Friday, May 17, 2013

The Tale Of Infinite Mana

Cram gram digedly dram a pow oker shonnee nosuh moopee woop a fowk grinetelt cnrige!

I Love You

So, as you all know, when I play video games, I play video games. Its a pretty complex system that exists. Its been told to me that not alot of people are even capable of playing video games whilst playing video games. So, today I played TWO video games! Really! I am so amazing that not only did I play two games, I managed to do everything I wanted to do on both of them. I know! I am just damn awesome, right? RIGHT?!

Right.

So, yesterday I started out playing DDO. Did a few quests on my Half Orc Cleric then started running into trouble of the unfun sort. I got my butt end handed to me on a gold and silver gem encrusted platter. So I got a wee bit angry and quit DDO for the day opting to play LotRO instead.

When I went over to LotRO I started doing normal quests, finally, and finished up all the level 6 quests. Before completing the final one I remembered to take off my XP disabler so that Id be able to level up to 7. Spent what was left of my playtime running between Bree Land, The Shire and Erid Luin picking up all the level 7 quests and even finding the time enough to complete a few of them.

Today I went onto LotRO again. Finished up the level 7 quests and took level 8. Did a heck of alot of crafting, mostly just making Bronze Bars, Light Leathers and Rowan Planks. Not sure if I mentioned it before, but I changed the way I price the planks on the Auction House now. Before, I priced them at 1 Silver per plank. The problem was, though, that I wasnt making what felt like good profit for the effort I was putting into the collection of the wood to crafting it into planks. So now, I price it at 2 Silver per plank as it takes 2 pieces of wood to make one Plank. Even at that price, its still really affordable to lower level players, considering that a stack of 100 Rowan Planks tends to go for near and over 1 Gold. With an initial price of 200 Silver and a buyout of 400 silver, Im making a much better price selling them now.

After I did all that on LotRO I decided to head back over to DDO to see if I could finish up doing the level 3 quests. Thankfully, I didnt have too many left to do. Unfortunatly I got bogged down by two things. 1: My inventory was full to bursting due to a large amount of collectables. In my stupidity, I forgot I had this thing called a Bank which I could store them in. It pretty much took me until the end of my playtime to remember and run there to store most of them. 2: Im a Flower Sniffer type player. I dont "Zerg". Well, except for when I play Starcraft. Then I LOVE to Zerg.

As I was running around doing quests in DDO it struck me suddenly. Didnt my Half Orc have a Small Eberron Dragonshard that she posted on the Auction House a few days back? Did it not sell? Well, I ran my big ol hiney to the Auction House and took a peek at it to see if my Dragonshard was still on it, if at all. It wasnt so I checked my Inventory. Not there either. But wait! I forgot! They get stored in the red bag! So I open the red bag and there it was. So I pulled it out and posted it for an initial 5k Plat and 10k buyout. It sold within 10 minutes.

Thanks to Comic, yesterday when I logged on, I got some crafted gear with +2 attribute scores on them. he made me a +2 WIS ring, +2 CON belt, +2 CHA cloak and a +2 DEX boots. So he gets an extra special big round of applause from me for all that. Though, in the end, I suppose instead of asking for DEX boots I should have asked for boots that would increase my run speed, Im still very grateful and happy. Its nice having the bonuses on the items theyre on because if Im questing and end up finding a better boost on an item, chances are itll be the same attribute on the same type of item attached to the ones I already have. Well... Excpet maybe the ring. as far as Ive ever pulled, WIS tends to be on helms more than rings. But, itll do donkey. Itll do.

Managed to pull some really good loots, which made me happy. Mostly because it all made me a little bit richer. But of note, I managed to pull a ring from a chest! No. this was not on LotRO. So its not quite THAT ring. No, instead it was a ring of Feather Falling. Yes. I consider that to be a great item to have. Its just nice having an item that makes sure you always float safely down from scary heights. The next item on my list of "IVE GOTTA HAVE THIS!!!" is a ring, or something, that gives a constant Water Breathing effect on it. Itll make those pesky quests with swimming under water just ever so slightly nicer.

