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...