Redwolf's Journal (continued)

So... I addressed (with spoilers) the ending of Mass Effect 3 before . It created a big stir among the vocal players. Frankly, I don't even like the deus ex machina path Bioware took to the end of the trilogy, but the Crucible is so woven into ME3 that there's no taking it out without redoing the entire game. I wasn't looking for or expecting a perfect "and we baked you a cake" ending. Given that, I think my main problems with the ending were: 1) Several large, unexplained gaps that made me wonder what the heck I missed 2) No sense of achievements along the way (fate of the krograns and geth/quarians mainly) having any impact EA/Bioware released the "extended cut" endings for Mass Effect 3 in response (presumably) to all the fan outcry. We've known it was coming for a while and wondered if it could fix the problems (complaints were widespread enough that I think that's not too subjective to say) with the original. Throughout it all, I just ca

We started "late" by some standards (though it's becoming more "normal"), but did well. We got a little off-target partway through the fight with Zon'ozz, but downed him our first time. Maybe people are grasping something or stars aligned, I don't know. Ultraxion went better than last week right off, and we worked up to a kill on our third attempt. Warmaster Blackhorn gave us a new variety of chaos, and we took a break after two attempts to pop over to Baradin Hold only to come back and finish Blackhorn on our next try. And with pre-fight descriptions becoming briefer, we pressed on to Spine of Deathwing. That got hairy, but we even beat that on our fourth shot. Madness of Deathwing is long, though (in much the same way Spine is - repeat the same stuff with things getting harder along the way), and folks were getting tired so we called it there. Still, anytime we jump from four doable bosses to seven is pretty amazing and feels awesome.

Would you believe I've been getting up the last several Saturday mornings to catch cartoons? Ah, just like old times. Well, not quite so early. Green Lantern: The Animated Series hit the middle of its first season by closing its main story arc. It looks like the second half is another arc to itself, but there aren't many threads left unresolved. Thundercats (the new series) has had some ups and downs in my opinion, going from some cutesy stories to some fairly interesting more adult ones. Though there's no word about continuation (not cancelled, but on hiatus), the fight against Mumm-Ra is definitely not over. The season ended with a battle that showed unity of the "good guys," but was a net loss overall, and the story took a turn I wasn't expecting by showing Pumyra loyal to Mumm-Ra. Yeah, they got me with that one. The Legend of Korra had a reasonably solid first season, but felt a bit rushed to me. The inter-character romances build up and play out

I usually don't remember dreams in much detail if at all. I usually don't remember much in the way of "cool" dreams. But this one was actually still vivid with me upon waking, and thinking through it helped me remember... So a group of people was exploring a jungle that felt like a backdrop from an Uncharted game. The guy who struck me as the hero/lead of the group was talking to the others in a little canyon below a waterfall about how they had not found what they were looking for in the ruins in the area. About that time, the noticed a constructed wall behind part of the waterfall and they climbed up. The construction had sort of a South American pyramid feel to it, though it wasn't a pyramid. The hero had to squeeze through one section to get inside and the other guy in the group tried, but couldn't fit. At about this point, the second guy became sort of my avatar in the dream, scooting back to let the others go in - our "hero" and two women.

Y'know, I've seen a lot of things mentioned and talked about from the Mists beta, giving an idea of what to expect in certain areas. I think it was a post about raid testing that actually made me step back and realize there's a new (sort of - we'll get to that) mechanic involved behind the scenes: gear that scales in power. There was a throw-away line in talk about dungeon challenges, and another in the raiding post. It was touched on a bit more thoroughly in a post about how valor points will be used to upgrade gear rather than buy new gear. But what that means is that MoP items are being designed in such a way that they can be increased and decreased in item level, and thus stats. It's interesting to me because it's a decidedly different way of doing things. Currently, items are what they are, even though they might come in different sub-tiers (ie. LFR, normal, heroic) or be a potential requirement for a better item (legendaries)... with the sole exception o

Well, Diablo 3 really had timing that's perfect in at least one sense - it provided a little bit of distraction without sucking me into any darker recesses. The "fun" of playing wore off for me getting into Hell difficulty. And while I've pushed a character to level 60 in Act 4, I see no reason to struggle through Inferno. And shortly after any real charm the game still had wore off for me, the real money auction house finally went live - just in time to not actually tempt me. I guess it remains a game I can boot up and play for half an hour or so in the background before becoming bored. The frustrating parts are too frustrating and the rewarding parts aren't very rewarding. Worth more than the $0 I paid for it, but I'm glad I didn't buy it off the shelf - which is what I expected long ago, even if the details of reality vary. I don't know if this thread will survive, but it damnably funny in its sarcastic praise. --- Many exploits remain afte

