Warcraftic

Minecraft Boy: E1 - Stuck in a Jungle

Mon, 06 May 2013 09:43:51 -0400

Minecraft Boy: E1 - Stuck in a Jungle

Guild Wars 2! I’m only level 4 right now on my Charr...

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 16:43:42 -0400

Guild Wars 2! I’m only level 4 right now on my Charr Necromancer, but here’s a mix of scenery and vista shots.

Solid game so far. Very much enjoying it even though I have no idea where I’m going or what I’m doing most of the time. That’s a good thing though.

stephenreid: Adding this one to my office wall today. Pencils...

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 14:00:26 -0400

stephenreid:

Adding this one to my office wall today. Pencils by Mike Wieringo, colors by Kandoken from DeviantArt.

Share your own Ringo favorites in a reply if you like.

"There are four difficulty levels after Normal, and the game is designed to take one character..."

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:28:55 -0400

“There are four difficulty levels after Normal, and the game is designed to take one character through at least twice - the really good gear only starts to appear at the end of Normal, and some runes and skills don’t even open up until Nightmare. There are five classes that all play differently as well, from the revolting pets of the Witch Doctor to the dark ranged attacks of the Demon Hunter.”

- If anyone needs an explanation why to play Diablo 3 or why to play it more than once through, this is it. From Joystiq’s review.

I seem to have gotten my Diablo 3 in my WoW! Like chocolate and...

Sun, 13 May 2012 16:28:30 -0400

I seem to have gotten my Diablo 3 in my WoW! Like chocolate and peanut butter, they belong together. In all seriousness, if you are looking for a lightweight themed interface for World of Warcraft as we approach the Diablo 3 release, this is the one. That way when you are playing WoW, you feel like you are in Diablo 3 and when you are in Diablo 3… ok you get it.

Find it here on WoWInterface (Roth UI by Zork): http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info9175-RothUIDiablo.html

Diablo 3 Beta: E2 - Pew Pew (Wizard Gameplay) In episode 2, you...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:59:00 -0400

Diablo 3 Beta: E2 - Pew Pew (Wizard Gameplay)

In episode 2, you will see the first few levels of the Wizard class and unlock a bunch of the initial abilities, which consists of a direct damage nuke, AoE (area of effect), wand, and a channeled frost spell (my favorite).

Rookie Mistake by a Veteran Developer

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:04:26 -0400

I have been a Bioware fan since I first fired up Baldur’s Gate. Ever since then, I’ve bought every one of their titles (almost) and regarded them as nearly untouchable. No longer, and today’s SWTOR 1.2 announcement is why:

Free In-game Legacy Tauntaun Ram for all active subscribers. YAY.
Active accounts with a Level 50 character will receive thirty days of game time for their support and loyalty. HMM.
Starting on April 13th through April 19th, 2012 former subscribers will be able to log-in to their accounts without having to re-subscribe. UHH.

What has really happened here? Why not reward based on subscription time instead?

Forgetting the silly Tauntaun pet, Bioware has decided to reward accounts with level 50 characters and non-loyal former subscribers. Is it right to reward someone who, for example, has only been subscribing since April 2 yet has a level 50 character? While at the same time ignoring someone else who has been a subscriber since day one yet doesn’t have a level 50?

They also seem to enjoy rewarding unsubscribers. I might have to try that.

Bioware, you aren’t a rookie developer, so don’t act like one.

Disclaimer: I don’t have any level 50 characters. I’m a casual player with an extremely busy life outside of gaming (like many others).

Made with Paper

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 13:36:49 -0400

Made with Paper

PAX East 2012 was a much bigger presence this year. They...

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:02:30 -0400

R2-D2 makes an appearance.

Neverwinter D&D MMO

Gameplay closeup of Neverwinter

Castle Crashers!

Firefall

SWTOR peeps playing 1.2

Giant statue of Drizzt

Borderlands 2

Farcry 3

PAX East 2012 was a much bigger presence this year. They expanded the floor to about twice the size it was last year. This left more room for some of the upcoming titles like Borderlands 2, Firefall, and Max Payne 3 to show their stuff. Last year, Star Wars: The Old Republic soaked up all the attention, but this year it was fairly spread out across a few titles.

What was I most impressed by? D&D Neverwinter looked really slick, but that was the first I’ve seen the game. Also, The Secret World looked very polished and offers a bit of a different spin on MMO gaming. I will be keeping a very close eye on that one (already signed up for the beta).

I know I missed a ton of content there, but this is what caught my attention during my (too brief) 3 hour visit to PAX East 2012.

This is a bit long, but captures the beginning of the game (Monk...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 21:52:46 -0400

This is a bit long, but captures the beginning of the game (Monk class) through finding Deckard Cain. The monk class has had some nice animation improvement and skill tweaks - watch to see how they play out in the early levels.

