Blog Posts from "I Crit You" - Gameriot.com

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves -- One of the few reasons to own a PS3

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:41:29 -0500

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves ("UC2") was officially announced today with a trailer to show how beautiful the game still is.Â The amount of texture, sound, and animations in the game will definitely preclude it from ever getting to the Xbox360 in one piece, if ever.Â It is definitely the game to look forward to on the PS3.

Hopefully that embed works. . .Â If not-- http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43231.html

Beautiful

Uncharted 1 ("UC1") is just plain great looking.Â The game takes place primarily on jungle infested islands surrounding a quest to find the city of gold which turns out to be just one giant gold statue.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/30355.html

A change of scenery in UC2 will be a welcome change.Â If it ends up being in a jungle again, disappointment will follow.Â However, Nathan Drake apparently follows the voyages of Marco Polo this time around, which I don't expect to be jungle heavy at all.

The premise, gameplay, and beautiful graphics of UC1 definitely make Uncharted 2: Among Thieves a game worth looking forward to December 2009.

Fallout Retrospective

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:21:26 -0400

About Blizzard "Winning" against MDY

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:42:30 -0400

http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/arizona/azdce/2:2006cv02555/322017/82/

I want to help clear up some misconceptions and maybe just provide some further insight into what this case was about.Â The link above is the actual opinion given by the court as to why they found in favor of Blizzard.Â On its face I agree with it.

The court uses 3 cases as precedent.Â MGM v. Grokster which I've had the "pleasure" of reading where it found Grokster was contributory to copyright infringement for marketing its product as being a better Napster.Â The rule derived, however, is that when a person markets a product to promote copyright infringement, then they are contributory to that copyright infringement.Â Which the contributory part is protected by statute.

The second case is Mai Sys Corp. v. peak computer where they found that when software was copied to RAM, the copying violated the copyright act.

Third case is Sun Microsystems v. Microsoft.Â [just a little background info about MDY's argument: they said that the EULA and TOU (end user license agreement and terms of use) are contractual agreements and thus MDY was not liable for merely allowing others to break contract.Â They also contended that the consumer purchases a licesence to copy the software to their ram]Â Basically this case's rule is that if the EULA or TOU is interpreted as a limitation on the lisence,Â then that license when violated would support a cause of action for copyright infringement.

As a matter of law, they determine that the TOU section 4, I believe, did limit the scope of the license.Â However, section 5 was determined as limiting the scope of the license.Â So breaking certain sections revokes the license, and breaking other sections does not.Â This is precedent from the sun microsystems v. microsoft in 1999.

They then determine that the program clearly violates section 4.Â MDY's defense is poor here.Â Just accept that they have none for this.

Now on to the fun part - Public Knowledge

In their amicus brief (friend of the court claiming that they should follow their logic) they contend that people who purchase WoW own the game for purposes of a section 117 defense [which basically says that if you own a copy of the software then you're allowed to change it in order for you to use it].Â They contend that the copying of the software to the RAM is necessary to use it.Â Which makes a ****load of sense for all of us.

This is where everyone is having a ****fit over.Â But I would think its preety common (hah:public) knowledge that when you buy a game you're buying the license not the game (the proper techincal term is copy but I didn't want to confuse you with this but I probably just did).

The court employs a 2 part test (from precedent of course) to determine whether blizzard sold a license or a copy.Â Of course they find that the court finds the former.Â From the labeling on the box, the messages in the eula, and others, the court conclude "one wonders what more could be done to make clear that the purchaser is a licensee, not an owner, of the software."Â (this is on page 15 of the link at the top if you're wondering)

For these reasons the court grants Blizzard a summary judgment in part for their 2nd two claims (of 3).

There is no strong precedent created here.Â I am no expert, yet, but even from my experience of reading court opinions, this only strengthens (slightly) case law prior to this case.Â The earliest case used here I believe was 1993 and the latest was I think 2006.Â

The main thing about public knowledge's arguments is that they're trying to protect consumers.Â That is a noble thing.Â But their argument is frivolous.Â They base it on the consumer's perception which in reality our perception is usually negligent if you really believe you're buying the game and not the license.

Others arguments on other blogs concerning copying to RAM issue were completely off base.Â For purposes of interpreting the copyright act we can find the following:

When a person has a non-exclusive license which has limitations on the scope of the license, whom violates that license and is subject to losing the license, is liable for copyright infringement if they continue to use that software.Â And those that promote and allow that activity may be liable for contributory copyright infringement.

I think the potential danger really just lies in the discretion this affords to the exclusive license holder (Blizzard).Â However, only certain sections which when violated may actually revoke your license.

Yes, I have no life.Â Kidding, I love doing this analytic ****.Â Although this was so much easier to read and comprehend than cases the Supreme Court of the US has given such as international shoe, burger king co. v rudzewics, asahi, and many others.

Activision Tales Part 2: Shawn Guse

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:58:08 -0400

Shawn Guse's Settlement - looks like this is 1 guy who got his due.

Apparently the anonymous guy who had to pay 100,000 dollars to Activision is no longer anonymous.

The now apparently ****ty writers at Gamecyte had wrote about the anonymous guy settling the dispute out of court.Â That was misleading and/or false information.Â Now its apparent that it was an in court settlement.Â And it seems that Activision didn't even require him to pay the full amount.

If you don't feel like reading the short settlement or just don't understand any of the terminology, I will attempt to lay it out short and simple.

Basically the defendant agreed to the claims, which was a statute violation presumably some copyright section which if I have the free time will look up later, and he waives all rights to appeal, contest, or even dispute, or "otherwise attack in any way, directly or collaterally, its validity and enforceability".Â Having worked under a trial court judge for a couple months in the past the rest seems preety simple that he was a competent adult who knowingly, willingly, and voluntarily agreed to the claims by the plaintiff - activision.

Here is the funny part, in addition to the above, if he breaks anything of the agreement and the injunction by the court he could be held in contempt (fines or jailtime) and may be required to pay Activision 300,000 dollars for each break.

No wonder he originally wanted to remain anonymous.Â LOL, too ******* bad for you kid.Â You shouldn't have been such a dumbass and started complaining "anonymously".Â Ever hear of integrity?Â If you were smart enough you would've kept your mouth shut instead of trying to demean activision's name but now - and I hope this happens - you may face jail time lol.

btw... this guy may not necessarily be the guy gamecyte was talking about - but from the other things they've said, they're still preety ignorant about what they write on.Â Heres my source - http://www.bruceongames.com/2008/09/25/shawn-guse-software-thief/

Preety interesting since shawn guse petitioned to get that site to remove the article about him but they refused because they felt keeping it anonymous would be too much favor for a thief.

Activision's Recent Lawsuit Activities Over Copyright Infringement

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:41:50 -0400

I find Slapnuts' post about the Activision story very intriguing.Â This blog post is my interpretation from what I could gather from the news articles.

Slapnuts thought it was possibly over modded consoles or "backup" discs being sold.Â I think the biggest effect of Activision's desire to keep the suits and what they are sued over anonymous - is that every time you illegally download, mod, or otherwise infringe copyright protects you have to wonder... am I going to get sued over this?Â I think the biggest impact this has is on the distributors who have not merely something - but much to lose.Â I am sure the random nobody would be less effected by this kind of deterrance because the chances of that random nobody being sued is relatively really small.