The good part of yesterday, the only really good part to be honest, was my completion of Stealthy repossesion. Why was it so good? Simple! Its a pain to run through that quest on a non sneaky character. Or at least it is in my own professional opinion. Especially at level though. But theres two trick to doing it. 1: If youre doing it at level, on a level 2 for normal, then you need an invisibility pot. Actually, you need about 10. When you enter, park your hire to the alcove on the right of the quest entrance on passive mode. Go up to the right side of the first door, open it then immediatly drink your first invisibility pot. Then just run through pulling levers and drinking pots right after and you should complete without a hitch. 2: If youre doing the quest as a level 4 its the same as above but with the addition of drinking a Haste Potion. So, I was able to complete it solo at level 2 on normal and was extremely pleased with myself.

Back to today! I managed to complete what was left of the level 3 quests in what I consider to be dramatic fashion. Why dramatic fashion? Well, you see, I had one hour of playtime left on DDO. Three quests remained for the level 3s. They were the first Shan To Kor quest, The Captives and An Explosive Situation. The last one is a quick solo quest so I wasnt too worried about that one. It was mainly the first Shan To Kor quest that had me worried I wouldnt be able to complete the quests today. Normally, that quest can take me about 40-45 minutes to complete. But I managed it in, whats for me, record time and still managed to kill every breakable along the way. Moved onto The Captives and had a first within that quest. Ive been playing DDO for three years now. Ive run The Captives alot. But not once have I ever encountered the rare Ooze in it. It had reached a point that I believed the Ooze existed only in rumor, but indeed, it is real and I killed it. Finished up with the quest then finished Explosive. Then I ran my Half Orc bootey to the Cleric Trainer and took level 4. Put my CON up to 13 and added the Nimbus of Light [or whatever its called] and Resist Energy spells to my hotbars. All this and I managed to do it all with 10 minutes to spare.

Funny thing happened in the second Waterworks quest today. As I was rescuing that guy, whats his face, he stopped moving and starting using a throwing weapon on an enemy that I couldnt see. After a while, I thought that maybe an enemy was inside a wall or something because I was getting hit but couldnt see from where. Then I looked up and right there on the ceiling was a Kobold Warrior throwing crap at me! ON THE DAMN CEILING! The good news was that I still had my eternal wand of whats it that I grabbed from the Grotto quest. So, I killed it, finished quest and moved on.

Tomorrow is Saturday! You all know what that means, right?! It means its the start of the Comical Run weekend extravaganza! Itll be the first weekend since the LotRO anniversary event that Ive gotten to play with Comic so Im excited. But not too excited because too excited might give the old man a stroke or something equally hilarious.

I Love You Not

Its always funny to me just how full of doom the LotRO and DDO forums always seem to be. Of every MMO Ive ever played and every forum for each of those MMOs, I have never seen quite so much doom and gloom than on DDO and LotROs forums. Come on people, seriously. Theres got to be a better way to catch Turbines attention than with lines like "Oh! Woe is us! Turbine added this or that to the game! Its dying! Im cancelling my sub and so is everyone else I know and Im sure many others will soon be doing such and that means no more money for Turbine which will mean no more game!" Sure, Ill complain about the funny crap Turbine pulls, but whining and "cancelling" your subscription and dooming and glooming isnt going to do anything at all.

That being said, there are somedays I do wonder about which of the two above mentioned games Turbine cares about most. There are three points here that Ive noticed about both games. One is LotRO related and the other two are DDO related.

1: There were these cool little features added to DDO and LotRO recently. The DDO Daily Dice and the LotRO Hobbit Preasents. Neither were met with alot of love by the players but the reality is, weather you like it or not, theyre here to stay. So there. Now, after the release of the DDO Daily Dice there were a few posts SOMEWHERE on the forums asking if there could be a timer added to the Daily Dice so people know when theyre next free roll is. Also some VIPs asked if it was possible to add a free Gold Roll once per week or something as an additional VIP perk. Both of these suggestions were met with complete silence by Turbine. Sortof.

