Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Patch 4.2 is live. This spawns some initial impressions, of course, and some continuing questions... New Dailies : Well, they're easy enough to get into. I took about twenty minutes this morning and knocked out the few available ones with two characters. As we get further along, more open up, and "keeping up" with them will be more of a time sink. I think I saw it takes about 36 days to have full access to everything the dailies eventually unlock. That feels like a long time, but doesn't seem abnormal to me for soloable faction grinds. We'll see how grindy it feels down the line. Thrall Quest Chain : On the up side, you gets some lore-heavy scenes and moments mingling with some of the major NPCs of the world. As Alliance, my interaction with Thrall has been virtually nil. It's soloable, doesn't take too long, and rewards a nice cloak for most character, including one that's currently "best" for protection paladins (even if lower item lev

Well, we finally got back into raiding after a couple weeks of not, for what is probably the last round of pre-nerf tier 11 content. We still have some minor issues, such as 11 people available for a 10-man raid and one of our core healers not really wanting to heal. Opting for more "farm" content, we struggled a little to find our footing on Magmaw, then went on to clear 2/3 of Blackwing Descent. It got me thinking a bit about how specialized we become in these fights. Of course, there's the "holy trinity" of three roles at play. Whether that's good or bad is a matter of opinion. Personally, I feel doing away with them is different , but not better (though I reserve the right to change my mind if proven otherwise). Regardless, they're around to stay in WoW. That setup brings with it an obvious learning curve. If a player is an experienced healer, you expect it to take some time for them to perform to an equal level as DPS. Similarly, going from ta

Naamah's Curse I still like Carey's stories and writing, and the alternate/fantasy history touch, but the Naamah series just doesn't measure up to the original for me. I don't find Bao remotely as interesting a character as Joscelin. Similarly, Moirin's broader skill base and occasional naivete just doesn't have the draw that Phedre's enduring ember of hope and will does. inFAMOUS Downloaded courtesy of the PSN outage compensation, I barely gave this game a second glance when it was new. But it plays well - feeling similarly smooth to Sucker Punch's previous Sly Cooper games, even if the tone and look is completely different. Admittedly, some of the missions get repetitive and the moral choices are predictably binary. But the pacing is generally good, spacing out new powers. The story is pieced together well, without any glaring plot holes that I saw. While I haven't seen the entire evil path, it seems to me that either moral direction would stil

Spent over three hours of my morning trying to figure out one issue affecting one employee in an annoying, but not critical, way. And I don't seem to be any closer. I'm stumped to the point of barely being able to think about it anymore. Feh. Feels like a waste of a day...

Work does that sometimes. With the recent story as a reminder, I feel a need to tuck a work-related post under friend-only... Especially when ranty. The last few days have been relatively quiet and peaceful, which has worried me some. The other tech is out sometime tomorrow through the 4th, so that's about a week and a half on my own. Right there, I'm looking at some schedule tweaking. So while I'd normally work evenings this week, I think I'll need to be here during the days instead. But there's also a small pile of things that he's been working on because he's WAY more familiar with than I am, and little procrastinations mean scrambling now to get them done before he's away for a week and a half. It won't all get done, I'm sure. We, as a company, also seem to be going through a period of "no one knows what the heck is going on." Setting up rates in the new (8-month-old) system is something that only one person has a decent

Endurance trial of a day... Yesterday afternoon took a lot out of me at work. Today was more of the same running around trying to deal with one hectic matter after another, and even getting drawn into a meeting where I couldn't answer everything on behalf of people not present and ended up losing close to an hour of my day that could have been spent actually accomplishing something. And then offline gaming, which was slow to start. Someone had the sudden impulse to go inviting a gamer who'd moved away to join the game via Skype. After some time setting this up, and talking with him a bit, he was drawn away by his SO. Only then did we actually get back to the game where we were in the middle of storming a twisted ritual meant to given a demon great power, etc., etc. The GM plays things a little toward the "realistic" side. We had a whole bunch of tribe members to carve through to even get to the circle of the ritual to try to disrupt things. Along the way, our NP

So from some E3 videos, I've seen some "mid-level" TOR gameplay in a more open environment. It looked very... basic MMO-ish. Now I've heard some more detail about the story aspects that make it, at least, more interesting. A pair of articles have come out from a couple people who logged 17 hours or so over the course of two days playing the game from the start. Those seem to provide more insight into the early game and the story aspects. One played an Imperial agent and has nary a bad thing to say. The other played a bounty hunter and was more critical, though not really negative. It sounds like, if nothing else, the game will have appeal as a Knights of the Old Republic game (or up to eight of them, given the class-specific differences) with some optional PVP and co-op play. The criticisms in the second article center mostly around how clunky the story becomes when you include multiple players. In what the author played, there was very little overlap in goals

The weekend was too short. I didn't accomplish much of anything. Blar! I did finish up reading Shadow's Lure, though, sequel to Shadow's Son that I commented on earlier . Caim is coming into his power, and as the title might imply struggling against losing himself to it sometimes. Shadow critters scout, shadow gating/teleporting gets easier, he figures out a way to heal wounds, and he goes from "skilled assassin" to "certifiable badass" wielding his father's sword. The sword, however, seems a little on the evil side. Caim's journey feels pretty narrow as he helps a bunch of highlanders against oppression manipulated by shadowy invaders. He learns a bit more about his powers and past, and he's pushed into a leadership role (though it's hard to say he handles that well), but I actually find myself glad the story also covers Kit's journey through the planar bordlands and Josey dealing with national troubles back in Othir that reveal

Been a while since it's happened, but... with one healer injured offline, another apparently not wanting to heal, and others not showing because of that... no raid tonight. I'm a bit bummed about this. I don't mind the time off in theory, but not finding out until the last minute is terribly disappointing. Ah well. What can you do?