10 Reasons Why You Might be a WoW-Fanboy

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:32:12 -0400
You might be a WoW fanboy (or girl) if you

1. play generally every day even though you're bored most of the time,

2. defend wow vigorously even though you think the game needs new content,

3. feel compelled to flame naysayers of commonly held WoW values (an MMO needs PVE to be good, needs millions of players to be good, needs flashy and perfect animations at launch to be good),

4. consistently visit WoW fansites (like GR) and get pissed when a post is not about WoW even though you have the choice to ignore the post,

5. are incited to violence when Jasi talks about Warhammer even though there is nothing new about WoW to talk about (in conjunction with 4),

6. think all games by Blizzard are perfect and all games made by others are subject to being compared only to Blizzard games (even though WoW has been through almost half a decade of post release development),

7. have played x consecutive months for the only purpose of seeing the next patch go live even though the x months are ****ty because of lack of new content or poor previous patch,

8. really believe that WoW's added content is different from its previous content even though you find yourself with the same problems and recycled content to plow through,

9. (in conjunction with 2) believe that WoW is great against all others,

10. (in conjunction with 3) and open a blog, read the title, don't read anything else, and start an argument based on the title's appearance of being anti-wow.

If one of these apply to you, fear not you probably are not a wow fanboy based on that alone.Â But if all of these apply to you, I am afraid you probably have the condition.Â Fear not for I offer you an escape-

Oh, being a fanboy is not the same as being a fan.Â L2internet if you think otherwise.Â WoWfanboys typically are the diehard fans.Â Inc flames.

Next blog will be about... ^

Warhammer Online: Not Perfect but Not AoC

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:19:24 -0400
Last time I talked about what made Warhammer different from WoW.Â I took a few comments a little harshly, I admit weakness - after all I am only human.Â Warhammer so far has been a really fun game for me.Â It may not be for you - and there are reasons you may not like it.Â But I suggest giving it a chance, unless you're generally broke like myself currently (been in school for past 5+ years - almost have that final degree!).Â But here are some of the problems of Warhammer - that I have noticed (some have been fixed by recent patches).

The combat is a little sluggish.Â It is more noticeable in PVE than RVR.Â In PVE I tried my new quasi-frost nova and the mob I used it on appeared to be unaffected - even though the fire cage (yeah its basically a fire version of frost nova) was on the mob.Â Fortuneately for me, the mob was rooted but on my screen appeared to be following me anyway.Â

Part of the problem lies in the animations.Â They are not complete as they will be in live.Â And the developers are addressing animation issues.Â In the past day a patch added a huge explosion to one of the bright wizard's aoe spell and changed their mage bolt from a quasi-arcane attack to a fireball which is better suiting.Â In addition, Bright Wizard's group buff (which gives attacks a 25% chance to do extra damage) now has a nice animation where it shoots a small fireball at the target.Â So when I use fire blast (a fireball which hits everyone in a 20 yard range from target) and it procs... its crazy.Â I've seen as many as 20 little fireballs fly off due to the buff's proc.

The chat box is problematic.Â In fact, communication at whole is a little sub-acceptable.Â First, when you receive a message from another player - there is no audible notice.Â Second, if after talking to someone via whisper and they log off, you can still message them and the game will not tell you they are actually off line.Â Third, if you have the option to have the chat box fade away after a certain time and it does fade away,Â its incredibly hard to change to your combat box and normally by the time you get to it the information you wanted to see is already gone if you're near other people fighting.Â This chat box problem is a problem, but I assume that the developers will be addressing it in some time in the future.Â Right now I think they are more concerned with making the core game play perfect.

Casting bars are not 100% accurate.Â Similar how WoW used to have this problem, lag affects casting bars.Â I've had spells go off before my casting bar filled up to have my casting bar pushed back by an attack and continue to cast - even though my spell had finished.Â I think this is mostly due to lag factors and UI errors.Â Apparently there are mods already which fix these problems.

So the news about Warhammer is not 100% perfect.Â Over the past week there had been much more glitches than I initially expected.Â The glitches would've been worth mentioning 5 days ago are generally not existant any more.Â There have been at least 3 mini-patches which fixed combat responsiveness in PVE, the flee skill glitch, no easy way to check combustion/accusations accrued (like playing a rogue blind to your combo points), and a few others but they have been generally fixed.

Everything considered, Warhammer has been diligently fixing problems the player base has reported to them.Â From what I understand, the main problem with AOC was that AOC took too long or never fixed their bugs.Â I see all MMOs as games constantly in development.Â That said, there is no reason Warhammer will not achieve WoW quality if the community supports it.Â Personally, I don't need a MMO to be completely perfect.Â But I expect in a reasonable amount of time that they ammend it.Â I will play Warhammer as long as the game remains fun.Â If the problems don't get fixed, I probably will no longer put up with the few that exist.

Warhammer Online: The Heretic of the MMO Universe

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:21:31 -0400
Naysayers are arguing cyclically about how Warhammer can never and will never stand up on its own against WoW.Â And they argue against anyone who states otherwise.Â Its become increasingly noticeable that they use WoW as their holy bible.Â

The Holy Book Of WoW says that grinding BGs gets boring.

The Holy Book of WoW says that leveling is boring.

The Holy Book of WoW says that leveling up new toons is boring, therefore leveling up alts for Warhammer will be boring.

I can confidently say now after playing the Open Beta that these three things WILL NOT BE THE CASE.

Warhammer gives you a unique choice, which WoW fans fail to grasp, that is how to level your toon and how to gear him up.Â First, you can level in Warhammer by pvping AND/OR pveing.Â And doing both or either is YOUR choice.Â You're not forced to do PVE by making RVR earn experience.Â And the two systems are really well complimenting.Â The distinctions in PVE is that you get gear from quests and from earning infamy doing Public quests.Â In pvp you get gear from earning renown ranks and the gear is purchasable with silver/gold.Â In both PVE and PVP you loot currency (or vendortrash) AND possibly loot (read: uncommon gear etc).

This opens up possibilities.Â If you open up possibilities, you increase replay value.Â You also attract people who enjoy PVE or PVP leveling AND both.Â Until you've really played a game that allows both, your opinion is without substantial basis.Â You can't say that leveling 1-40 will get boring because there are more then 4 scenarios.Â Theres more than 3 scenarios for the FIRST tier in this game.

From playing the game several aspects stood out the most to me.Â I can ENJOY RVR from the moment I create a new character.Â I am not joking around on this.Â I started my first character and was doing scenarios around rank 2.Â My second character I decided to try out the pve side a bit - got a little bored cause this was before PVE was "fixed" - and I started to do scenarios at rank 5 and I stopped doing quests because the scenario was much much better.

I have to admit, battlegrounds in WOW are extremely overplayed.Â The BGs from classic should have stayed classic and there should have been a whole new set of BGs for TBC.Â Blizzard, in their infinite wisdom and according to Holy MMO doctrine, decided that recycling content for the next 5 years would be most cost effective than actually developing new content.Â Needless to say, Mythic Entertainment broke Holy MMO doctrine.Â They decided that NEW content is important enough for them to not be lazy about the number of scenarios in the game.Â

Whether or not the scenarios are unique from eachother, I don't know - I've played only 2 scenarios so far.Â Those two scenarios were unique enough for me.Â To put it in perspective, they are unique as compared to WoW BG's uniqueness.Â So for you wow fanboys, they are unqiue enough.Â And I haven't tried CTF etc.Â Landscape differences seemed to be a large part of the scenarios as well as gametype.