The night's raid felt relatively successful to me, if short. We started a little later than ideal, with several regulars delayed by real life. We went straight into Dragon Soul, getting tripped up a little (but less than usual) on Zon'ozz - downed him on our third try. We lost a couple people on Hagara that we shouldn't have, but carried on through that fight just fine. And we set up to try Ultraxion for the first time. The trash is hectic and we all died, but thankfully after the waves of drakes so we didn't have to do them again. I think I want to suggest more DPS taunt-assistance. Taking possible melee hits isn't fun, but it's the flames everywhere that really kill people. As I figured, Ultraxion himself comes down to "is everyone in the group using Heroic Will correctly." Any tunnel vision or bad timing will probably kill the individual outright, which makes it less likely the remainder can pull it off. DPS and healers are iffy. If a tank bites

I mean, it doesn't get much cooler than being Iron Man. Flight, wealth, genius... taking some buff monster down with "Hulk tranq" slap patches and other general awesomeness. Even when semi-lucid I didn't want to give up the role. ;)

My latest reading has been the Chronicles of Elantra - thankfully, a series I came into later than the beginning. I commented on the first and second books previously. I figured I'd address the series more as a whole rather than reviewing each book, since there's a different focus and major incident(s) each time, but the story flows together. So, I've since finished Cast in Secret, Cast in Fury, Cast in Silences, Cast in Chaos, and Cast in Ruin. The next one's due out in September... Kaylin Neya is a member of the Hawks - the police force in a fantasy city with a variety of races and magics. She's marked by runes of unknown origin connected to mostly-unknown powers. Between duty and destiny, she's drawn into a series of adventures. Simple enough premise. I've enjoyed the series in a raw entertainment sense. The more conversational (and less proper) style to the writing ceased to bug me after the first couple books, and I just let it go. I like the se

... I may have needed the reminder that when I think "nothing good will come of my comments on this topic," I'm usually right. Maybe I'm lucky I've only really shot myself in the foot mood-wise. Alien-y dreams this morning. Something about a Ripley who could change into an Alien teaming up with a human version of Winona Ryder from Resurrection trying to escape a Company compound that was almost video game-like and eventually switching consciousnesses between bodies along the way. *shrugs* The end of next week should be the big switch to new software in the circulation department at work. May mean extra hours then and over the weekend, though it really doesn't seem like local IT is a large player outside getting databases copied for conversion. We'll see. Edit: How is it that it seems any day I go through feeling like crap, thinking "Well, maybe I can go home early when my co-tech gets here," he'll invariably call in saying he's goin

Well, I guess I can give Prometheus points for making me think about it. Sure, most of the thoughts are negative, and I wish they would stop, but that's something. Right? Others have analyzed it more, so probably anything I can say will be a rehash of something else, but... ugh. It bugs me! The whole genetic thing strikes me as questionable at best. Okay, I'm no expert, but claiming "engineer" and human DNA are a "match" when there are some pretty major physical difference seems a stretch. There's enough genetic difference between homo sapiens and neanderthals to consider them difference species or subspecies, and they're way closer physically than these 8-foot-plus-tall, bald, pale, ripped beings from another world. Was the initial scene meant to show they seeded animal life, or specifically human life? I guess I'll go with the latter, and say we're throwing evolutionary theory out the door. The scientists are ridiculously reckless - sl

Well, I got in a little bit of time playing, but not much over the weekend. I think my previous assessment still holds true for the most part. I didn't perceive it as being as busy this time around (no overflow server messages), but that could have been adding more servers on their end, or the population being more spread out between zones, or just luck of when I was on. Maps are still only vaguely helpful when you have to deal with caves and cities - the map helped me find the charr asura gate, but I still had to run around for several minutes to find the right way to get to it. The auto-loot setting helps, but the game still badly needs the ability to area loot when things get cluttered and running around hitting "F" may have you talking to people instead of picking things up. I still don't like the lumbering feel of playing a charr, and even finding someone in the home city that grants a temporary speed buff didn't make the city feel any less impractically h