Over on LotRO, they added the Hobbit Presants a few days back! With the Hobbit Presants come a timer showing how long you have to wait for your next roll + VIPs get 1 free gold roll per week. So, Turbine listened to its players in their request for those things. Just they put them in the wrong game. I dunno. Maybe theyre going to add those things to DDO in the near future. They should. Itd be damned stupid to put a feature like that in one of your games but not the other.

2: This point involves alot of speculation on my part based on information on the forums. Back last year sometime there was a post on the DDO forums where a player made a suggestion that turbine add Skill Tomes to the game. Essentially these would be tomes that would increase the level of your skills much in the same way that the Stat Tomes increase your characters attributes. The post got quite alot of replies from the players who use the forums and the answer from them seemed to be a resounding "NO!". In other words, its an item type that a good portion of people obviously didnt want or think would be a good addition to the game.

Then comes along yesterday. I was browsing the DDO forums and what do I see? Apparently a player over on Lamania got a +3 Concentration Tome. Or in other words, Turbine is thinking about adding Skill Tomes to the game. An item which alot of players said no to.

3: Quick! Somebody mail Turbine some bug spray! Alot of bug spray! Like YESTERDAY! Yeah. This had to be mentioned. Bugs. Theres a hell of a lot of them in DDO isnt there? The funny thing is, if I were to print out the known issues list over on LotRO itll take maybe 1 page of paper. For DDO, itd take what? 3? Maybe 4 or 5? Mentioning the bugs in DDO is important because they play a major part in our everyday DDO lives.

Lets start back in last spring. We got a letter to the players thing from some dunderhead or another at Turbine announcing the expansion. Included in this little letter was a promise to the players that the good folks at Turbine would start working to squash the bugs in the game. This was met with alot of happy happy joy joy from the players. I mean, finally! The bugs will be squashed! Summer came. Expansion came out. Lots of BAD happened. Some bad that happened got fixed. Some bad that happened is still around. But most importantly, the promise to start squashing bugs has not been fulfilled in the slightest. The known issues list for DDO, has it grown or shrunk in the last year? Quick answer: its grown. If it had shrunk by any noticably good amount, I probably wouldnt have this third section.

Everytime Turbine releases a new update the mentality of its player base is 'I wonder what theyre going to break THIS time'. Thats not a way you want your players to think. You want them to think 'Did you see what the next update is going to have?! IM SO EXCITED!!!'. What catches my attention the most on the forums though is the number of people who pop up saying 'We told you guys about this bug on Lamania. How did you guys not fix it before putting it on the live game?' which is met with the, seemingly, typical silence from the Turbine staff. I dont know. Maybe theyre not good at taking criticism.

In the end, the things that I consider important to know are: Why are there so many bugs in DDO? Why does every update have 3-5 new ones added to the known issues list? Does Turbine not have a talented enough Development staff needed to start working on squashing them? Most important though, will there ever be a day where we all log into DDO and play a game with little to no bugs?

Those are the three things that stand out to me in the difference between how Turbine treats DDO and LotRO. Now, no matter what happens, Im not quitting either game. I love both equally. theyre both very fun games for different reasons. But over the last few months my faith in the developers at Turbine has been shaken to the point to where Im not their biggest fan or supporter anymore. They can still get it back. They can get everyone whos in the same position as me back. They just need to get working on fixing crap that shouldnt be broken in the first place.

Love Stick Shifts. Hate Automatics.

Well, over the last couple of weeks Ive managed to watch a slew of movies that Ive just been DYING to see.