All in all -

Warhammer's scenarios are far less likely to get boring than WoW's BGs have.

Warhammer's leveling is far less likely to be boring for people who enjoy PVP and/or PVE.

Warhammer alts will be like playing a new game in the same world if you choose to change your method (e.g. if your first toon leveled in PVE, your second toon can level in PVP or any combination thereof).

For fans of MMOs, Warhammer IS a good alternative to your ****-filled WoW.Â I didn't even mention how much less of a timesink the game is - yet.Â I'll know more once the game is released and I hit rank 40.

The Illegal Iraq War

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:35:37 -0400
I am sure many of you intelligent Gameriot readers have asked yourself if the war in Iraq was a mistake.Â But I am here to convey to you that the war was not a mistake, it was ILLEGAL.

Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter states that nations "shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."Â The charter has two exceptions: that of self-defense and when authorized by the U.N. Security Council.

Granted, this Charter was signed by Truman and ratified by Congress in 1945 (as well as the U.K. and other participants with their respective methods of ratification).Â Under Article 6 of the United States Constitution it declares that treaties authorized by the United States shall be considered "Supreme Law of the Land" - just as the Constitution itself has its own supremacy clause.

Considering that the Iraqi Nation had not attacked nor planned to attack, the U.S/U.K. invasion was in defiance of U.N. Charter and thus illegal.Â The Nuremberg Trials would have called it a "crime against peace".Â In addition, the U.N. Security Council never authorized such actions.

**This is meant to clear up some misconceptions about the War on Iraq.Â Source of information attributed primarily to the National Lawyers Guild.

Al Gore at the Democratic National Convention

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:41:24 -0400

Much better speech than Palin.Â Not about how she ran her relatively obscure state or her completely unknown town.Â He talks about the current issues and not some attempt to say "hey I have some experience, lemme talk about the little I have done for 10 minutes".

"McCain... is now openly endorsing the policies endorsed by the white house and promising to continue them.Â Those policies?Â The same policies?Â I believe in recycling but thats ridiculous" - Al Gore

Americans Can Do Whatever They Want And Be Successful

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:18:14 -0400
In response to the American Hate Propaganda:

We, Americans, have the means and the power to do anything from harnessing the power of the atom to destroy the world, to supplying unlimited energy to the world.Â The rest of the world *****es because they don't have our nearly unlimited opportunities.Â Even other first world countries fall sub par compared to our legacy of awesomeness.Â Do you have our human rights?Â Do you have our capabilities?Â Does the world rely on your economy?Â Have you won wars with nukes?Â Did you create the atomic bomb first?

I didn't think so.Â The rest of the world, we love you - you give us something to relate to.Â Especially European countries, we love your humor.Â You point out how stupid Americans can be, yet still be superior.Â Especially in Sweden, where men don't like to have sex as much as the women (sweden's women like to have sex more than men).Â Thank you other countries, for your hard working poor, your uneducated masses - who historically have succeeded in becoming the "hard" working rich, the educated elite - read: honorable - we're not entirely ungrateful.

Finally, we thank you other countries, especially France and Britain, for giving our ancestors during both World Wars, a focal point to come together to fight a war of grand scale aka saving you from German occupancy.

PEACE

Why Blizzard Fails to Fix Problems

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:29:27 -0400
Blizzard rarely use the direct nerf bat.Â Instead, they love buffing other classes to give the overpowered class the sense of "hey I am still cool and powerful".Â So rather than nerf one class, it decides to buff 8 others.Â And even when they do a direct nerf, they give some stupid "that was unintended - look at the very vague tooltip" approach they did with SEAL OF CRUSADER back in the Baby Days of WoW Classic.

Yes, the Baby Days of WoW Classic refer to that time when everyone was leveling up at the same time and discovering how cool Azeroth was.Â Unfortuneately, by the time you hit level 60 - it was already a drier experience.Â Things were well refreshed when the honor system was introduced, giving incentive to pvp, and even better reinforced with the battlegrounds.Â I suspect no one expected that battlegrounds would eventually lend to the death of world pvp.

Alas I digress.Â What was Blizzard's approach to solving the gambling problem - a social phenom in the fake world of Azeroth? It was banning those person's added to the game's creativity.Â At the time I thought it was a really ******* good idea.Â Because I was really tired of the spamming which you would see 70% of the time in Ironforge, at the time the main capital of the Alliance as any player back then probably knew.Â In hindsight, they really only band-aid fixed a potentially enrichening experience the player's created in the fake world of Azeroth.Â It could be argued that they got rid of it due to the potential scamming, why not get rid of Arenas because of the potential scamming then - one may respond.Â Rather than threatening to ban scammers, they threatened to ban EVERYONE who participated in such activities.

What was Blizzard's approach to solving pvp from rooftops?Â They proposed that anyone who pvps from rooftops would be subject to a warning and then to banning, much like the ban applied to those who ran quasi-casino alts.Â Yet to many players, pvping in towns like Gadgetzan had much to do with controlling the roof and preventing your opponents from taking the roof from you.Â It was amazing fun, like a King of the Hill sort of gameplay.Â Yet instead of merely fixing the glitch that allowed players to get on this building or other buildings such as in Darkshire, Blizzard band-aid fixed the problem by threatening to ban players.Â [In addition, they just made the guards OP beyond comprehension to further dissuade players from PVPing... wtf - why dissuade pvping on a pvp server is beyond my comprehension.]

What was Blizzard's approach to solving ganking in the Cenarion Outpost (forgetting the real name and neglecting to find it) in SILITHUS?Â Well to create a little background, on my server there were several horde (mostly mages and a few rogues and locks) who always were in Silithus looking for pvp and they were always inside the outpost trying to gank people who were unaware.Â The guards there were already OP, grossly significant deterent to pvp on a pvp server.Â Yet players found ways to make the guards ignore them so it was preety much a challenge to pvp well oin Cenarion Outpost and some of the players on my server were really good at doing so.Â How did Blizzard ruin this?Â By buffing the guards even MORE.Â If Blizzard really did not want pvp to occur in the outpost, why did they just disallow it??Â They had the means to do so by simply by using the same they used in Shattrath.

And just to skip forward to more recent times... win trading.Â What was Blizzard's response to win trading?Â Banning everyone who seems to be win trading.Â Another band aid fix.Â They never, in their millions of profits, never really look into a problem before proposing a fix.Â And thats why their fixes will always be band aid fixes.Â Thats why their balancing issues will always exist.Â Thats why after years of game development they never really learned how to fix imbalance.Â [beats a dead horse for 10 more minutes]Â And there you have it, "Why Blizzard Fails To Fix Problems".

TL;DR - Blizzard fixes problems without looking into the problem and fixing it at its core, it fixes it by slapping a band-aid on it.

Sarah Palin Sucks, Why Warhammer Will Kill WoW, Biden Owns

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:49:49 -0400
I need a break from the normal... to spout some irregular... of the normal.

