Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Well, while sitting at work waiting for remote support to figure things out and call me back, I seem to have a few minutes to comment on The Witcher 2. I picked it up Friday night and have been playing on and off through the weekend. Two thoughts strike me at this point: 1) Pretty much everything I read in the reviews, good and bad, is true. 2) This game really wants to be an actiony console game. It's one of the visually prettiest games I've seen, I think. Lots of detail, appropriate color, good movement (on high settings with my hardware). The storyline is reasonably engaging, though some of the side quests are pretty random and unrelated. I suppose as a monster hunter for hire, you get those sorts of jobs. The manual is an invaluable tool for looking up commands, as there's barely any tutorial-ish boxes in-game. That seems somewhat two-decades-ago, and may be a disadvantage for all those who downloaded it rather than buying a physical copy. The online registrati

The last couple days, especially, I've been feeling... a little out of it. Just sort of... between things, I guess... Work has (finally) settled into a relatively normal situation. There are still some things going on with redesign of website elements and slow progress with circulation software, but I'm only tangentially connected to those right now. We are losing our (former) web department's developer/programmer at the end of the month, which should be.. interesting, since his skill set is radically different from my own. I hope nothing bites us in the ass too much there. But mostly, IT duty is back to "keep things running," which feels both nice and alien after over a year of major projects. Home is stable. The condos are in a decent place physically and financially. We still have trouble with one or two owners, and I heard something about a foreclosure of one of the units, but no major problems there. Guild Wars seems to be suffering more and more from

So another trilogy is finished. Still a decent read overall. Things do come together in the end, even if it maybe a little bit heavy-handed destiny that makes it so. I liked several of the characters and generally found the pieces fitting together. Most of the characters were imperfect in a human way, so even the two I might classify as the "on screen" villains had motivations that were generally believable (if self-centered). There's a general feeling of the world having fallen, losing legends and ancient ways, but now on the cusp of rediscovery. On the down side, I still don't like that it took three books to resolve any of the storylines. Expectations set up in the first book aren't met, if only because situations change along the way. I suppose my biggest dissatisfaction with the series is how things go for certain characters... The serpents' and dragon's tale goes okay, with things explained well for the most part and hope even if they are dimin

The Liveship Traders series continues. Once again, book 2 is definitely a part of a series, developing the plotlines laid out in the first one without any real resolution of its own. That's still not my preferred way of doing things, I find the story interesting enough to follow. A pirate king rises in power, often seemingly despite himself. Political tensions build to the point of riots and rebellion. One liveship is drawn out of abandonment to haunt for another stolen. The sea serpents' tale becomes more clear. A lot happens, but nothing is completed. It's been a good enough read that I may try one of the author's other series down the line. So, book 3 is next. Then I have Naamah's Curse and A Dance of Blades to read at some point, both sequels.

Guild Wars was a non-event for me this week. A brief power outage Sunday evening has a slightly more lasting effect on my DSL, so I couldn't connect while that was going on. It sounds like I missed out on some treasure hunting, but that doesn't much matter to me. In World of Warcraft, I've now finished a Zul'Gurub run. It's still time consuming. We got in some good attempts at the Twilight Ascendant Council, but weren't able to hold things together long enough to see phase 3. Sadly, I can claim indirect responsibility for a couple wipes due to unexplained, crippling lag affecting my connection to the servers. Overall, it felt like we weren't missing anything, and I hope we can make the leap to success next time around. Meanwhile, there are still some lingering tensions around, though they don't appear quite so bad as a couple weeks back.

Well, what to say? It was fun, entertaining, and impressive at times. The show was done differently than the last one (Twisted Fairy Tales) I saw. There was sort of an overall story arc of the gods, monkeys, and naga/snakes vying for a magic elixir, but the scenes weren't nearly as indepedent as before. Also, I think there tended to be a lot more people on stage doing things at once. I also had a better seat and could see the stage better this time. ;) Honestly, I think I prefer the previous format better. Which isn't to say this show was bad at all. Nice juggling, good music, sexy acrobatics... All really nice. There was some really good lyra work early on that received quite a lot of cheers, and some pretty impressive controlled acrobatics between two people later.

I don't think it's normal for me to be brushing snow off my car before going to work in mid-May... I've a new electronic leash - umm... cell phone - to acquaint myself with. Yay, finally a phone with a camera. I can take pictures like my modern-setting characters in games. ;) Of course, it's still a bit disappointing to get saddled with a slider model from 2008 or so while assisting other employees in setting up their fancy new smart phones. And I get to go see the Saltfire Circus tonight, barring unforeseen problems. The last show I caught was in... June? I remember it being and stuffy in the theater. The weather's a little bit different this time around, but I still expect a good performance.

