Catch up mechanics in Starcraft: Part 1

Rohan mentioned about catch-up mechanics in his recent blog, and it kind of got me thinking about how you could use the same principle in Starcraft 2 as well.

This idea has previously been mentioned in a post in the Team Liquid forums, but it has been buried under a ton of newer posts. (I kinda have to go dig for it, but I do recall that the post is easily 2 years old.)

Let us first define a catch-up mechanic. A Catch-up mechanic is a game-play mechanic that allows a losing player to match a winning player's resources. This can either be done in 2 ways:

A.) Temporarily or permanently reducing the winning player's resources.
B.) Temporarily or permanently increasing the losing player's resources.

 The definition of resources are defined by the game genre itself. In the context of a Real-time Strategy game, this would be the credits that are used by the player to make an army, and the army that the player controls. In Starcraft, the resources would then be the player units, minerals and vespene gas.

Now, previously in Starcraft: Broodwar, there were various units that possessed abilties which would qualify as a Catch-up mechanic. Both methods were employed, and they were skilfully distributed between the 3 different races. I will elaborate further on what the various races possess.

The Terran race was characterized by it's mechanical forces. It was slow and steady, with relatively strong defensive capabilities compared to the other 2 races. In terms of catch up mechanics, the designers gave them abilities that allowed them to disable or debilitate strong units ( EMP, Irridate, Lockdown) and temporary measures that could bolster their own forces. For instance, Wraiths which were known as one of the weakest air units in Starcraft, had the ability to cloak, which gave them a slight edge against other air armies which did not possess detection. Science vessels could also use Defensive matrix to protect expensive units like Battlecruisers allowing them to absorb more damage.

The Protoss race was characterized by it's tough but expensive units. Generally, most protoss forces were relatively smaller compared to the cheap Terran and Zerg units. However they could take a relatively tough beating, and trade quite cost efficiently as well. Protoss forces were given abilities that would support their expensive units. They could bolster their forces with free units (through Mind control or Hallucinations) or remove entire sections of the opposing army via Stasis. They could even destroy large sections of an opposing army via Psionic storm. Carriers had also the ability to generate large amount of cheap flying units that would confuse the opposing army.

The Zerg race was characterized by it's moniker, "The Swarm". They could deploy large armies filled with cheap units. While the other races had strong AOE options, the zerg players had ways to bolster their own forces and debilitate their enemies. Plague could help easily wipe out armies, while dark swarm provided a cover that their units could use to get close to the ranged units of other 2 races.  Queens could use spawn broodlings to remove important land units and parasite expensive air units so that player would have constant intelligence on where his opponents most powerful units are.

All the various catch-up mechanics that I have listed above, helped made the game extremely entertaining to watch. Any player could come from an early setback to win the game in a convincing fashion by using some of the catch-up mechanics that I have listed. Without such mechanics, the game would be extremely boring, as a losing player will never be able to match a winning player once he has a resource advantage. Catch-up mechanics help make the playing field level and provide uncertainty about the eventual outcome of the game. I feel that such mechanics are important in multi-player games as they help make them more interesting. You always feel compelled to sit till the end to watch who would win the game because anything could happen. A good strategy play is made more thrilling by the fact that a player could overturn a setback, or he could avoid a cunning trap that was made by his opponent. I would say that such well-tuned catch-up mechanics in Starcraft helped to increase it's longevity, making it still one of the most popular games in Korea.

In my next post, I'll analyze Starcraft 2 and highlight the lack of such well defined catch-up mechanics.

New Warrior levelling experience in WOW

I recently went back to WOW, in anticipation for Pet battles and the Mists of Pandaria expansion. It's been a real blast compared to TOR. My experience in TOR of late has been mostly pretty staid, I just log in normally to collect my slicing missions rewards and mail. It hasn't really gripped my attention as a whole despite the whole storyline MMO concept.

One of the few things that I really did not do in WOW was to level a warrior. With all said and done, I have at least played almost every class at some stage or the other. The Warrior and all it's 3 specs are the only classes that I have not tried at all to level properly. I did manage to play 2 warriors to level 20 in my trial account, but those were before the patch. Granted this probably means that my perception of warrior levelling is a bit colored but I did enjoy playing those characters of mine.