I will not explain some of the reasons why WoW sucks which other people have explicitly said and which I agree with which include, the RNG aspect, the crappy e-sport aspect, the bad class balance, the counter-comp aspect and I will therefore begin with my fourth reason.
Â
Fourth, the world combat in WoW sucks.
This is a given.Â Everyone knows that flying mounts destroyed the little there was.Â Prior to flying mounts consisted of generally just ganking anyway.Â The most competitive ganking was the best.Â That was in Silithus' town, which I don't even remember the name of.Â Of course this is not even the case after the patch that made the guards instantly pwn everyone from everywhere.Â What a bore!Â Why don't they just make fighting unable to happen rather than buffing the guards beyond belief.Â Fighting in Tanaris' town was fun too until they made fighting from rooftops illegal and then gave the guards guns which just flipping wreck everyone.
Â
Whats the deal with the world pvp objectives?Â Every world pvp objective except for Halaa was played out before it was even released on live.Â And Halaa followed shortly afterwards.Â They were merely side-miniature games like the arcade games in GTA but no one ever participated.
Â
And finally World Events Suck in WoW
I have to admit, the world events in WoW did not necessarily suck in their idea of the fashion they were implemented.Â They sucked for two reasons.Â The gate opening of AQ was grandiose but lasted only a few short hours, but required hours upon hours of work from everyone on the server to open.Â Or I should say, required hours of work if the people on the server felt like doing the work because eventually the gates opened practically by themselves (with the essential component).Â Well?Â The event lasted so short that if you didn't log in that day, you never experienced it.Â And if you did log in that day, you probably lagged too much to experience it.
Â
The whole Naxxramas world event was nearly lag free and lasted much longer.Â But it didn't have the grandiose feeling that the AQ gate opening achieved.Â There weren't large monsters walking around which required group participation to take down... instead they had basically packs of mobs which you had to farm.Â Yay!Â The reduced a world event down to a grind!
Â
Did they change anything with the Sunwell?Â They took out the competitive aspect of opening the raid instance!Â They claimed that other events would be made to promote realm competition... Where the **** are they?Â Non-existent.Â A way to brush off the expectations of their players.Â "maybe they'll forget" - they were probably thinking.Â I didn't forget.
Â
There are so many reasons why WoW sucks.Â I will just laundry list a few others.
- farming endlessly
- So you can eventually farm endlessly again
- So when the next expansion/arena season comes out, you can farm again
- 1 new lackluster BG per expansion
- and others
Â
Why do you want to keep paying for the ability to farm over and over again?Â Why can't they add variations of BGs more often?Â Why do they allow class imbalance to the extent they do?
Â
I really can't say if Warhammer will be any better and to be honest, I wouldn't even play it if 8 people I know (half who never even played wow) plan on playing it.Â But if we collectively focus our hope of Warhammer slaying WoW, maybe - just maybe... probably not.Â Okay, but who cares.
Â
*I am no way involved with the press or in any affiliation with this website, my opinion is of my own, and any indication otherwise is not true.

Frederich Nietzsche's Eternal Return, Supported by Modern Phycisists and Ancient Mayans

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:38:52 -0400

Last post I gave the idea that god is possibly timeless, in that he existed before time began and will exist if time ever ended.Â But what if time itself has no beginning nor end.Â What if over the course of 10x100^99999 years all things repeat exactly the way they did the cycle before.

Well, its possible.Â Renowned physicists like Steven Hawking believe its possible.Â Go on the premise that matter is finite and time is infinite.Â Lets assume that motion, not a hard assumption, governs all aspects of the universe.Â And that all of the universe is always in motion.Â If you take all these premises to be true, you find that the theory of ETERNAL RETURN is possible, maybe even very possible.

Continuing on those premises, here is the rationale.Â Pretend the universe is a balloon - a vacuum with the exception - of 1 billion free floating atoms (like a gas).Â Those atoms bounce around and reconfigure constantly.Â Because of the number of atoms, the fashion they are moving, and the large amount of space in which these atoms have to bounce about you could imagine that 1 billion atoms will never be in the same exact configuration they were at any other instance of time.Â But in this universe, as in the premise, time is endless.Â With a set amount of atoms and an unlimited amount of time, even if it took eons upon eons upon eons of time, there will be a moment where the atoms are in the exact same spot, with the exact same velocity (remember velocity includes direction) and the universe effectively restarts.Â Every cycle from then on, would be a replay of everything that happened the cycle before.

I am not going to ask any cheesy questions like... if its true, how will you lead your life?Â Because the answer is obvious... it would have to be 'no different'.

Nietzsche is not the father of cyclical time.Â The Mayan's believed the world worked in repetitive cycles as well.Â They also said that there were four stages including growth and pain/destruction.

"What if some demon were to say to you that this life as you know as you have lived it in the past, you would have to live it once more, enumerable times, there would be nothing new, every pain and every join you would live over and over... for infinity... consider the possibility that every action you choose... you choose for all time." - Frederich Nietzsche (The Gay Science)

Next time: We'll discover if I wrote about objective/subjective morality or maybe I wrote about the absurdities found in Intellectual Property.

Why Agnosticism is an Acceptable and Applicable Approach to Life

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:25:05 -0400
I love adding to this site's diversity of blog topics, it gives avid gamers a chance to consider "the bigger picture of life" with OTHER gamers.Â I consider my line of reasoning in why I question god for all to criticize.Â And tempt others to refute my logic.Â So without any further introduction...

I take the idea of "what is god?" and I try to consider the possibilities that others have set before me.Â Most religious denominations tend to apply characteristics to their god.Â Such as they'll say god is all loving and all powerful (I will get back to these).Â They continue to say that god exists eternal, meaning basically that he exists outside of time itself, which implies he was there before the beginning and will be there after the end.Â In a sense they are saying he doesn't have a beginning and doesn't have an end at all.Â Its really belittling if you think about it.Â

But the same denomination (of Christianity - namely Catholicism) believes that god is all loving (implying he is all forgiving too).Â This is where I begin to have problems.Â While I can accept that god is eternal, for one would have to exist prior to creating the universe to actually create the universe (and even many ancient philosophers, Aristotle included, contend that there probably was a god but usually refer to "him" as a force), I have trouble believing that an entity who has created everything - all the evils in the world included - could be all loving.Â The idea that god could be all powerful is acceptable in my eyes.Â In fact, I find the denial of the possibility that there is a entity more powerful than you kind of absurd.Â Because if said entity did exist, how could you know?Â Which finds you falling back into the position that its possible god exists, how could I know?Â

Even Christianity gives hint that there is a level between god and humans - namely the angels.Â While Christianity names them servants of god, which I tend to interpret as an extension of god, isn't it possible there is some kind of entity that is akin to god, that is not god, that is powerful enough to act as god in some capacity, that could very well imitate god to our ancient ancestors?Â If god came up to you right now, how could you be sure that he is god.Â How could you be sure that he is not god?Â

I am kind of stealing this idea from Descarte, but maybe there is a mad scientist that dominates the world and controls what we see.Â Consider if a demon appeared before you with the appearance of what you envision god would look like (assuming it can read your mind and take that shape or form).Â What if he did acts of what you would assume a god could do.Â How much "magic" or "miracles" would it take you to think this thing may be god.Â ****, I am sure if someone could create a miracle like reshape matter I would be convinced that this thing Â Its very well possible god exists outside of any concept we, as humans, could fathom.