Started by watching Captain America. which was pretty good but not great. Overall Id give it a 7/10.
Next came Iron Man 1 & 2. They were both very fun and hilarious. Each get a 10/10 from me.
Thor was equally great. Especially the pet store part. Another 10/10 in my book.
Of course, having watched those, I also watched The Avengers! It was way cool and exciting. Though it was a bit too slow at times, the fast paced ending more than made up for it. 9/10. Im totally excited for number 2!!!
Wrect It Ralph. Yes. Im 22 years old and I still love animated movies. Alot. 8/10.
Rise of the Guardians. Another animated movie which was fun but lacked any originality in its plot. Which seems to be becoming more and more common these days. 6/10.
Resident Evil: Retribution. They did a superb job at making a sub par movie. Compared to the rest of the series, this one felt dumbed down. Valentine was brought back. Which would have been great if she werent based off Nina from the video game flop 'Death by Degrees' by Namco.*Then was the part at the end where there was a creature that resembled a Mutilisk from Starcraft. Overall, the movie felt alot less great than it could and should have been. So it gets a 5/10.
Taken 2. Slower than the first. Not as good as the first. Sadly, they set themselves up for a third. I dont want a third. 7/10.
Expendables 2. Just as fast and funny as the first. Gotta love a movie about nothing more or less than excessive violence. That and the snake joke. That was great. I cant wait for the third. 10/10.
Fantastic Four 2. Another case of a sequal not being as great as the original. Felt like it had a lower budget and overall felt really cheap and hastily released. 5/10.
Starship Troopers 3 & 4. Ive seen the first two lots. I love them lots. Hate on the movies all youd like but I think its a great series. Number 3 brought back Rico and number 4 was totally CG which I thought was really cool. Overall, number 4 was by far the best one in the entire series so far and Im excited to see if they release another one or two movies. ST3: 8/10. ST4: 10/10.
Brave. Yet another Disney animated movie. I really loved brave and wish that Disney had had a princess like Merida when I was younger but, never the less, its nice to see one like her now. 10/10.

Thats it for the movies Ive seen that are of note in recent memory.

*The game was such a big flop that long before game stores stopped selling PS2 games you could buy the game brand new for a whopping sum of $00.99. Seriously.

The Only Automatics I Love Are Guns

Recently[ish] on Twitter I decided to go ahead and make a list of my top 10 favorite MMA fighters. Why? I dunno. Cause I can. So Ive now decided to post that list here as well! Why? I dunno. Cause I can.

1: Randy Couture
2: Gina Carano
3: Chuck Liddell
4: Tim Kennedy
5: Liz Carmouche
6: Sarah D'Alelio
7: Cyborg
8: Colton Smith
9: Bec Hyatt
10: Anderson Silva

Of course, that list is likely to change over time. I just wanted to share it though! Yup.

Hooray For Boobies!

So, I figure that now with two blogs on DDOGamer featuring boobies, its about time that I, Mizzaroo, jump onto this train before its too late and its gone. That and I figure everyone could use a break from being overly exposed to Samius' cock all the time. So without further ado, I present to you all, BOOBIES!


End Of Story

Well, that was a decently sized blog now wasnt it? Hope you all enjoyed reading my ramblings. If not please leave a message at 1-800-IGIVASHT. Either way, hope you all have great mornings, afternoons, evenings and nights and hope to do something or another soon. It probably involves the zombie apocolypse. Which is totally coming by the way.

BYE!!!

4 comments:

  1. Bugs. Judging from the effects of the expansion, the going orders were:
    1) Hire a bunch of temps and bring over some LOTRO devs to work on the job and then dump it.
    2) Work all employees, temp or not, to the point where all they care about is shipping and will deal with coding horrors later.
    3) Allow absolutely any change anyone feels like dumping in. If we are going to ruin the codebase, let's ruin it all the way.

    The codebase is now 6 years from launch, or desperately old and creaky, with pretty much multiple turnovers across the board. They aren't reducing the number of bugs without a complete refactoring job, and Turbine/Warner aren't going to spring for that. It is an open question if it is going to survive the next expansion, or if Turbine/Warner just wants to take all the money up front and shut down the servers.

    I'd say the way they dumped the enhancement disaster one the community is showing more toword "shutdown", but that is how Turbine always treated the community.

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  2. Er, that last comment was from Wumpus.

    And Hooray for Boobies!

    Wumpus

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    Replies
    1. You see though, that's what worries me. I love ddo very very much. The last thing I want is for it to go away you know? Not even lotro could adequately replace ddo for me.

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  3. Imma dub thee a bro even though yer a chick, just cause yer cool.

    ReplyDelete