Before the patch, warriors could only gain rage via auto-attacking and taking damage. This meant that if you were playing a low level warrior tank, you almost always had a full rage bar. When you chose your specialization at level 10, you obtained a really hard hitting attack that could literally one shot equal level mobs. It was really glorious to hit your main attack, charge to the next mob and then use victory rush to kill it. I felt like the demon hunter in the diablo 3 trailer; "If they never stop coming, I will never stop killing". Low level tanking was a bit hard till you got thunderclap, and you did not have a starting attack like charge since you needed to use defensive stance for tanking.

Before the patch, if you were using Arms or Fury spec, it was also pretty glorious as well. This depended on using appropriate level gear, but I could still out do characters in 7 piece heirloom gear. The key was last hitting the mob in a pull, allowing me to use Victory rush on the next mob. Victory Rush used to hit for an astronomical amount on the low level warrior. It was not surprising to hit Victory rush, kill off one mob, only to use it to kill another mob in the pull.

After the patch, you could use charge in any stance. You also gained rage by using your main specialization attack. This made rage generation a bit smoother for Arms and Fury, but it made rage generation for Protection a bit slower. You obtain skills a bit slower than before I feel, with some crucial skills to the various specs out of reach in the low twenties. Protection in general suffers from this compared to the other specs. Revenge is an important ability in Protection's priority list as it helps make Protection's rage generation smoother. This will allow the player to use more abilities. Currently as it stands now Protection has little more to do than to hit shield slam, hope that it does a critical so you generate more rage, and pop shield block when you hit 60 rage. There's not even enough rage to use sunder armor or devastate.  While it does make you nigh unkillable on boss fights, it is pretty boring to only have to press 2 buttons.

Arms and Fury are still extremely fun to play however. If anything, the attacks seem to do more damage than before. Victory rush however has been seriously neutered, so you can't really use the last hit mob strategy to boost your damage per second up. Execute being available at a really low level however makes up for that. In my starting zone gear, I did about 400 damage for every execute. Bear in mind that in the starting zones, mobs were around 200-300 health only. It was really fun to see the big numbers fly up, but sad to realize that perhaps 3/4 of the damage was not used at all for calculation since the mob was already dead by then.

Overall, I like the new changes to the warrior levelling experience. I do wish that I could have thunderclap a bit earlier than level 20 though, since it made levelling as a tank via the dungeon finder a chore. Thankfully most of the guys in the dungeons then were using hierlooms so I didn't have to worry so much. It was extremely irritating to not be able to keep the entire pack of mobs attention on me however.

For Shame Jay Wilson, for Shame!

I'm guessing most of you have at least read the apology letter that Jay Wilson wrote on the battlenet blog. If not here's the link. 

Personally, I was quite appalled to hear about the entire matter. Not to mention I actually had to go to Kotaku itself to get the news (The Horrors! I had to go Kotaku!). I guess the main reason why I was so disturbed by the whole matter was that he was actually slagging the original creator of the Diablo series? The one person who actually helped create the franchise that gave him his current career.

Not only that, in the hearts of everybody who works in the Game industry, is the soul of a gamer. We're all the same people. Sure we might be competitive about what we make, but that doesn't stop us from appreciating the games themselves. I was part of the team that made AC: Revelations. That didn't stop me from gushing about Gears of War and Batman Arkham Asylum to the other guys in the studios as well even though they were competing games.

Dave Brevik just gave his honest opinion about Diablo 3 himself and I honestly felt that it was a very fair opinion. He had a different ideal about how the game was suppose to have been made and there are certainly some parts of Diablo 3 that I won't mind changing as well. (Unlike a certain 'impartial' writer I know). Jay wilson has certainly over-reacted over the matter.

Dear Mr. Wilson, I'm sorry but I think that you have done more damage to the entire Diablo franchise than what Nathan Grayson has done. There is certainly some history behind the entire diablo series. Why else would have so many of the original team left after Diablo 2 to make Hellgate: London, or any of the other hack and slash games out there? It's still not nice to hang your dirty laundry out for everyone to see.