So where does that leave us agnostics?Â Maybe god exists?Â As humans, we can never know.Â What can we do?Â We can keep searching if we desire.Â Theres nothing wrong with the pursuit of knowledge and ultimately perfection (even though perfection is merely illusion).Â Or we can be satisfied with ambiguity.Â One of the most eye opening revelations I ever had was that of ambiguity.Â We (agnostics) can embrace it.Â Before I knew of a relatively new philosophical trend (that of embracing ambiguity) I felt that you either believed or you did not.Â I did not consider myself agnostic until I really considered the fact that I may be.Â Which was when I learned that there are certain decisions in your life that you can embrace the ambiguous position and still operate as a normal human would.Â

In fact, I find that the agnostic may even operate better without certain restrictions**.Â But at the same time, embracing ambiguity is not simply just saying "oh I'll take the middle ground always from now on, I don't really need to consider anything else".Â I find this faulty because its not a realistic approach to life.Â However, if in the progress of determining a solution to a difficult answer, you expend all available resources, and you have the option to stand neutral because neither side has convinced you and the matter is not pressing, embracing ambiguity as an answer may be the thing to do.Â Some would say that finding your own understanding of god and your relationship with him is one of the most important decisions you can make in your life.Â I say, why can't you choose the route of least resistance.Â

Its not blind faith so I don't have to convince myself of a "leap of faith", its simply not necessary.Â Because my reasoning, in my opinion at least, is based on my own reasoning and not some 2,000 year old doctrine which I hardly have the chance of evaluating*** simply because at that time I was not in existence or at least I do not have the same memories/thoughts etc I do at this time****.

Clearly spelled out (for those who have a short attention span), agnostics share two basic beliefs.Â That (1) we do question the existence of god and (2) that we are ignorant and can not determine if god exists.Â This is vastly contrary to what one might initially think an agnostic is about, that perhaps he questions god because he hasn't found an asnwer but the answer agnostics give to the existence of god is that "we do not know due to our ignorance".Â Its not very applicable in the question of "does god exist?"Â However, its our embracing ambiguity which allows us to leave this question unaswered (at least temporarily).Â By doing so it could be said that we prefer matter over form (potential over actual), for you Aristotilean thinkers out there.

Perhaps next time - applicability of subjective morals or an attempt to tackle eternal return (from a few perspectives jumbled into one)

end notes:
*several prominent physicists claim there may be more than one universe, but read this as EXISTENCE in its entirety
** a reference towards the subjectability of moral standards and not the total rejection of moral standards
*** determining credibility based on a cold (read: really old) doctrine is really hard to do since over time revisions are bound to be made (and have been)
**** simply refering to the possibility of reincarnation or perhaps plato's allegory of the cave

China's Lack of Human Rights, The Situation, And the Possible Solution

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:01:12 -0400
Yes, another day and another blog despite my prediction that I wouldn't write another blog for a long time.

China Is All About Human Rights?

China is the most populated country in the world and is host to about 1/5th the world's population. So despite all the advancements in human rights in democratic/republican areas of the world, there is still a pressing issue of human rights violations in China. By now you've probably read about the Olympics coming to China. China is attempting to show off its human rights improvements they've made over the last 19 years since Tienanmen Sqaure incident.

A prominent Chineese human's right advocate had to say "When you come to the Olympic Games in Beijing, you will see skyscrapers, spacious streets, modern stadiums and enthusiastic people. You will see the truth, but not the whole truth, just as you see only the tip of an iceberg. You may not know that the flowers, smiles, harmony and prosperity are built on a base of grievances, tears, imprisonment, torture and blood." - - Freedom House)

What Can Be Done?

China is host to 1/5th the world's population and is becoming or has already become a first world country. Yet clearly there is a human rights problem; when 1/5th of the world is involved its a really big problem. But what can be done, you might be asking.

ECONOMIC SANCTION - While economic sanctions of the past (iran, iraq, cuba, north korea) have been ineffective towards earning their people human rights. China may be different. Theres two reasons. China is trying to become a world superpower and actually cares about how the world perceives them. An economic sanction from the US, UK, and neighboring Asian nations would send a clear "f*ck u" to the Chineese government. And the second reason is that the Chineese economy depends greatly on foreign sales. Since the economy has become China's stabilizing point, a threat to their economy could push them towards giving human rights to their people. Besides, without their economy, what else could the Chineese fall back on? Their communist ideaology is all but gone.

AGAINST ECONOMIC SANCTION - Perhaps economic sanctions could be considered... hypocritical. The right to trade is in itself a human right, if not a national one. In that sense economic sanction would be improper and possibly ineffective. A different route could be to encourage China's economic growth and wait for human rights to advance on their own. While this may seem a little bit backwards in thinking, it may be possible that through political pressure - while maintaining good relations - could help better than sanctions.

What will not work? - Protesting. Groups like Myndfk and similar protest groups make silent cries. But thats my pure unadulterated pointless half baked directed random opinion.

All About Weed, Legalization Thereof, Why, And More

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:30:49 -0400
I haven't felt compelled or interested in writing a blog in a long long time. And I probably won't again for a while.

The purpose of this post is to help flesh out the controversy behind marijuana. I have attempted to flesh out the areas I feel are most important. After reading you will find that I am in favor of legalization based upon the reasoning described. But marijuana should only be legalized if it has restrictions to prevent abuse. If someone else has a compelling reason as to why or why not, I may make additions. This post is intended for informal discussion, in a formal manner.

Gateway Drug?

Actually, the term gateway drug has a psychological basis. The mood of an average person can be explained as a series of ups and downs. Like a wave pattern. Thats the best way I can explain it. When you smoke you get a euphoric sense and your pattern alters so that your mood is way above normal. So when you come down, your mood is way below normal as a reaction. But it takes way longer for your mood to become average again. So if you smoke before your mood becomes average, your low point becomes even lower and again it takes even longer to become average again. If you abuse weed often enough, and this is preety often because weed is preety weak, you build a tolerance to its use. When you build up tolerance, you need to smoke more and more to get the same effects. For some people, they just go onto stronger drugs. Thats why its a gateway drug. However, thats if you *keyword*ABUSE*keyword* marijuana. And I mean really abuse it on the level of alcoholics and beyond. Or if the user is just already vulnerable to stronger drugs due to their emotional/economic/social status.

Addictive?

Yes, marijuana can be classified as addictive. But science has determined that there are two classifications OF addiction, mental and physical. A substance can be addictive both mentally and physically or just one or the other. When someone is addicted to a substance, the problem is all in withdrawal. Because withdrawal is what makes people keep going back for more. Physical addictions are much harder to break because your body has developed a physical dependency and requires the substance to operate properly. Mental addictions are easier to break because the addictions are psychological and in most cases can be cured just by removing yourself from the substance. On the other hand, people with physical addictions (such as cocaine) will go to great lengths to obtain their fix. Weed is fortunately a mental addiction only. Its also less addictive than caffeine. I couldn't find a site I found before with a scale but http://www.drugrehabtreatment.com/most-addictive-drugs.html has this to as a list of substances most addictive to least addictive. I've annotated it for conveinence.

1. Nicotine*
2. Heroin
3. Cocaine
4. Alcohol*
5. Caffeine*
6. Marijuana
*legal substances + uncontrolled substances
(I have no clue how this numbering screwed up)

Why may legislation pass in such a conservative country?