Warcraft related ponderings that may have limited appeal to an already limited reader base. ;) So, as I thought , patch 4.1 has largely been a bust for me. All reasons have previously been mentioned, though it boils down to a very small amount of content that appeals/applies to right where I'm sitting. My Cataclysm-born druid is level 30, I think? About that. Leveling with someone definitely slows the process down, as we only sync up for a couple hours a week - if that. 4.2 (recently estimated for a June 21nd release by non-official sources) promises to be a little different. The new quests in Hyjal should give me something to chew on for a while in order to unlock some items/recipes, even if it will probably get to feel grindy working on it with four characters. A new tier of equipment may give me enough incentive to get back into heroic dungeon runs a little more for the valor points, but I doubt I'll be reaching the point cap most weeks. The Firelands raid should giv

I already mentioned, albeit in brief, A Dance of Cloaks . The second book is... follow-up. I guess it further fills in story, as the whole series is meant to be background for a character that appears in another series the author has. Prodigy thief/assassin boy presumed dead as re-established himself as "the Watcher," terrorizing the guilds on the street while the guild/merchant conflict drags out. It still feels very (older) D&D, where a handful of people are so ridiculously skilled that a couple dozen soldiers are an annoyance and getting hit by one crossbow bolt a day is more frustrating than lethal. Few enough people seem to possess magic, but those who do can do such things you wonder why there isn't more impact in the world. There's even a mercenary group with a blacksmith whose creations are deemed "special," a priestess whose magics heal, a rogue/swordsman, and lead by a mage (fireballs and all). It's fine reading as "light" fan

Just watched a streamed video with questions and answers on the game from E3. Lotsa deserty Tatooine. Even with the caveats at the end (graphics settings turned down for performance reasons and streaming degredation), it looks better than most of what I've seen previously. It's still not quite wowing me at this point, but it looks solid.

I'm playing through a second time to see the major differences in path. While I'm not actually to chapter 3 yet, it was short enough and didn't look like it would play out radically differently, so I feel reasonably safe in pondering the story arc(s). A lot of games that provide differences in story based on choice tend to go for a good/evil thing. That's not so here. Toward the end of chapter 1, you side with one of two conflicting people/factions. Your choice determines where you end up in chapter 2 and, though there is some overlap, shapes most of the story you get there and probably about half the quest. Some events, including a number of quests, play out about the same regardless. You may be breaking an ancient curse for a different reason, but you're still collecting relics to break the same curse. The problem I have is that the choice and outcome seem a little... out of sync? As chapter 1 winds down, you choose to more closely ally with one of two peop

Hunting Krispy Kreme donuts across town... Being a part of investigating some in-prison gold mining operation using inmates as slave labor... Being in an anachronistic World War II army where, having survived the initial invasion, we were encamped and doing a lot of wheeling and dealing among ourselves for goods and services. Someone gave me a nice, warm cloak that would be lovely for the coming winter. I traded a bunch of miscellaneous things for some sort of "super" submachine gun. We laid claim to some houses in this deserted little suburban corner of nowhere - though monsters came running out of the attic of one house we had to burn down with them inside. And several friends I haven't seen in a long time were there, making it just a little bit more like an SCA event...

A long day, too. Ugh. Brutal. One thing after another, and several people in crisis mode. Thankfully, things did ease up some after lunch (which was about 1:30 or so - later than usual). Then I managed to get in for a massage. Yay. And when I got home, there was the nice surprise of seeing an art commission finally done. Y'know, I don't do it often, but still there's usually not much of a story to such things. This time, it feels like there was... Coming in on the Christmas season, I wondered what to get kyn_elwynn . He suggested an art commission. But how many furry artists are available for such at that time of year? None of the ones I looked at, it seemed. And what to have done? Well, some very general suggests were offered, but in part I was directed to see what the artist would do. Then, surprisingly, one mentioned he'd be doing some. So I waited and pounced. Slots went quick, with enough people responding... I don't know. In the space of a few hours, I su

Geralt of Rivia returns, embroiled in political intrigues and ancient curses while still seeking some of his own memories (lost prior to the first game). The game is, overall, a good package and experience with a lot going for it and relatively few points against it. You cannot save everyone. That's something of a message and morale I come out of my first play through with. Deus Ex gave us a choice of sides and who to believe, but eventually forced our hands onto a set path. Knights of the Old Republic presented players with choices of extreme (occasionally laughably) light or dark and let the players pick, mostly determining endings. Mass Effect offered slightly more subtle choices between morally upstanding and questionable, with specific (if important) points of divergence. The Witcher 2 drops you into a mess of believably realistic politics and says "have fun." That's not to say you have total freedom of choice, mind you. Rather, you're faced with a choi