Horizon Zero

Also, I Am Out Of Inventory Space

Hell Is Other Players

Specifically, other players swamping the servers and causing rampant 1000+ ms lag spikes.

Oy.

I feel bad for people who were playing Hardcore last night.

Anywhich, after another weekend lost to Diablo 3, my Demon Hunter is now level 52 and braving through Act I yet again - this time on Hell difficulty.

One thing I've noticed - and hopefully, dear reader you can either correct me or confirm my suspicion - is that the challenge of each difficulty level stays relatively flat until you get to the tail end of Act III, whereupon the game suddenly mashes on the accelerator until you're pinned to your chair. At least until you hit the Auction House and buy your way through the gear checks that are Izual and Diablo.

Would it be rude to say that Diablo cheats like a bitch in this game, but at least there's a plot reason for that? It would? Good thing I asked first.

On a lighter note, after many, many hours of reloading various maps and enduring the capriciousness of the RNG, I now have the Staff of Herding, upgraded to Nightmarish version, and can thus take friends on magical journeys to Whimsyshire, where we will encounter singing flowers, care bears and unicorns.

And by encounter, of course, I mean kill in horrible, horrible ways.

But the loot is pretty good, so there's that.

Looking For A Barbarian For The End Of The World

I'm slow, I know, but I finally reached the end of Diablo 3 this weekend. My Demon Hunter topped out at level 31 - playing through Normal difficulty, of course. I died a total of three times: once to a 'splodey suicide bomber type demon early in Act II, once because I hit the tab button while trying to spam a health potion, and finally at the end because Diablo is a cheap, gimmicky boss.

I'm undecided as to whether I'm going to do the whole thing over again on Nightmare or try out another character class. If I do roll another character, I think I'll try out a Monk next.

I will not speak of the story or the characters, as both aspects are pretty bad. I was surprised at my lack of anger at that, but I guess all my damns have already been given in that department for the year. (See also: Mass Effect 3)

Is it a good game? Sure. It's a clickity-click action fest filled with a variety of things to kill and loot to pick up, which is what the Diablo series has always been about. I'm not sure I can say it was worth twelve years of expectations, but then what could be?

I haven't delved into co-op, so I can't speak to that.

I'm not sure that D3 will have a long shelf life for me. I've played through the story and viewed all the cinematics, and while I enjoyed the gameplay I'm not convinced that the OCD loot grind will be enough to keep me interested - too much of that side of my brain is invested in WoW, I think.

The Big Mid-May Update

Greetings!

It's been a busy month so far, and it promises to continue that way.

May through July is the busiest part of our year at work, and it's ramping up right on schedule. This year ought to be less chaotic than last. At least in theory.

I saw Avengers on opening weekend and I was most favorably impressed, although being a elitist perfectionist comic snob I felt there was some room for improvment. I felt they never got around to showing just why Captain America is the natural leader of the Avengers - he needed a few more leadership moments and his command presence was slightly undercut by the rivalry with Stark.

I think the story would have been stronger had Thor 2 been earlier on the schedule, because the casual way in which, hey, Thor is back on Earth kind of devalued the end of the first Thor film. We go from "She searches for you." to "Yeah, Odin got me back. Where's my girlfriend? Oh, never mind."

Also, the end wrapped up a little too nicely - having all the Chitauri die when the portal closed was, to quote the Church Lady, just a little too convenient.

Diablo 3 is out now, if you missed the news, and initial server errors aside it's pretty darned good. I'm not too far in yet (in fact, I've just now hit level 11 on my Demon Hunter) but I'm enjoying my leisurely stroll through normal. I'm sure it gets harder on higher difficulty settings, but on normal the Demon Hunter seems pretty Easy Mode, especially with the Templar henchman at your side.

I finally managed to get the Mists of Pandaria beta installed, and have run through The Wandering Isle in order to get a Pandaran Monk up to level 12 and in to Stormwind. I have a pre-made level 85 Paladin rolled up in order to tackle the Pandaria zones proper, once i find some time.

I watched The People Vs. George Lucas last night on Netflix. As it sounds, it's about the love/hate relationship Star Wars fans have with the Maker. There were quite a few interesting figures interviewed for the documentary, including sci-fi author David Brin, who was the editor of Star Wars on Trial, published a few years back. Star Wars really did inspire an entire generation of people to go out and do amazingly creative stuff and helped push the idea of participatory culture. The backlash against Lucas in many ways is not just the "George and the prequels ruined my childhood!" stuff you see on the Internet but a protest against the inevitable pushback by Intellectual Property holders who fear losing control of their property to the masses. I find myself fascinated by the tension between artists and their audiences, and I'm on record as believing that the extension of Copyright and Intellectual Property law will inevitably beggar us as a culture.

But that's a whole 'nother blog post, as the saying goes.