Well, our country has one of the fairest legal/prison systems in the world. It has its flaws, but regardless it is really good compared to other countries where defendants don't get half the rights they would here. Anyway, this isn't the point I am trying to bring up. I am, however, going to point out that prison overpopulation is a really big problem. Its common knowledge that prisons are overbooked. Billions of dollars have been spent regulating weed, prosecuting individuals(including appeals), housing individuals, jailing individuals (which includes feeding, supervising, showering, maintaining), investigating, deterring, etc. the list goes on.

If weed were legalized, the black market for weed would disappear when corporations take over the industry. Theres already the means to produce retail cartons of joints (weed rolled in paper similar to a ciggarette). I bet a machine that makes ciggarettes could easily be adapted to roll joints. Product can already be shipped in from other countries, primarily jamaica. And once corporations take over the weed industry, you will have means to tax. All the cash the government needs could be solved by making weed legal. And ****, they're desperate - look into the recent mortage legislation passed which Pres. Bush threated to veto for weeks.

So they can either keep spending money to prevent weed or make tons of money by allowing it.

The Moral Question

"What about the harmful affects of smoking?" - you might be asking yourself. From the outset of this blog I have been giving reasons why weed should be legal. And I have been comparing weed to some other substances as well, some legal and some not. What I have been trying to show is that weed is not as serious as people tend to make it. Out of the 6 most addictive substances, 3 are legal. This shows that the addictiveness of a substance does not determine if it should be legal or not. Out of those 3 substances, 2 of them are mentally are physically addicting (yes the worse of the two types of addictions explained above).

Still, you may be waiting for that answer above to be answered even more... Every year hundreds of thousands of people die from the abuse of cigarettes and alcohol. Yet no one has been proven to die from smoking weed. Alcohol has that nasty thing called alcohol poisoning which has contributed to the deaths of countless as well as liver disease. Cigarettes have been known to contribute to numerous conditions such has lung cancer and emphysema. Studies have been done on weed and at this point, from what I understand, the affects of weed contributing to cancer are still controversial. And studies have shown it takes about 80 pounds worth of smoking to cause an overdose in a lab rat. 80 pounds is roughly ~1300 cigars filled with weed. And that was a test done on a lab rat (don't ask me how it was done). Being that I weight much more than a lab rat... do the math yourself.

And yet still, you might be saying "making weed legal has no positive benefit, excluding perhaps economic". And at this point I have to point out a little bit of political science. The government is limited to passing legislation described within the articles of the constitution which are explicitly enumeration in section 1.8. Just off the top of my head, there is an area where it has the right to pass laws for the good of public welfare. But if a substance has no significant affect on public welfare, then they cannot pass laws upon it. Just using the simple argument (even with some concessions given)... weed is no more harmful nor is it any more addictive than existing legal drugs, therefore it is not enough of a significant threat to public welfare if it is legalized but given legal restraints (restricting abuse and operation of motor vehicles while high). In other words, while morals have a use in the real world and even in legislation, morals cannot be the only determining factor when determining if something should be legal or not.

Afterall, people have the choice and will to live their lives the way they want to. ******** used to be prohibited in some states and even in Texas (within the last 15 years I think). But the government has no compelling interest nor right to investigate and enforce such laws. The basis for Roe v. Wade was that the government had no compelling interest in the potential offspring til 2nd trimester (and even then only a little) and therefore could not regulate it. In other words, the government has no reason or grounds to legislate in areas where there is no compelling interest to do so. And if it does have some interest, like in the case of roe v. wade, it only has authority to regulate unless it has a large amount of compelling interest such as in the third trimester where it can outright ban it. Weed falls akin to the 2nd trimester. The government has grounds to regulate but not outright ban it.

(wtf is with that number 1. it won't go away lol)

Bye Wolfenstein, Welcome Quake Wars

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:54:59 -0400
So a game went a little under the radar for me, while I knew it was coming I didn't realize how close it was to release. Enemy Territory, as far as I know, only has one release under that heading so far, with a new ET coming out very soon. Return to Wolfenstein, which came out on the xbox and the PC, as far as I am concerned was the first FPS to do a class based system AND do it right.

Several years later they've gone back to the old forumla and built it up to what some would compare to the scale of battlefield games. However, its not a battlefield game at all. While I've personally only played 2-3 of the BF series, I never really enjoyed the vehicle based combat and felt that the vehicles generally dominated. In Quake Wars, this is not true by far. But let me review the additions to the game.

2 distinct races (strogg and human)
Vehicles, and plenty of them, only useable by specific race (land, air, and water)
Many deployable turrents, artillery weapons, and even a counter artillery weapon (and deployable radar)

From playing through the classes, it really feels like you are an addition to the team no matter what class you are and no matter what situation. However, so far I enjoy the soldier class with the rocket launcher the most. However, theres nothing like launching a hammer missile into the middle of a base, exploding everying, as a field officer.

Even between the two races, the classes are distinctly different with pros and cons for both. For example, the strogg covert ops sniper weapon is a rail gun which charges after each shot. Shooting before its fully charged will result in less damage. And the human counterpart is more traditional sniper being able to plink out faster. In addition to this difference, the strogg covert ops has a deployable "flying robot" (I forgot what they call it) which is basically a bomb that you control and fly around at the enemy. Meanwhile, the humans get a remote bomb, similiar to the original wolfenstein version, however it can also be used as a camera.

This game is definitely worth checking out as the demo is easily downloaded and installed and isn't hindered by requiring a top end machine to play, which will ultimately win some fans over. Also, I believe the demo can be downloaded from gameriot's servers directly.

WSVG thoughts and Bioshock

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:06:26 -0400
So I figure with it kinda being big news I am compelled to say at least something to these developments. I've never been a suporter of WoW being an e-sport, ****, read my earlier blog post about how I do not support wow as an e-sport.

http://www.gameriot.com/blogs/A-yell-out/WoW-isnt-E-sport-Material/

Anyway, enough said on that subject. Now for Bioshock.

I actually have to say the amount of the game I have been able to play without problems, has been very fun. But first I updated my graphics display drivers (which took forever due to college dorm connection) which didn't really do anything as my comp kept having issues with loading the second area of the game. Finally I decided to turn off widescreen and turn off SLI graphics as well as tone down the graphics to minimum, the game finally worked (but no one would want to go through that). After loading the area I could then set my graphics up to high and widescreen.

Anyway, despite these problems, the game is very solid. The storyline is actually good, the weapons are preety solid and ammo types add variety to the utility of the guns. And the computer AI seems preety solid so far. The extra powers are preety tight but I've only used fire, electricity, and telekinesis so far.

Visually the game is next-gen and seems like a title I would enjoy on xbox360, because I really like first person shooter single player on the 360.

Overall: WoW is dying *as a competitive game*. Bioshock is cool, and awesome if they patch it to fix issues.

**editted**

Fury, my vision

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:26:31 -0400
I think Fury would be better if they removed the Non-pvp areas and just gave a chat interface and an interface to do everything in game (buying gear, equipping gear and skill, modifying your appears/armor appearance, collecting mail, everything except fight), without actually logging into a sanctuary which ultimately serves no purpose imo. And from that interface you can queue up for battles. Then battles load up like they do now and you play the game.
From the chat room you can view other players rank, name, titles or whatever, and view their current avatar as it would look in game, and of course chat with other players and your guild.

Any thoughts?