A recent interview marks the first time I've seen someone from Arenanet admit the dynamic world events will basically run on cycles. So while the timing may vary between events, the current state of any of them will be based on whatever someone did last, not necessarily what you did. That's what I always expected, and what my concerns about that system center around. It ought to be better than fully-static areas, but it doesn't live up to the "your personal actions matter" pitch in my mind. Ultimately, I'm waiting to see how it will feel in comparison to progress-based "permanent" phasing. Of course, to make really spontaneous/unique world events "you would probably need 10,000 game designers making content 24/7 for their rest of their lives." Or... I guess you could leave it in the hands of one creative person and get a lot of neat stuff for a while, but probably only the tiniest fraction of the player base actually sees any of it di

Work has, after the last year or so, settle back into a more normal pace. Perhaps that's deceptive as there are still a few things looming on the horizon, but there are days again that I do not have major projects with which to fill downtime between general maintenance and handling the usual malware infections or random errors. My prediction of WoW 4.1's appeal being short-lived has proven more accurate than I imagined as thoughts of running the new dungeons repeatedly have faded before the reality of their daunting time requirements. I've spent about 3 hours in a Zul'Gurub run (which, admittedly, was new to a couple of us and involved dying several times) where we got to the last fight, but didn't finish. Since then, I have not had both interest and time together to try another 5-man dungeon of any sort. If I'm going to devote that much time to WoW, it's going to be for a raid. And Guild Wars feels like it's in a bit of a lull, too, after failing to a

So without any other real plans seeming available yesterday about midday, I went to watch Thor . I was never really a big fan of him in the comics. I think my favorite Asgardian plotline was actually when the New Mutants when there (Moonstar becoming a valkyrie, Wolfsbane falling for a wolf prince, Sunspot living it up among warriors in a tavern - ah, good times). The movie lays more groundwork for the Avengers film, but it's pretty solid on its own. It felt a little... I don't know... simplistic(?), but it hit on all the points it needed to and did so well. Loki was pretty well done, though his motivations are a little unclear. And I have always found it odd that comic book movies like this sort of skirt around "magic," even going so far as to paint it as more superscience. I sort of want to see a Doctor Strange movie just so the film makers can't avoid the topic. So... Overall, good movie. Not, in my mind, up to Iron Man, but good in its own right.

So... Firelands tier 12 armor has been mostly revealed . The Firelands theme shows through on most, if not all, sets. I like some better than others, but there are none of them that I actually dislike. I think it's been a while since that happened. Of course, I focus on the paladin set as that's my main character. I think this sums it up in general pretty well. For plate armor, it looks heavy on the cloth - but there are plate-ish elements. I prefer pants to robes/dresses, but I'm okay with that style for paladins. Shoulders are flashy, but kinda cool. The masked look still seems a little unpaladinly to me, but it harkens back to the very memorable/distinctive tier 2 Justicar armor . All-in-all, 'tis fine. It is however, sad that the most distinctive parts (shoulders and headgear) are alwasy the hardest to come by anyway. If I could change one thing about the visual style, though, it would be to add some specifically-paladinly element to the design (of this set a

Thoughts circling back and twisting among themselves like a tangle a sea serpents... Some recent occurrences made me think "There are times Jedi divestment/control of emotions would be a very good thing for people to learn." Couple that with one of my recurring ponderances of seemingly-contrary nature of some lessons we are taught as children, and you get this: "There is no emotion, there is peace" is a lot like "don't care what other people think." The former is from the Jedi Code. The latter is taught by Western parents everywhere... or maybe just family TV sitcoms. Both can be good life lessons. Both, however, if taken at face value with no context would lead someone to be... let's say way outside societal norms. We are taught, by word and example, how to behave in society. Sometimes those lessons seem contrary. We're taught to "share" and yet to "respect other people's property." If you take any one of these

One more book read. Ship of Magic was pretty compelling, and personal. It's really easy to dislike a few of the character, but the author gives you their perspectives too, so it's easy enough to understand them (save to say "why can't you see this is wrong?" which I think often enough about people in real life). Two main down sides. There's progress in the book, but no real resolution - one can only assume that comes from reading the rest of the trilogy and I dislike that particular style/choice. And... it's tragic. Seriously. A wanted birthright all but stolen. A sought fate being slowly brought about at unexpected cost through undesired paths. Crumbling finances. Political tension. Lost ways. Aside from a few moments here and there, none of the main characters are happy . So, it's probably not a book/series for tashiro , though I think I'll see it through. And, while not a negative per se, I think Red Seas Under Red Skies made me feel

Admittedly, you sort of have to understand WoW boss fights to fully get it, but this amuses me greatly. I'm looking forward to Star Wars: ToR and Guild Wars 2, but I have reservations about both, especially at initial release. Deus Ex: Human Revolution on the other hand, I know I'll be picking up when it comes out. Pretty much everything I read about it cements this further.