While I certainly appreciate your apology and the fact that it was done so quickly as well since you have realize the folly of your mistake, the esteem that I held you with has dropped a little. It does make me wonder whether the Blizzard of today has still kept it's heart from the days when it was still known the small company 'Silicon and Synapse'.

Nathan Grayson's ineptitude...

I'm pretty sure everybody has at least gotten the warning from Blizzard about the Battlenet being hacked. If anything, it does at least show that Blizzard is actually pretty on the ball with regards to their security. within 5 days an announcement was made, measures were taken. Furthermore unlike Sony, at least they did not save important credit card/account info in plaintext form. Blizzard has released a FAQ as well with regards to questions regarding the hacking of their servers. I feel that this at least shows that they are pretty open with regards to this attempted account theft.

However... Rock Paper Shotgun's Nathan Grayson actually disagrees otherwise....

Look dude, if anything we know about the whole problem with the always online deal. We get it already, but seriously, do you really need to take out that tired old soapbox to stand on everytime Blizzard does something wrong? Where were your comments when Steam got hacked?

Clearly there are risks involved in a always connected network system. Perhaps if instead of writing extremely biased and flawed reviews you could perhaps read up a bit on security measures being taken in today's Information technology industry? I can't even believe that the BBC actually quoted your article in theirs when it's pretty damn clear that you've got an axe to grind.

Biased, terribly Biased. Really, I have no idea how you actually got a contributor position in the various gaming magazines, Online or in Print. If it wasn't for the fact that Rock Paper Shotgun features cool indie games sometimes I would have long removed it from my RSS feed. Truly an inept writer that does not deserve to even do reviews on games.

M.A Stackpole hired to do a new WOW novel

http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/07/30/star-wars-battletech-scribe-michael-stackpole-to-write-new-wow-n/

Getting my favorite author to write a novel set in one of my favorite Universe?? I feel like Christmas has come early for me this year!

Between this piece of news, Khol Drake writing again, and Emprahsque stories done by Someone else on the /tg/ forums, I'm overdosing on Sheer awesomeness!

SQUEEEEEEE! Michael A Stackpole is writing a WOW novel! SQUEEEEEEEE!

Controls experienced by players and how it pertains to good games.

This post was actually inspired while thinking about Diablo 3 while I was hanging the clothes today. I've been busy working lately as a fry boy at a local snack shop. If you don't know what a fry boy is, it's not something to do with fishes let me tell you. I'm basically standing in front of the deep fryer for about 10 hours to cook deep fried snacks. It's a nice part time job I guess? Though the smell of fried food is so ingrained in my skin now that when I walk on the street, little kids ask their parents to buy McDonald cause they caught a whiff of me.

That said, onto the topic of the post. If you have been following recent game reviews of the latest games, it would probably have likely occured to you that quite a few of the triple a games this year have not received as a good a score as you think it would. For instance, ME3 had a terrible storyline conclusion that marred an otherwise good game. Diablo 3 was plagued by the infamous error 37 and latency issues. Other than those issues, there were comments made about gameplay and skills involved. A good example would be the face roll Tracer missile spam of Bounty hunters in TOR.

Personally I feel that the common thread between all of them is that players do not experience any control over these events. If a player cannot experience any control over these events, it severely mars their player experience. When I push a button to move in a game, i will be pretty pissed if it's not responsive at all.

This is pretty much the issue with Diablo 3 and the Fans Hatred for always online games. In Diablo 2, you didn't encounter much lag if you had a good enough computer to support the game. For the Case of Diablo 3, it's not so much the computer as it is the server connection to your home. This is something that is out of the players control. As such, when a character dies dued to lag, it often causes more frustration than normal cause it was out of the player control.

You could apply the same thing to the Mass effect 3 ending as well. The ending was totally out of the player control. It was just choosing between screwed 1 factor, or being screwed by a 3 factors. Players couldn't choose any other choices other than those being presented.

In my opinion, a good game will allow players to have responsive controls over their character responses. Players want to feel responsible for their own actions when they play a game. That's probably the same reason why table top RPGs still have such a large following still despite the numerous alternatives on the computer. A good DM will allow his players to have appropriate responses to their actions, and Players will feel responsible for their own character actions. 