For reasons why Fury is meh -> http://www.gameriot.com/blogs/A-yell-out/Fury-good-idea/

Fury, good idea

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 18:10:15 -0400
When I first heard about Fury several months ago, I was at the epitome of my WoW pvp 'career' but becoming very frustrated with the lack of variety and lack of willingness on Blizzard's part to really mix things up a bit. But seeing a fresh new MMO idea coming into Beta was really interesting and I immediately put in for the Beta Test.

Well, some time later, perhaps a month, I had gotten an invitation to the Closed Beta for Fury. I'd say it was somewhere in July if I recall correctly, feel free to not correct me. Anyway, the buzz was that this game was going to bring MMOs to the competitive level of a FPS and do it in a style and manner more captivating and stylish than WoW. Anyway, unlike some others putting their thoughts on the beta, I've played it for more than a weekend. And ****, my style of writing outshines these lame ass bullet style blogs anyday. Feel free to call me arrogant, but I call it "confidence" like Nitrana is the best rogue ever (or just at that instance... wtf who cares).

Now my hardware is preety good, I wouldn't say the best certainly. It was able to handle Tarren Mill in the worst of days (albeit at a lower setting). I have dual graphics SLI enabled, 2gb of ram and well, I should be able to run Fury at decent specs. Nay, I ran it at low specs, with certain visuals off, and then it would only take about a minute to load up a battleground. I am not saying this is something that kills the game, but it certainly hinders someone's first impressions.

Okay, so why do they call this game as fast paced as a FPS? Is it because many spells and abilities are instant cast? Is it because you need to make fast decisions before your opponent can? Well, ****, I wouldn't say the action is any faster than WoW. I'd say the biggest difference between WoW and Fury is character collision and what the ramifications and implications are. Positioning becomes just that more important. Finally, its not just the rogues who are slaves to lag induced positioning problems, although I will mention there is a backstab skill (omg originalz), except you can do it with every weapon and it not only does some 20% of your opponent's life, it stuns them for 5 seconds. Needless to say to those who are in the know, but 5 seconds = 5 attacks = easymode. Oh, I guess another mentionable thing is being able to autoface your opponent whenever you execute an attack.

So why would they want to call this an MMO? Certainly at first glance you'd think this was an action game. And you'd be right. This game, unfortuneately, is no more an MMO than the Godfather is well... intimidating. Nowadays we just choose names to associate ourselves by but the truer person chooses a name that best fits their personality. Besides that point, yes... people play this game online. And yes they play it on servers and interact with eachother... And in a sense it is indeed an RPG with a pvp focus... character, gear, and skills all advance. Okay yes, its an MMO... I never said I didn't have multiple personalities or bipolar disorder. But what the games lack which other MMOs, better MMOs, wield, is content that isn't filled with players ripping on other players, all based around a game where time input is strength gained. Oh wait, I suppose... Right, WoW is a game where time input is strength gained... however atleast theres a rich world to explore to turn your focus away from whiny *****es linking purple pixels or making retarded murlock jokes.

Fury is a good idea, however, but its overall poorly implemented at this point. But wrap your mind around this. No classes in an MMO, while not really an ingenious idea as we've seen it before, is truly refreshing. If you want to limit yourself to a healer, by all means do so. But theres more to the game than just team play and fortuneately they've accomplished what WoW has failed to... and thats just that, central focus on PVP. And not just a 5v5, 3v3, 2v2, style of game play or those things they call battlegrounds, more often referred to as '**** I want a *******'. What is disheartening, however, is that theres only 3 modes of game play right now. But I am sure thats intentional as developers need to hold content back to release slowly over time to keep continued interest in the game... look at ******* WoW. 2 months to get simple ******* changes... anyway, if you're looking for a wierd rendition of button masher, which by the way all MMOs tend to be, you may actually enjoy Fury. ****, I did... for about a few weeks. But once I started to smash faces off with my seemingly unbeatable combinations, I got so bored I said **** it and uninstalled.

Then I went back to World of Murloch, yeah I know, murloch jokes are reaaallly bad.

WoW isn't E-sport Material

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:25:19 -0400
I don't support WoW as an e-sport.

1. It is an MMORPG.

An RPG is not a competitive game.

2. Its not balanced and never will be

Blizzard values pve balance over pvp balance... lets face it.

3. Gear determines too much.

Okay, the argument against this is that anyone can obtain gear. But in response, not everyone wants to devote their life to do this. Successful esports like counterstrike succeeded since you didn't need to spend a life time getting gear to actually get into the competition part of the game.

4. The patches change the game too much.

Team matrixes that are good now are good because of the current state of the game. We're all slaves to Blizzards ****** up way of balancing the game. One day warlocks were ****ty and the next they had deathcoil... Now rogues are the ******* bottom of the pole. But that aside, one day rogues could be the top and then people will just complain about them like warlocks are complained about now.

5. PvP takes little skill.

I've played this game pretty much since release and I never felt like the game took any skill. For an example, I could play a FPS like Call of Duty 2 or FEAR and over time I would see myself getting better, faster reactions, etc. You don't experience this with WoW. I've played many classes at 60 and 70 and my main focus is pvp always. First time I touched a mage at 60, never played mage before this, I was owning warlocks in duels (this was before the mana shield buff to absorb magic damage), well geared warlocks. I played mage at 70 and it was the same experience. Same thing with warriors. I never felt like I got any better over time playing my rogue in arenas either. Now if you haven't noticed, I am talking from a 1v1 perspective, thus far.
And in my opinion, 1v1 is a very important part of the game. Not balancing-wise, trust me I am not Ming. The classes cannot be balanced around 1v1 and expected to be balanced in 2v2,3v3,5v5 arenas. But in terms of a single players capabilities? I think its a good measuring tool. Of course its different in the arenas but it all begins in 1v1, that is if you can't competently fight in 1v1 (not win but play well) you cannot competently play in arenas.
That said, 1v1 takes no skill. And the only skill worth working towards and is achieveable is team synergy. If your team doesn't work together, you'll lose. If everyone knows your role and you have the right strategy and execute it right, you have synergy. But is this enough to justify WoW being an e-sport?
I don't think so. Many other games, other than perhaps 1v1 matches like what you might find with quake, team synergy is as important. But executing is much harder and actually takes skill. Now I think you might be confused as I said execution is part of synergy. But executing in WoW is as easy as knowing what to do. Executing in an FPS is not easy and takes practice and knowledge.

6. WoW is boring to watch

Now granted this is just opinion, but take this for example. When I watched Nal ra versus Savior in the SC finals, I was amazed at their skill and knowledge.

When I watch WoW matches... boring.

7. As my ex-wow friend (RL friend though) had put it long ago... WoW is a game of random

The game is in no way smooth. Too many lag issues with skills and abilities as well with gameplay. "r o f l, I just spellstole your divine shield *****" or "gee, I just cloaked after I was dotted but the dot remains". Both lag issues. And how they amazingly managed to break stealth so many times, they as in blizzard. Things that should not happen, do happen. Its a basic priniciple of WoW.

Now you might be just thinking that I hate WoW. You're wrong. I loved playing WoW for a really really long time. Its dry now, a different issue perhaps but not the main thing.

In conclusion, I don't think WoW is e-sport material. And Ming is a retard for thinking WoW could be the WWE of gaming... WWE is not a sport... therefore Ming contradicts himself... yet again.