This one gets flagged friends-only. Even at that, not everyone may want to read. But... it's distractingly on my mind. I've said many times that our WoW guild is akin to a family. That's good in a lot of ways, but it makes any disruptions all the more painful. To put it simply, it sucks when people aren't getting along or are upset. I've observed certain tensions between a couple close players and our guild leader. To me, this seems an almost unavoidable personality clash. They don't seem to be doing anything to deliberately aggravate him, but their typical actions do regardless. So he gets upset and snaps - whether it's threat of /gkicking for a behavior or leaving a raid in a huff. I can sort of understand this, as their behavior rubs me the wrong way sometimes too, but that's too much. So that's been brewing for a while. Then we also have another member who recently took up raid leadership from our guild leader. I don't know what all

After difficulty on trash and unduly long pauses and discussions, we brought down Atramedes on our third attempt - definitely better than I was expecting. One more notch in the belt. Then we took another long break/discussion period and got in a little practice on Nefarian. That wasn't so pretty, but it was good to see. The initial pull and placement of Onyxia is rough - especially if people open fire immediately. I'm also still getting a solid feel for when and how to turn her. It was suggested that since melee would move to Nef, she could just be kept facing the wall, but her tail sweep has too much range for that to work. Nef squished our other tank upon landing a couple times, but I think that was the healers not being prepared. I think the biggest thing we'll have to figure out is managing the bone minions. I didn't have a good view of what all was tried as far as crowd control, so I can't offer much input on that. At our closest to phase 2, we had Onyxia dow

tashiro recently said to me something about using my bank account to put company money into. Or out of. Or... something. All because it was a US-based account, and "they" required that. With little preface, this was incredibly confusing. After trying to express my befuddlement, I finally gained some clarity. He wants to set up a project via Kickstarter.com for another RPG book (or something, I'm still unclear on that part) in an attempt to gain the funds beforehand. At a glance, this isn't a bad idea, per se. Getting donations in advance would certainly help make sure funds don't run dry partway through. Kickstarter's model is okay, I guess? It seems more for art projects than for business ventures. And they require a US account to put money in (and he's in Canada) - which only happens if the donations reach a certain goal. But... I don't know that I'd want to be directly involved with that. Right off the bat, it raises some issues of ethics

Well, I got to see the redone Zul'Gurub Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, due to timing, I wasn't able to finish it. The place is big, touch, and full of gimmicks. Actually I like it, save the time investment again - dungeons keep coming back to that for me. I know that will get somewhat better down the line, but in the meantime, it's frustrating to sink a couple hours into something like that and still not finish. Maybe we should have skipped the archaeology boss? Ah well. Venoxis is hectic, but wasn't too difficult. Mandokir is entertaining as he one-shots people through the fight (though they get brought back) and "levels up." For the archaeology-requiring event, we got Wushoolay, who had a couple lightning attacks, but was easy enough. Kilnara was the one who gave us the most trouble. We wiped once to a panther swarm because someone was trying to use the rats for... something... and failing. After that, though it took a few times to figure it out, her Wav

Every few weeks, I root around on Amazon or various fantasy review sites looking for potential reading material. Since the Night Angel trilogy, I think I've leaned a little more toward the "good" rogue/assassin gets in over his head sub-genre. Admittedly, some elements of that are starting to feel cliche, but what doesn't these days? So on one of these little searches, I came across Shadow's Son . kyn_elwynn , stop me if this starts to sound familiar: an assassin named Caim who's a decent guy (considering he kills people for a living), of somewhat mysterious bloodline, who possesses shadow-based powers... Granted, Caim has the additional touch of a spirit-friend that only he can see and hear most of the time, too, but there's enough there I had to read it and see. I could draw some parallels between Caim and Caelan, but I find they're different enough, at least. ;) Overall, the book's a fine read. Nothing truly astounding, but I found it worthw