This Day Of May

Happy May 1st, comrades!

April proved to be a rather hectic month. There are some big structural changes at work about to happen that I'm not entirely happy with and we're still dealing with the implications.

Also, I took a little trip out to San Diego to attend a wedding and catch up with the family unit. Was fun, if busy. (The only flight back from San Diego was a redeye flight to Atlanta that left at 10:30 local time and arrived in ATL at 5:30AM the next day. Not a very enjoyable experience.) Beyond the wedding festivities, we managed to sneak away to Seaport Village where I ate the greasiest slice of pizza ever, took a few photos (that I will upload at some point) and bought an amazingly overpriced T-Shirt. So, typical tourist stuff.

I've been playing a lot of Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, killing time until Diablo III releases later this month. I prefer the biotic character types over the techie and soldier roles - right now I'm rocking a level 16 Asari Vanguard, specializing in Stasis bubbles and headshots with my trusty Carnifex IV pistol.

I haven't exactly given up all hope of getting the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria beta working on my PC, but let's just say that confidence at this point is low.I don't know if it's the age of my system, the inner workings of my ISP, or just some magical confluence of events, but I've been able to get the bloody thing to work exactly once, and that one time the connection was sucking down data at a non-blistering 110k per second or some godawful number like that. (I had similar trouble trying to download and apply SWTOR fixes back when I was playing that. I wonder if there is a connection?)

In contrast, the Diablo III beta worked fine. I'm definitely going Demon Hunter as my first character when the full game goes live.

I probably will need to start preparing for a new PC, though. I've managed to hold out against The Urge to Build for nearly five years, now. Time and technology are starting to overtake me.

Fighting Game of Thrones - Super Turbo Hyper-Championship Edition

They're working on a Game of Thrones video game, naturally, but it looks to be more of a Skyrim-esque RPG. (Which isn't a bad thing, don't get me wrong.)

Regular Service Will Resume Shortly

But until then, I'll just leave this here...

Mass Effect 3 Launch Trailer

This feeling... is it joy? Terror?

Probably awe.

Because this is pretty damn awesome.

Spoilers have already started showing up on message boards and the like - so be careful out there!

On Schedule

I finished Final Fantasy XIII last night.

Which is not to say I completed Final Fantasy XIII, as there are entire vistas of the game that don't become available until after you finish the story and load up the post-game save. There's a boat load of 'hunt down monster X' missions to do, a few optional areas to visit, and the challenge of going back and getting a 5 star rating on all the bosses and marks you didn't quite manage before.

Oh, and there's grinding. So much grinding.

Having finished the part of the game that's actually concerned with plot and characters and all, I can say that I enjoyed it - more than I thought I would given that I'd put it down without a second thought for nearly two years. I think things fell apart a little towards the end - the heroes won because they're heroes and heroes win, or something. (I'm told Final Fantasy XIII-2 explains it. Or makes it worse, depending on who you talk to.)

Most of the game is running down corridors beating stuff up, and fortunately that part works pretty well, although there were more than a few instances where I would get totally destroyed by a group of enemies only to do the exact same thing again and win within 30 seconds - if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, what happens when you do that and actually do get that different result?

I'd place FF XIII in the upper bounds of the Final Fantasy Angst Spectrum, above I - VI, IX and XII but below VII, VIII and X.

I've got just enough time now to download and finish the Arrival DLC for Mass Effect 2 before ME3 releases on Tuesday.

Cataclysm Averted

So, I guess we beat WoW. Again.

At least we beat it as much as we're going to beat it this time around, which for Cataclysm meant a romp through the Looking for Raid version of Madness of Deathwing. Not exactly the most glorious of ends, to be sure, but by this point I think we were all ready for Cata to be over.

I for one am looking forward to literally greener pastures. If I never see another red, orange and brown palleted zone again I will be extremely grateful.

Just for kicks, after we shuffled through Deathwing's demise, we elected to pay a trip to Icecrown Citadel and romped through Heroic 10 man ICC to score a Bane of the Fallen King title for a guildie that had put in lots of time but never been there for an actual kill. (Congrats, Ghlan!)

It's funny - I can dimly recall being so ready to call ICC quits back when it was current content. I even recognize the mental principle in action here, the tendency of the brain to forget the moment ot moment annoyances of past events that leads us to be such a nostalgic species. Will the same thing happen with Firelands or Dragon Soul when we're knee deep in Mists of Pandaria's Tier 16?

It's possible, but thinking back to things like Thrall and the Skittle or the never-ending drake fest atop Wyrmrest Tower makes it seem... unlikely.

PS - It's been more than a month since I've bothered logging in to The Old Republic. I think it's safe to say my interest has waned. Too busy with single-player stuff at the moment.

7 days to Mass Effect 3...