However, I do think WOW has potential to be an E-sport... if they do the following:

Release World of Warcraft: Arena Edition... and open up Arena Battlegroups for new arena servers.

Include the following:
No levels, all skills for each class.
A different loot system where you earn gear quickly from pvping (or have free gear).
Vary the gear enough to allow for customization... no more everyone wearing the same ******* set of gear to be good.
Balance the classes around pvp for godsake.
Add in character collision... its really a preety nice thing to have imo.
Make new battlegrounds.
Balance gameplay around battlegrounds and arenas (its doable imo without the stinking pve side of the game).
Allow free or cheap transfer (with no limits) from server to server, but require cost from battlegroup to battlegroup... although I could see technical complications could arise so this may be a bad idea.

Final thoughts: WoW pvp is fun, but WoW competitive pvp right now... is not.

First Impressions sham/rog

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:58:53 -0400
So I picked up a shaman in 2v2 today to replace my pally while hes away for 2 weeks. And while I pvp'd with a resto shaman before and it was tons of fun and a great amount of winning, we hit an early ceiling due to his lack of gear. Now this shaman finally is geared as well as I am and my first impressions are great.

And hopefully I'll be able to chime in on his 5v5 team which seems to be doing semi-ok... only 1800ish atm but finding a 5v5 team in vindication has been a pain for over a month.

The only downside is that he would like his no-geared rogue (wow what a noob he is at rogue lol... 2 blinkstrikes?) to get some points so I've agreed to that. So we play 3 matches with 2 rogues and get war+druid, war+sham, war+druid... lol... what happened to the 300 priest/warlock teams we'd have a nice chance against? The 1st match with the druid was real close atleast, but I don't think he knew what he was doing with his cds to effectively finish off the warrior.

Anyway, back to rog/sha, as before I have found it very enjoyable. And now the shaman won't be decimated by non-melee as fast as my first experience with a resto shaman. And being able to tank warriors is a fine fine bonus, but any smart warrior will probably jump on to me if he is smart. But thats where ES has proven valuable to be cast upon me. Purge is a godsend like always vs those classes who love their shields and blessings, but in the end I am real interested in having a partner who loves to pvp as much as I do. TBH none of my previous partners were willing to put the extra time in to get the extra stuff that makes you excell in pvp, but this guy has already done it... like myself. More to come.

The Mutilate Rant

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:20:31 -0400
Now first let me explain that I was in love with mutilate since 2.0 patch prebc. My crit was a good 10% higher than it is now and before resilience, its crit rate was that of backstab (atleast 1 crit) if you had 30+% crit chance. And by todays standards, 30% crit chance is not only much harder to obtain but the disadvantage of resilience is even greater on mutilate than backstab. For instance, if you have a 30% chance to crit against a 0 resilience than you would have a (30% each) 60% chance to crit atleast once within the scope of the 2 mutilate attacks. If you did the same versus a target with 400 resilience (-10% crit chance) than you would have a (20% each) 40% chance to crit atleast once within the scope of the 2 mutilate attacks. While a backstab would have a chance of (30%+30%-10%) 50%.

Why is this bad in my eyes? Because for a positional skill like mutilate, which tends to be hard to pull off under certain conditions, it stinks that you're literally taking twice the penalty from resilience from your 41 pt talent.

So why should mutilate be better than backstab? Because its a 41 pt talent with which you sacrifice to get. And the benefit of critting is what, imo, makes mutilate so nice to have. Otherwise its a weak backstab with 2 combo points generated... nice for pvp but hey its in the assassination tree and I've always thought of that being the alternate pvp other than sub (which sucks even worse but thats a different topic).

Now what should be done to make Mutilate better? Make resilience only half effective on each hit of mutilate so that its still 100% effective in that it reduces mutilates overall chance to crit by the correct percent and not doubly by reducing each chance.

Why does this deserve special treatment from stormstrike or any other thing that causes multiple attacks? Again its a 41 pt talent designed to replace backstab, not entirely as we all know and love 30/0/31 builds, and I think therefore it should have about the same damage on average with the bonus of extra combo points.

Final thoughts: I remember when a ton of rogues were loving mutilate pre-bc. Its not the case now. Since season2 I've gone combat maces and I feel that not having to rely on crits for damage is a bigger benefit than hoping you get that awesome deadly double mutilate crit, which with season 1 daggers was critting for a combined 3k+ damage on geared opponents.

Whats your thoughts on mutilate, is it fair or should it be changed?

Some people like nitrana/ming

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 16:29:39 -0400
Some people like Ming and Nitrana will never learn to be humble. Isn't arrogance a vice in many parts of the world? Isn't humility a virtue is most of the world?

If you missed it, Nitrana recently claimed to be the very best rogue playing world of warcraft at the moment.

"I truly believe I'm the best rogue that plays World of Warcraft at this moment. For one to openly admit he believes he's the best, would often be mistaken for arrogance. In this case, I believe it as confidence. For a lot of people, this statement is a hard pill to swallow, but throughout my history of playing this game I've had this belief. Proving time, and time again, that this claim is well supported, it naturally built confidence into my play."
- http://www.gameriot.com/blogs/CantBeStopped/Nitlo-the-short-lived/

How can you possibly mistake confidence for arrogance... and are the two that different but perhaps arrogance being a more extreme term? Anyway, how could you possibly know you're the best? You're on a 5v5 team where you don't even start? Ever wonder why? Is it because you're the best you don't start? Now I am not trying to diss your ability because I know rogues lack in the 5v5 spectrum, but you can't possibly say you've put in as much as the other players on your team have put in not even being on the starting line up. And even if you could, that doesn't justify you claiming to be the best.

What about the rogue who enjoys pvp but not in the arena setting? Does it disqualify him as a rogue who could possibly be the best just because he doesn't like the arenas? Or how about the rogues who shy away from 5v5 because of obvious shortcomings of the class? Are they disqualified as a rogue?

Final thoughts: Get off your high horse Nitrana, you're proving yourself worse than Ming. And I've been reading much more stuff from Ming and in one post you've passed him in arrogance and dimwittedness. And you don't have to QQ to get the rogue class improved, we've seen enough of that and it hasn't worked so think of another way.

Well damn, priest/warlocks are the makeup of vindication

no.spam@gameriot.com (CrispyDeath) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 01:56:49 -0400
Well holy crap, this priest/warlock combination is really starting to get boring. I am a rogue running with a paladin, so you can perhaps see why this fight is so annoying. I cannot burn down the warlock because either the paladin will get mana burned (and lose in a outlasting match) or I will get mind controlled and tossed about. And on top of that my paladin will be getting fear locked if I get onto the priest, but thats what seems to work the most.

If I get bosac I can withstand a ton of affliction damage from the lock, but what about my paladin? So I can tackle the priest directly, since I find outlasting them mostly impossible due to mind control and fears. I can hope to burn the priest down if I am not feared atleast for 10 seconds. So fortuneately they are beatable.

But holy crap, last night I played about 3 hours with my pally and EVERY match had a warlock or a priest (except for a scare hunter/druid). And literally 80% of the matches were warlock/priest combinations. Our team was new, I hadn't gotten much 2v2 in the last couple weeks, but wow I was amazed when after we hit 1800 how much of that single combination we got were. Anyway, whats your thoughts on flavor of the month builds? Are they really just flavors of the month or are they here to stay?