MMO world hopping frenzy

Tonight was a veritable tour of the MMO world!

First stop was World of Warcraft for a good long bout of raiding. Whomever thinks progression raiding is fun is the wrong sort of crazy. Tonight was one of those 'bash your head against the wall and see what happens' kind of raiding nights. Totally heartbreaking, but necessary in the long run of things. Oh well, I have my cloak, the world is shiny. 

Our next stop on the amazing tour was the great Final Fantasy XIV, or as I like to think of it 'catch the maintenance team napping!'

Seriously! This game always goes down during my prime time. (I am a recovering insomniac night owl and darned proud of it!) Extra heart break as I was working on a dungeon story mode quest when the healer bailed and we were stuck hoping to get a new one before the game went down. (shocking secret of the night: We didn't!) 

I decided to round out my night in Hex, and ended up staying up waaay too late as a result! (I think you guys are on to something!!) 

Hex, as I have mentioned, is still in Alpha, which means pre-beta testing. (Beta is where you find a ton of bugs! Alpha is more like 'watch us build a game! See changes happen! It's fuuuun! *entice entice*) Don't get me wrong, about 1/2 the games I played ended as concessions as the game would freeze, fuzz or become unplayable in some way, but the rest of the time was pure joy!

I played with 3/4 of the premade decks (the last one wasn't allowing the game to play normally) against the AI and other players. The AI is still making...questionable moves (he killed himself, used stupid cards that made no sense, that sort of thing) and made me feel utterly ridiculous when it won (I lost?? To the guy who tapped my tapped cards??) it could use some polish, but this early on I am not worried about it. 

The PVP mode is great! I actually have a friend also in the alpha and we spent the night discussing cards, strategies and general things about the game, comparing it to other card games (magic the gathering, hearthstone) that we have been playing lately. He's been in the game much longer so has a few personalized decks, but I still managed to hold my own (and win!) with the premades. 

So far I really like the originality of the cards, and the gameplay (no one deck seemed totally OP compared to the others) but I am really looking forward to the PVE content touted on the kickstarter! Raiding and dungeons with my friends and card games? Oh man I just can't wait to see this happen! (Or better yet, to be in the middle of it!) 

Being in the game so early means I can watch it form and maybe give important feedback, a duty I plan on taking seriously.

Well as seriously as I can as I dominate the world with fuzzy bunny troops!

What, I'm Alludra, did you really expect anything different?? 

Hex!!

One project I have been looking forward to since the kickstarter was announced is Hex, the upcoming MMOTCG!

True confession: TCG's were my first nerddom with magic the gathering. It was the first thing I was allowed to geek out over in my super strict upbringing where girls didn't do boy things. And Cryptozoic found a way to merge them with MMO's? Oh my goodness! That's it, I'm going to miss my family for a while. (or rather they are going to miss me as I plan to dive head first into this thing!)

The game is still in early alpha with kickstarter participants (and very likely friends and family) being among those lucky few who can play. And I just got my invite!

I haven't had a chance to play much unfortunately as a huge wave of invites sent out at once, part of the alpha testing is to slam their servers it seems, but I am in there and I am playing! So far I am totally in love with the fuzzy bunny deck, critters abound and new cards, but I am also still getting to know the cards and working out mechanics between the premades.

After a series of restarts today and maintainance, I can't wait to see if I can play tonight! But wait! I have raid!



Okay after raid, but then it's totally on!

Alludra's World of Warcraft Pet Battle class rationalizations!

It occurred to me yesterday that I haven't ever had my 'pet class rationalizations' put all in one place. (You may remember these from the early days of Pet Battles!) Lots of people commented on them, but I was content to leave them in the old shows until yesterday. I realized no one wants to sift through old beta news for all this fun stuff!

So without further ado: Alludra's World of Warcraft Pet Battle class rationalizations!

Aquatic - Take more damage from flying abilities, but undead hardly phase them.

Most birds eat small fish and the like, so it's a predator/prey thing. Undead beasts historically avoid water for its cleansing properties and thus the fish are strong against them.

Beasts - Take more damage from  Mechanicals, but Huminoids have a hard time with them.

Beasts are predators from the natural world, while Mechanicals are man-made constructs like guns and lasers. Claws are no match for that! Meanwhile the predators of Azeroth have found ways to kill and eat Humans (which is why they invented guns in the first place!)

Critters - Get eaten alive by Beasts, but take less damage from Elementals.

Critters are the prey, like rabbits and mice. Of course the predators (Beasts) are going to kill them more easily. But these critters live underground and in trees and thus know how to deal with the elements.

Dragonkin - Take more damage from Humanoids, but take less damage from flying.

Knights kill dragons! But the much smaller birds are at a sky disadvantage, Dragon armor protects from tiny beaks.

Elemental - Take more damage from aquatic, and less damage from mechanicals.