I guess that's why TSW is such a hit with people as well, cause controls are pretty smooth. If anything can be learnt from this years releases, it's that players want to be responsible for their actions in a game and to have responsive controls that they can use.

Anatomy of a Bug: uncleared resource nodes in SWTOR

I've been playing a lot of The Old republic lately. Well, enough such that I actually have filled out all my character slots on Dalborra Server XD

Given the extensive playtime, I've noticed several bugs actually in the game. Some of these bugs are not that game breaking. Where Game breaking refers to the disruption of the gaming experience of the player. There are several that totally ruin the entire game though, and it's bad enough to make people tear their hair out in frustration.

Perhaps the simplest and most common bug is the uncleared resource node. While gathering resources in SWTOR, players will often come upon a node that will show up  on their minimap, will flash into a light blue colour when you hover a cursor over it, but will not be able to interact with the node itself.

What has happened to the resource node is that it has not been harvested properly. There are many possible reasons for that. One is that the player ran out of range of his companion while the companion was harvesting the node. Or the player could have been disrupted by combat while in the process of harvesting. The end result is the same, only the player who actually tapped the node, may go back to harvest the resource from the node. While the solution to the bug seems simple, there are actually further complications to it.

One is that while the node has been tapped, it does not despawn after an appropriate time duration. I have personally seen the a slicing node that spawns outside the coruscant cantina not despawned for 2 days. The node only returned to it's original configuration after a server reset. Now while this doesn't seem to be a major problem at a first look, it could be problematic if say a griefer wanted to take advantage of it.

Suppose that a particular malevolent player decides to tap every single Scavenging node in say Ilum. He taps the node, but does not take the contents in the resource node. Since the node does not despawned till a full server reset, the nodes will be unavailable to the entire player base. This could cause a sudden jump in prices of level 6 metals and level 6 metal compounds since the supply of the metals has suddenly decreased.

Now suppose that there was an organized gang of players who decided to restrict the entire level 6 metals market by tapping every single node on Corellia, Ilum, Voss and Belsavis. Such an action will possibly crash the entire market for metals, or drive the prices through the roof. While a hypothetical scenario, it could well be possible in the hands of an organized raid of players.

Furthermore, tapped resource nodes will also clutter the terrain in the game. This would put a minor strain on the server architecture as well since the servers need to remember that a node exists at such a co-ordinate with such a value of resource in it. Perhaps the game is built in such a way such that if a particular world has 'X' number of resource nodes at a given time, the server will not spawn anymore nodes.  Then it won't cause that much of a strain, but it will exaggerate the previous issue, since it makes the tapping of resource nodes easier.

A really simple solution to this problem is to actually just put a despawn timer/trigger on the resource node itself. If nobody comes to harvest the node, let the node despawn in a set amount of time instead of continuing to exist in  the game. WOW actually has something similar in place already. Mining nodes that have been tapped but not harvested fully will despawn after about 10mins or so. Something similar could actually be done for TOR.

Next time on Anatomy of a bug: Invisible walls that spring up from nowhere!

Thoughts on Diablo 3 Elective mode

I was scanning through my Google reader when I came across Mr. Rohan's post on the failure of elective mode and decided to express my views here instead of clogging up his posts comments with it XD

To be honest, the true hardcore players I doubt would actually whine about having to make choices. At the end of the day, a computer game is based around numbers. Everything can be calculated, Procs can be determined and rotations can be maximized for true effectiveness at a given task. Once you know the formulas, and can calculate what you want to do, then isn't there no choice in the matter of skill selection? You would be able to determine the right answer for a given situation. For example, if you want your Barbarian to survive long in a pack of enemies, intuitively you would perhaps choose some self healing skill, a skill that reduces damage taken or perhaps a set of skills that would allow you to chain stun a set of mobs.

What however is killing the game, is pseudo power gamers who think that their way is the most effective method and that there are no choices. It's actually quite telling about how hardcore these players are when they don't even have proper spreadsheets or formulas listed out. Sure it's actually easy to think of skill combination that would help you do great dps or have greatly increased survivability, but is it the only way? These voices are perhaps the loudest on the forums and moan about the fact that elective mode actually reduces the number of choices they have.

