutely love to see one in-guild, but... I have some fear it might be a little bit out of reach. It should be attainable in 10-man, unlike previous legendaries, but it appears clearing the first tier raid content is required to even begin the questline and we aren't there yet. Still... here's hoping.
Over the last few nights, I finished The Wolf Age. A fantasy story about a city of werewolves and the politics therein - somehow that premise didn't pan out like I envisioned. It was just okay overall. I liked some of the characters a great deal. Some aspects of the politics and society were interesting to me. But there were a lot of things that didn't work well for me either, starting with the main character, Morlock Ambrosius (somehow, even the name sounds pretentious to me). Though not in a numbered series, it seems pretty clear to me the author has been doing stories of Morlock's various adventures and a number of things weren't explained the way they might have been in whatever the "first" book was. The author also has a tendency to "tell rather than show" - summing up a discussion narratively rather than letting it play out. That's something I've never really liked, and it made it particularly hard to get through the first part of the book where that style is almost necessary as Morlock doesn't speak the language of those in the region. It gets better later on, but that part of the writing style never goes away entirely. There's enough "wrong" about the book (at least from my perspective as a reader), that I won't seek out further works of the author, but not so much that I feel cheated out of my time or money.
I liked a number of the werewolf characters, which just made it frustrating when almost all of them die. Morlock himself comes across like a GM's favorite NPC. Even when he resigns himself to death and drink, it's hard to sympathize with him as a fallible/"real" person. The whole plotline with the Strange Gods and the cold-sucking monstrosity from beyond felt sort of tacked on. Those things had importance, but they didn't tie in well with the rest of the story from where I sit.
I reinstalled Galactic Civilizations 2. What a glorious time-sink that can be. I'm sure it doesn't apply to everyone, but I like building up an empire with which to take over. That countdown to the next learned technology or built ship, however, puts quite a temptation on hitting the end turn button just "one more time." And when the larger maps can take several hours to play through... yeah, I need to be careful. ;) On the down side, "normal" AI isn't able to keep up with me and most games end up reaching a tipping point where either A) I have such an advantage in resources and technology that it's just a matter of time before I win or B) I'm so far behind it's futile. That may be why I stopped playijng it at some point - when you see the signs, there's not much incentive to really finish.
WoW security's touchy these days. Last year (or was it the year before?), a friend helped me get through some of the PVP stuff I couldn't stand to finish out the big holiday meta-achievement for a mount (and free max flying speed at the time, which is now purchasable). This last week, I returned the favor by doing some of the more tedious item collection for Noblegarden. Naturally, I had to borrow her authenticator and password for this. It also tripped a (presumably IP-based) "the system has detected a change in your login behavior" message that meant having to jump through additional hoops with links sent to her email to change the account password before I could get in. It was a hassle, but y'know... I'd rather have that layer of security than not.
WoW Patch 4.1 is out, and I've barely gotten my feet wet with it. I just went through the Zul'Gurub (re-)introduction questline this morning. 10-15 quests running around Stranglethorn Vale getting introduced to the dungeon bosses in a remote sort of way. It wasn't bad, but having a troll following me around in spirit form actually made me feel sort of "used." Darn Horde. ;) From reports thusfar, it seems the two new 5-man heroics will be hard and time consuming for a while. I'm not looking forward to that, but I do want to get to try them out soon - with guildmates. It also looks like we get a little chunk of guild experience and gold in the guild bank for the first 7 (level-appropriate) dungeons and the first 1 raid boss done by guild groups in a week. I don't expect that to make a radical difference, but it's nice to see. And while I don't think it will seriously impact gameplay, that 20 second cooldown on Word of Glory does feel a bit long.
And preview stuff is up almost immediately for patch 4.2 and the Firelands raid. The models look neat, and I wonder which the paladin armor will be designed after. An interview all but confirmed new crafting patterns will be raid drops. We should see more about the daily quests, though it sounds like they're trying to get pretty fancy with phasing. I have some doubts there, but we'll see how it works out. What really caught my eye so far is the legendary staff, Dragonwrath. I would absolutely love to see one in-guild, but... I have some fear it might be a little bit out of reach. It should be attainable in 10-man, unlike previous legendaries, but it appears clearing the first tier raid content is required to even begin the questline and we aren't there yet. Still... here's hoping.
Over the last few nights, I finished The Wolf Age. A fantasy story about a city of werewolves and the politics therein - somehow that premise didn't pan out like I envisioned. It was just okay overall. I liked some of the characters a great deal. Some aspects of the politics and society were interesting to me. But there were a lot of things that didn't work well for me either, starting with the main character, Morlock Ambrosius (somehow, even the name sounds pretentious to me). Though not in a numbered series, it seems pretty clear to me the author has been doing stories of Morlock's various adventures and a number of things weren't explained the way they might have been in whatever the "first" book was. The author also has a tendency to "tell rather than show" - summing up a discussion narratively rather than letting it play out. That's something I've never really liked, and it made it particularly hard to get through the first part of the book where that style is almost necessary as Morlock doesn't speak the language of those in the region. It gets better later on, but that part of the writing style never goes away entirely. There's enough "wrong" about the book (at least from my perspective as a reader), that I won't seek out further works of the author, but not so much that I feel cheated out of my time or money.
I liked a number of the werewolf characters, which just made it frustrating when almost all of them die. Morlock himself comes across like a GM's favorite NPC. Even when he resigns himself to death and drink, it's hard to sympathize with him as a fallible/"real" person. The whole plotline with the Strange Gods and the cold-sucking monstrosity from beyond felt sort of tacked on. Those things had importance, but they didn't tie in well with the rest of the story from where I sit.
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