Oh yeah and I do a pretty horrible Deckard Cain impression midway through.

In this episode of Force Poke: Twi’leks might have...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:04:28 -0400

In this episode of Force Poke: Twi’leks might have removable Lekku, EA is apparently worse than Haliburton (including my thoughts on the ME3 ending whine-fest), and I can’t seem to keep my companion alive while recording these.

This is a quick look at the new cooldown animations and text...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:20:15 -0500

This is a quick look at the new cooldown animations and text overlay, recently implemented by Bioware. The configuration options go deeper than I expected with adjustable cooldown font sizes and countdown display (tenths of a second). There are also four different variations of cooldown overlay and flash displays.

Watch to see it all in action.

Maybe whining really works?

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:56:08 -0500

A few days ago, I got all pompous and tweeted this:

If you recall, there was a fairly large response from the community about Bioware’s implementation of flashing cooldowns. They were supposedly making some people sick. Sick, as in *puking* sick.

This just in: Soon warcraftic.com will be selling pacifiers.

I think we all want Bioware to progress the game’s user interface (UI). However, it should progress based on a scheduled road map of related interface enhancements, not reaction-based changes. Development hours DO matter to a gaming company. To spend more than 30 seconds changing how a cooldown flashes, is simply a waste of time.

Looking back on it now, this whole thing is a process. It’s a path towards “getting it right”, from a UI perspective. Yesterday, we reached a major waypoint with the patch 1.1.4 UI changes:

So, here we go. We have what was previously only available as an addon in another popular MMORPG, now native in SWTOR. I hope Bioware keeps implementing those “must have” features as native components to the game, while still keeping those tasty APIs in the back of their minds.

Someone please bring forward a case where vehicles in the fleets...

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:32:00 -0500

Someone please bring forward a case where vehicles in the fleets don’t look ridiculous? They really shouldn’t be allowed in there considering each takes up the space of 10 players. The little speeders and stand-up-wheelchair looking things are fine though.

SWTOR Force Poke: E4 - Let's Talk UI

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0500

Since the last episode, Bioware released some encouraging footage of UI enhancements and customization options coming soon(TM). In this episode, hear my thoughts on why we all want some type of UI customization, how it’s great (yet controversial) for end game players, and why it’s going to take some time.

Quick thoughts on the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:33:00 -0500

The Kingdoms of Amalur demo (xbox) left me with mixed feelings. The demo is actually a 3-month old code-base (according to a recent interview), but I couldn’t help but wonder if they should have waited on releasing the demo - or blatantly call it a beta demo. It felt unpolished and navigating the inventory / items menu was a bit more time consuming than it should have been.

NPC conversations were not terribly engaging and choosing conversation options felt slightly unresponsive to me. Several times, I had to hit the “A” button repeatedly to get a choice to “take”.

The initial story and setup was interesting, but not engrossing. I liked the start of the game - made me think back a bit to Planescape: Torment. Of course, commenting on the actual story with only playing the demo for a couple hours isn’t responsible. So, I’ll leave it at that.

Combat was very well done. Magic users were clearly dealt the best hand, with really impressive effects that dwarf anything I’ve seen recently. The general combat mechanics are very responsive for all play-styles. Choosing our “class” as we progress is very cool, based on the gear equipped. I assume this is something that becomes a bigger deal later in the game where tactics become more important. I’m so used to having to choose a class at the start, so this felt a bit foreign to me. Different is good, though. It makes this game stand out from the others, for better or worse.

Overall, I’ll wait on the reviews for Reckoning. Not convinced it will stack up against the other games eating up my (limited) game time: SW:TOR, Skyrim, Minecraft, BF3, Diablo III beta, etc.

SWTOR Force Poke: E3 - Wait, I'm a Healer?

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Skyrim TESVAL vs SkyBoost

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:20:00 -0500

Quick comparison of two fps improvement options for Skyrim. The game is a horrible CPU hog. These mods fix that.

TESVAL is an in-memory code patch for TESV, aiming to fix CPU inefficiencies. SkyBoost boosts your Skyrim via replacing most bottleneck code parts in the executable at runtime.

Both great options. Use the one that works best for you. This video shows which worked best for me and the FPS benchmarks.

Download SkyBoost

Download TESVAL

SWTOR Force Poke: E2 - Sith Career Decisions

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

SWTOR Force Poke: E1 - Don't Feed the Seh-run!?

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:32:00 -0500

In this first episode of Force Poke, my lvl 11 Sith Inquisitor is about to head to the Empire Fleet to meet with his new master. Before that, he has to go feed Seh-run. Not sure what will happen here, but hey, he’s hungry and is short on acolytes to eat.