In truth it really doesn't matter. Like what Marius said in the comments on that post, using the correct skill combination that meshes with your play style could perhaps create more effective builds or even more entertaining builds.

Though I must admit that Mr. Rohan has a point regarding the restriction of tools. Restricting the number of tools that a player has access to will greatly increase the creativity of the player in handling problems. This actually has been discussed a bit on the Team Liquid forums as well on the optimization of Resource nodes in Starcraft 2.

Personally I think that elective mode actually helps you be more expressive of how you want to play your character. Want to play a Pure Melee Wizard with increased survivability? You can with the right skill selection. Or what about a Ninja Demon hunter that hurls Chakrams and lays traps to kill enemies? I honestly think that without Elective mode, you can't play those classes effectively.

If anything, recall at the start of Starcraft 2 and how PvP games were. Or rather, Protoss versus anything to be honest. Every single match up was dealt with a simple 4 gate timing push. This eventually changed to a more varied strategy setup over time. There are not a few different strats for Protoss players. Diablo 3 is barely even 2 weeks old. I feel that it's too early to say that there are really no choices in play style or skills.

Butcher One Shots

An absolutely brilliant idea from HardFlaccid to kill Butcher :) Hope you guys enjoy XD

The Burning Axe of Sankis in Diablo 3

Oh Blizzard, how I adore thee. I was looking through the Diablo 3 Database to see what legendaries are in the game currently when I came across this gem of a find.

The name Sankis by itself sounded really familiar to me, but what gave it away immediately was the word 'Fortress'. When I read the flavor text fully, I couldn't stop laughing. The origin of this Easter egg comes from a communal game on the something awful forums a long long time ago.

Back in the day, a person by the name of Evilslug decided to start up a succession game of Dwarf fortress. Every participant to the game would be alllowed to play for 1 year of in game time. Then he would need to send the save file over to the next person. For that 1 year of in game time, the player would then have to chronicle his tale of woe of leading a fortress of dwarfs.

Now if you have no idea of what Dwarf Fortress is, well, it's easily the most manly and the hardest game ever made in existence. It's so manly that it can withstand a Chuck Norris Roundhouse kick.

kudos to 1d4chan wiki

The full story of the fortress itself is too long to put in a single blog post. It spans 2 threads, and nearly 64 separate updates. After a colossal series of accident, the then previous Emperor to the fortress 'Sankis' went on a rampage with his axe. This despite being set on fire.

I would really suggest you guys read the entire series if you can. It's absolutely hilarious, on par with thelittlestmurloc's tale of 'You Awaken in Razor Hill'

The link to the full tale of woe starts here: http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-Boatmurdered/

Big Kudos to Blizzard to actually putting in such Easter eggs in their game :D

Justice in APB:reloaded

Just Hot off the press! APB Reloaded admin lets hacking victim decide hacker's fate.

linky here: http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/18/apb-reloaded-hacked-account/#.T7biyQsLrFw.twitter

It's a surprising piece of news, considering vigilante justice is generally frowned upon in the real world. Despite this, in the virtual world, such forms of justice is not really discouraged, but instead encouraged. This is actually not the only incidence of CM's actually taking a personal hand in dealing with Bots and hackers. For example in Guild Wars, Botters were actually taken out by a GM using the avatar of Grenth, a end game boss.

Personally, I think that the CM should not have displayed such investigation information on the forums so readily. It might invite unwanted attacks on the hacker in the future. I honestly believe in the ideal of redemption, and that everybody should have a second chance to prove themselves. With such an attack on the hacker itself, the internet might take every opportunity it can to bully the hacker.

That being said, there's a little part of me that is pumping my hand in the air shouting, 'Booyah! Hacker deserved it!' LOL, guess it's hard for me to get rid of my vindictive side :P

Critique of RPS way of handling reviews of Diablo 3

As an advocate of Game design, I read quite a few blogs/sites which concern game development. I'm actually pretty disheartened by the way Rock Paper Shotgun actually handled the review of Diablo 3.  I know I should have followed spink's advice to not start flame wars or write inciting stuff, but the way they handled the whole review system got my hackles raised.