So Saturday night's raiding went well enough. There were no real arguments. We downed two bosses in Baradin Hold quickly, plowed through Firelands up through Staghelm (with two wipes on Baleroc), then did the first half of Dragon Soul (with several wipes on Zon'ozz). That was long (about a four hour stretch), but fairly successful. Still, a few things bother me a little bit. First, there's a bit of a rift I perceive between people wanting to do more Dragon Soul and people wanting to keep doing Firelands. I recognize that Staghelm's staff is pretty much unique at any level, and I would like to see a Dragonwrath in the guild, but otherwise Firelands is feeling pretty old. Most of the fights, I can do in sort of an automatic sense. Only Rhyolith really requires any breaking of pattern for me. I have no idea why one person (who is third or fourth to start it) wants Dragonwrathy parts when the first one isn't must more than halfway done after all this time. And we

Well... slow morning, so I decided to go see Prometheus today rather than waiting until tomorrow. I'm a fair Alien-series fan. My favorite is Aliens, though I recognize it's essentially a whole different genre than Alien and I respect that movie as well. So when I heard there was going to be a prequel (even though reports over the last couple years waffled on whether it truly was or wasn't meant to be such), I was interested. Now, I can say there are many ways in which I would rather have spent two hours and $7.25. There are elements of a good movie there. There are elements of tying together the "history" of the Alien universe. And yet the story felt to me like such a disjointed mess that I can't say I really enjoyed it. Even Alien Resurrection and AVP, neither of which I consider good movies , were at least sort of fun to watch in that "sure, it's predictable cheesy sci-fi action, but who cares" kind of way. Prometheus, to me, seems like

After stress yesterday at work and more today, I feel run a bit ragged. But, once again, things are functional for the moment, at least. Yay? Probably going to try to see Prometheus this weekend, though I'm not sure where my expectation level is, exactly. I've been reading more Chronicles of Elantra, and plan a post more on the series than the individual books when I finish the latest. Chatted this morning with a coworker who's really into Diablo 3 (though due to distractions like getting married, is still in Nightmare mode). In the process, I'm realizing/admitting/declaring that it's getting less fun not because of the repetition, but because of the frustration. One of his big points was how powerful the game made him feel. Well, that's true in Normal. Even somewhat in Nightmare, though it gets more challenging. I'm about halfway through Hell difficulty and I dread coming across champion packs and rares. They may drop better loot, but at best I'll ha

One of the strangest feelings is coming out of crisis mode . After three hours of running around trying in vain to fix things, I'm suddenly... not plagued by any emergencies. I feel like I should still be running... Though given how this afternoon went, I think I need to plan on a morning/day shift tomorrow, since my co-tech is out.

I thought about commenting on the 38 Studios situation back when it started, and the news of SWTOR layoffs and server consolidation, but I feel like most of what I was thinking at the time has been said and/or played out already elsewhere. Video games can be big, and rough, business. SWTOR will probably carry on for a fair while with its million-plus subscribers and do reasonably well, but it's no more a WoW-killer than Rift or Warhammer Online or... whatever else. Then there's an Elder Scrolls MMORPG in the works, though I can't fathom why. And some recent posts took me to a Kickstarter page for Pathfinder Online, which surprised me. They're gathering money to make a demo to show to investors? Huh. From the news bits I saw about features the game meant to include, I thought they were a lot further along than that... Meanwhile, Diablo 3 is a shining star/depressing symbol. I think the 6+ million sales (plus another million and change "given away" with WoW

So let's see... We were going to be roleplaying offline Friday night, but that just didn't work out. One person was away camping, we knew that. One said she'd be there, but almost never is - no surprise there. Another is frequently eager to play on Friday nights, but got caught up with things and spaced it. That left us at GM+2 players, which is just below our usual threshold of continuing a game. And since we didn't know until the three of us were already together... well... bummer for us. We chatted, hashed out details of a druidy shapeshifting spell, and that was about it. Saturday's WoW was slow to get started, with lack of communication over who would be present when. Once we got started, though, we did make solid progress even if we had people too tired to continue after Alizabal, Firelands up through Staghelm, Morchok, and Yor'Sahj. Decent drops for a couple people, but Staghelm still hasn't coughed up a second druid staff for our group and I'm