Keep in mind electricity for this one. Water amplifies it to craaazy levels, while Mechanicals use it for power.

Flying - Take more damage from magic, and less damage from beasts.

Magic zipps through the air, sometimes unseen. Sorry birds. But these same birds can just fly away from beasts. Yup, just like that! The larger birds of prey even sometimes eat some predators (Beasts) like snakes.

Humanoids - Take more damage from undead, while taking less damage from critters.

Basically, zombies eat humans, but the humans have found ways to get rid of small pests.

Magic  - Dragonkin hurt them more, Aquatic hurts it less.

Dragons are very magical beings, so it makes sense they would absorb the magic. But Water is a strong part of magic (as seen with the Undead aversion) and thus can absorb some of the magical harm thrown at them.

Mechanical - Takes more damage from elemental, and less from Magic.

Remember that super dangerous electricity? Well it fried the mechs. Sorry guys! But magic is the opposite of a mechanical (science) pet, and so their blows are ineffective past each other.

Undead - take more damage from critters, and less damage from dragons.

Critters cause plagues, thus giving the undead their abilities, but at a terrible cost. Meanwhile, a dragon doesn't want to eat rotten meat. 

And there you have it! Trust me it took everything in me to not ramble on the topics even more! Hopefully all this will help you remember these class differences as much as it helps me! 

Can't sleep, don't starve!

So I can't sleep, so I decided to play a round of don't starve. Nights in game are kinda long so why not blog about it?

Day one: New game, playing wolfgang because he's the coolest. Adventure time! Tons of flint and got an axe right away. Huzzah! Found a wormhole, but avoided it. Found another a few yards away. Oh, I guess they connect? Lame. Gathered tons of stuff that will be helpful if I find some rocks. Oooh a Ring thing.

Day two: Went wondering around the edges of the forest, and made a fluffy flower hat. Decided to see if wormhole 1 ended up being as anticlimactic as I assumed. Nope! In a bog! I hate bogs, ported back immediately. Night falls and it's raining. Great.

Day three: After using up most of my pine cones during last night's tsunami, I came across a rock farm! It even had a foggy area with tomb stones. A friendly skeleton  in residence gave me a pickaxe! Thank you friendly dead dude! Also found another ax by a lonely pig shack. I have decided to name lonely pig Joe. He didn't mind me taking his ax. He also had a crank thing.

Day four: Joe the pig has become the guardian of my first science machine. he seems unimpressed as I try to press on him the importance of his new duty. Unfazed I explore on, finding another friendly skeleton, this time with lots of beard hair, a badly scuffed up grass suit and a never used fire wand. I am starting to wonder why the skeletons around these parts are so friendly.

Day five: What are these shadows?? I have wondered far and away from Joe and I am realizing, he's not so bad. Oh sure, not the best protector of science, or the best smelling guy, but all in all I could do worse, especially with shadow things chasing me! I kind of miss him but I have put several biomes between us, it is too late to go back and apologize. I doubt he is following me to do the same.

Day six: As I am lamenting finding anything worthwhile and wondering if Joe the pig is the best chance I have for I come across it! Pigtropolous! about 15 pig huts within the same localized area! forget you Joe! These pigmen look upon my new science machine in awe, and have a king nearby whom I can bribe! I may just settle in here and build a base.

Day eight: My fluffy flower hat, the manliest of hats fell off my head today as I was chopping down trees! I can hardly believe it, and neither can the good denizens of Pigtropolous! they Run in fear at the sight of me, no doubt unable to recognize me! Sadly the area around pigtropolous is populated only by trees and spiders! I must quest to get my headgear back!

Day ten: went grave digging today. If the skeletons can be helpful, why can't the graves I figure. Bad idea. ghosts spawned at almost every grave I dug. I got some gems out of it though so I made my way back to pigtropolous. Sadly in spite of my dwindling sanity and awesome replacement head gear, the pig king wanted none of my gems! defeated I made my way back to town, wondering about his new eye foliage around his throne. I know they weren't there a moment ago. Now I sit by my fire, dejected in a way that my fluffy flower hat cannot console, as the eyes in the night mock me.

Day eleven: I am seeing the pitfalls of Pigtropolous, but the surrounding biome is a peninsula, with the pig men deep enough inside that anything else is half a day's walk away. But so far I have not seen a single beefalo and my food supplies are dwindling. In desperation I ate a green mushroom. Raw. Biggest single mistake of all gameplay! My sanity is at an all time low, new shadows are after me, all because I didn't take the time out too cook my mushroomy friends.

Day thirteen: In a bid for more food and different types of construction materials, I decided to burn down part of spooky spider forest. The pigmen were unfazed, but unfortunately I was caught in the middle of the back-draft. Sadly, I did not make it. My friendly skeleton will be surrounded by amazing things to give to the next unwary traveler.