2 out of the 4 writers (Jonathan Walker and Nathan Grayson) actually wrote articles pertaining to the gameplay of Diablo 3, and how it felt while playing the game. All 3 articles however groused about the effect of 'DRM' when playing it online. I'll go through each article and list out some of their misconception of the game.

First up would be 'Hack Slashes: 3 hours with Diablo 3'. He starts off describing the little details that make Diablo 3 great. Things such as the inventory window closing when walking away from the store, the little stories that pop up when you walk around the world of sanctuary. Then he comes to the cons of Diablo 3. Which basically sums up to his intense hatred of always on DRM. I understand if you have worries about always having to connect to the internet in order to play your game, but seriously? If you're writing articles on gaming news sites, I kinda expect feelings to like not play such an important part in a review of it >.< A lot of people often grouse about this part of Diablo 3. Look I understand that you feel it's irritating that you have to worry about lag in order to play a game but I honestly think nostalgia is coloring your perceptions a little.

Do you know what I remember about Diablo 2 and Battlenet then?

I remember maphacks and Treasure hacks.
I remember Blizzard having to implement the Uber Bosses in order to help remove inflation in the game
I remember Item duping to such a great extent that people traded in Stone of Jordan's instead of Gold.
I remember people getting hacked and all the items lost, sold on Ebay.
I remember people hacking their characters to ridiculous extents, such as having a level 40 Hydra spell
I remember people copying their Hardcore character files so that if they ever died, they could just continue from the last time they copied the file.

So really, is always online a bad thing? I honestly say no. I would rather have the always online DRM than have constant bots, cheats and other douches ruining my gaming experience. With the need to connect to Battlenet, I won't need to worry about such hacks being in my games so much. Not to say that the exploiters won't be able to exploit Diablo 3. I'm pretty sure they will, but with more eyes on them, it will be easier to spot them this time.

The second article by Nathan Grayson is 'Opinion: why the problem with diablo 3 isn't Diablo'. He writes a better article than Jonathan and he argues that we should be against the always on DRM because we should stay angry at the always on DRM. while it's valid in a way I would actually disagree with the staying angry and unstatisfied. Why should you direct it against a company that is trying it's very best to make the idea work? It's a controversial idea, but Blizzard is committed to trying to make it work. Battle net 2.0 was always meant to be a comparable social network to Steam actually. That was the original vision for it. If you wanted to raise objections, do it against a proper target instead of just directing your resentment against such changes from all game companies. It's not healthy for growth and developement of the gaming sector. It hearkens to mind the days when the Church tried to suppress science in the middle ages.

The last and final article, 'How Diablo 3's solo experience reveals a hollow game'. Again here he talks about the always on DRM and how stupid it is. Look We get that you hate the DRM aspect but can you stop whining about it constantly? Other then that he starts talking about how the gameplay seems hollow and how it doesn't add anything to the genre.

Uhm.... Newsflash Jonathan, it never meant to add to the genre. The Developers never wanted to add anything to it. Let's look at the criticisms you made and i'll direct you to the relevant articles to which you can read to correct your well meaning and erroneous views.

First point of contention: Unable to change camera angle.
Jay Wilson says, "Very early on in the process we had some people who argued that we should not make the game isometric, that it would be better technology, more modern, if we made a third or first-person game," said Wilson. "I really would have nothing of it. For me a camera is not a technology choice, there's more than enough first and third-person games out there." (Linky here)


Second point of contention: You mentioned that it's a very primitive game when taking into account it's failings. It's suppose to be easy and the mechanics simple enough to pick up.

Third point of contention: No more inventory Tetris, which means you just portal back, sell stuff and then go back to killing. There's nothing wrong with that. I actually like that. If you ever really played diablo 2 properly, you would know that inventory Tetris, while fun, detracted from the constant killing. Blizzard has implemented tons of quality of life change in the hope of making the experience more fun for you. So you know you can enjoy the game more fully? I have no idea why you want to make it more troublesome to get to the fun bits but hey I guess everybody has his own fetishes like BDSM.

Fourth point of contention: Monsters don't attack in interesting ways. Nostalgia is coloring your perceptions here. Monsters in Diablo 2 did not attack in interesting ways. They swarmed you, they attacked you with a variety of skills like Charge from the Snakemen, Inferno from the Fetish shamans.

Fifth Point of contention: Skills are made more restrictive because they are simpler. I really disagree with this. It's not really that restrictive. You can actually changed what skills you want to put in the 4 quick action slots. They do not have to be defensive skills in the defensive slots, utility skills in the Utility slots. In the case of the monk, you could even put your 3 spirit generators into the quick action slots and use it together with a passive skill in order to get 24% bonus damage. The complexity is there if you want to look for it. This is not like Diablo 2 where you only had 2 skills, and synergies between various skills were not implemented till patch 1.10 or something. Skills are a bit more complex now compared to Diablo 2.

Sixth point of contention: Died 4 times with 87 potions in your inventory, meaning the game is too simple. Clearly you have not been playing Nightmare or Hell yet. Add the fact that you're playing a monk, the one class in the game with a healing spell. Wow, i'm so totally amazed that you have not used any potions yet. 

Last point of contention: Grouses about the always online DRM. Jay Wilson has you covered as well! He said, "One of the big reasons is if we take a server-client structure and you allow offline play, you have to put the server architecture into the build that you give to players. Once you have that server architecture, it's way easier to hack it." (same link as before)

I would really appreciate it if the writers actually got their facts right first before writing their articles. I really do not like seeing emotions and views color facts that can be easily verified. 


TL;DR : I'm so amazed by the quality of the writing at such an established website.

Diabloitis

I can imagine phone conversations between Couples going something like this today:

Generic GF: Hey baby :) how are you today sweetheart? :) All ready for our date later?
Generic BF: *Attempts to fake Cough* Sorry love, I don't think I can make it.... Think I'm coming down with some thing
Generic GF: awww :( what happened darling? Do you want me to come over to make some chicken soup for you?
Generic BF: No no! It's okay, I'll be fine. Might need to be isolated for the next week or so though. I think it's contagious.
Generic GF: Are you sure? Have you seen a doctor about it?
Generic BF: Uhm Uhm... yeah, he said it's a common condition, just like the flu! Yeah just like the flu. Called it i think uhm uhm... *mumbles* Diabloitis *mumbles*
Generic GF: Diabloitis? Such a terrible name..... :( I'll call you everyday okay? Are you sure you will be fine honey?
Generic BF: Yea I will be fine, just need to stay at home.
Generic GF: Okay..... Love you baby, and take care of yourself love

Yeap..... I can totally see that happening today. Totally ;) I mean, most of us have waited a long time for it havn't we :)

Now if you excuse me, I think I have to take my medication for Diabloitis now...

Pandaren Dances

I know I shouldn't be spamming my blog so much, but to be honest? I'm sold on MOP. Caremeldansen for my Female Panda? I'll buy the collector's edition just for it LOL XD

Diablo 3: Wrath Animated Short

Had a fanboy squeal when I saw this video on Ausgamers this morning :D Directed by Peter Chung? Made with the help of the studio that did work on Afro Samurai? It's a wonderful Morning to start it off by watching it XD

Hello World! Back into the writing circuit again....

Hello everyone! Tis' been a long time since I wrote stuff. Ah well, it's kinda like a swimming right? You will never forget how to swim once you learnt it :)

Like all of the other newbie bloggers taking part in the NBI, i'm an avid gamer. I love playing games and reading up about them. I dabble a bit in theorycrafting, but not to the extent of taking out spreadsheets and meticulously noting down every single case. It's not just video games as well. I love reading up on RPGs and tabletop Strategy games like Warhammer 40.000 Dark Heresy or Warhammer 40,000: tabletop. Sadly I don't have the money to support the tabletop, but I do hope that someday I can convince my friends to play Dark Heresy with me.

I'm currently playing both SWTOR and WOW. Despite the NBI being a drive to create MMO blogs, I don't think I will have such a heavy emphasis on MMOs. I do plan to actually post about game design of current games and analyzing them. I aim to post at least once every 2 days, just to make sure my writing skills don't deteriorate too far XD

So... Thank you for reading my first post and I hope that you will continue visiting my blog in the future XD

p.s: I don't think I will take a formal tone while writing, I'm way too informal a person to put everything in a cold logical manner. Unless it's a Math/Theorycrafting post XD