You get what you pay for! The dramas of free hosting and feed services

If anyone has been following me on twitter, you have been following my month long mini rants against my hosting and feeds. If not let me fill you in!

For the entire month of March (and perhaps as far back as into February) none of my podcasts have been posting properly. I wasn't aware of the problem as from my end, everything looked like it was going up fine. It was only when a listener asked where the shows were that I discovered that neither iTunes nor Sticher had been getting the shows from the feeds properly. Three shows total were impacted and looked like they didn't exist. (Battle Pets with Alludra and Kephas episodes 17-19)

This is, to say the least, problematic. You see, I work hard to make sure these shows are out regularly, and to find that some were a month behind on updating, well that's just embarrassing! All my hard work to edit and post the shows on a regular time table has been disrupted due to a problem with either my feeds or my hosting.

The providers in question are Feedburner and Archive.org. First Feedburner wasn't posting any posts, and I spent a lot of time troubleshooting and working on it, figuring it to be the worst culprit as the future of Feedburner seems uncertain. I straightened all that out and went along my happy way, seeing the feeds post properly to my Twitter once more.

But it turns out Archive.org is the true culprit in this case. For some reason the hosting I did from there was no longer allowing iTunes or Stitcher to pull the show off the feeds. While Alludra's pets may be properly hosted (with a lot of work and fixing!), for some reason Battle Pets would never show up. After weeks of working with it, (and seeing the shows finally show up weeks later, in one case I show I hadn't yet tried to edit to make more compliant) I decided to move battle pets to a new home. This of course is a big challenge as I am still unemployed in spite of my best efforts.

Lesson learned! Updates will now be going up normally and on time, and a lot of the month-long stress this has caused me is dealt with!

Since Alludra's pets posts more regularly from Archive.org, I have decided to leave that podcast where it is, at least until I can find employment. I have just discovered that nothing has posted from episode 66-current, so I know what I am doing this weekend.

If this has caused problems, you have my apologies. This is a learning experience for me as well.

Mannerly Mage

I have made the rough decision to end Mannerly Mage. As I mentioned on Twitter and other forums, it was the wrong sort of challenge, and I always looked upon this segment as a bit more of a 'chore' thenit should have been. Looking for the negativity in the wow community, if only to poke fun at it, wasn't something I liked to focus on. I should have noticed it from the start, but I thought that it was a good thing to be so challenged by the writing. Thinking outside my comfort zone and getting a new segment to a new audience.

I have learned a lot about writing and production from Mannerly Mage. Lessons that I wouldn't have learned otherwise working on Alludra's pets or Battlepets. One lesson that was the hardest for me to learn was letting the segment go. Admitting that finding new funny topics was difficult, especially when so many others do it better!

If you were a fan of the show, I just want to thank you. Your comments, emails, and in game whispers totally made it worthwhile. The sarcasm and eyebrow raising was fun while it lasted, but thanks to a full podcasting plate, I won't be going anywhere soon. :)

Microsoft and the used game market

Earlier today I tweeted that in light of the new Microsoft 'news' making the rounds, I will not be buying a console. Rather, steam will be getting the bulk of the (not negligible) amount of money I spend on consoles. This led to an uproar I didn't quite expect!

"How is Microsoft different now from Steam?" seems to be the rallying cry. How is their new changes on the console any different from what I am going to do with my PC gaming.  Needless to say I can't tweet an adequate response to everyone individually so I am taking it to my oft ignored blog.

I think this boils down to the concept of ownership. What is mine and what is not? This concept has been changing for years, but there is a striking difference between PC and console games. In the PC market I can't remember the last time I paid full price for a game, thanks in no small part to Steam. And while I have ended up with a few bad games, the fact that these games were less than $5 each made the bitter pill easier to swallow.

Physical games are a different commodity, rather than go down in value or retain value over time they become 'collectibles' or vanish entirely. Realistically we can't expect major retailers to hold onto games and stock for a console's lifetime and duration, or even a year out. Eventually a few years down the line we can hope for the games to get 'greatest hits' status and drop to half price and resurface in our local stores.

How many times have you picked up a used game loved it, then bought the sequel at full price? Or only had a few dollars and picked up that 5 year old game that you haven't thought about in years?

Let's face it, not everyone is thrilled with the way PC games are handled. Steam itself is under fire from more consumer friendly countries about their no reselling policies. They are only able to sue over it because it's illegal for terms of service in other countries to  block the right to take Steam and Valve to court. Think about that for a moment. 

To be honest, if I could check a box and resell some games *back* to steam they'd have my loyalty for life. I would seriously never shop at another retailer again, so I am closely following the news of this lawsuit in the hopes that PC game reselling will become our future.

For now, I am quite aware that these new console specs are in fact rumored and not concrete. But I am also not going to wait and see, I'd rather let Microsoft know that this is a path I do not support. We have madechanges in the past, and it's only by letting companies know how you will vote with your wallet that you can hope to get some change.