That's right. They have finally released an official statement of when DDO is going free to play.
August 4th
Turbine announced earlier today that Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited will be available to everyone on August 4th. If you're wondering what all this "unlimited" stuff is about, check out our hands-on time with the game's with the new features, content and functionality. Of course, since the business model switch is still a month away, many of you who've been wanting to jump into the game soon may be slightly crestfallen.
If you're really impatient and must play the game as soon as possible, there's still the option to buy the game now for $14.99 and get your first month free. Or if that seems like a silly notion to you, August 4th will probably be here before you know it. As for us? Well, we're considering checking out the brand new 4th Edition of tabletop Eberron!
http://www.massively.com/2009/07/08/ddo-unlimited-goes-live-august-4th/
July 8, 2009
July 3, 2009
Nahtzee: The Noob Effect
Thanks to the guys over at Pure Pwnage for this informative, comedic bit.
----------
Over time it seems that many people have forgotten the important ingredient to a good gaming experience. The good game. And by game, I'm not referring to shader effects, high polygon counts, a compelling story, or any of the irrelevant nonsense I don't get a sub-marining fuck about. I mean the actual gameplay.. The part where you control stuff, have an interaction with other stuff and your brain generates fun.
If I wanted a compelling story, I'd read a book. There is only a few million of them already in existence, the majority written by people who's talents compare to the best video game writers, the same way that Kobe Briant's penis might compare to that of a titmouse.
If in during 90 minutes of CGI cut-scenes dubbed with pornography grade voice actors sounds exciting to you, I suggest you to immediately navigate your web-browser to your neighborhood torrent site and start downloading something called a movie. Any of them really, because apparently you're very easily satisfied.
Perhaps I'm romanticizing the past here, but I remember a time where most games were about being challenged to explore new gameplay mechanics. About learning and solving new puzzles, about improving your skills against all types of advisories, about feeling proud of your accomplishments.
Now the mostly shiny particle effected vessels got any soccer-mom caliber gamer trough a generic third-grade level story where anyone with a brain the size of a steroid shrank testicle can pretend to be a hero and maintain a fantasy of not sucking balls at video games.
"But.. But.. Nahtzee I need a reason for what I am doing.. Motivation for my character.. A back story!"
Would you really need a back story to play Donkey Kong you twat?
How about Foot-Ball, or Poker.
If the process of playing a game isn't fun for you, well maybe you're not a gamer. Of course not to sound unappreciative of all my free kills in CoD:4, but lately I've become rather mythed that the notion of the over-whelming number of noobs has negatively influenced the direction of video game design forever.
Instead of humanity pursuing the development of the next Chess, we have an endless supply of 8-hour long interactive B-Movie experiences at 60$ a pop, with unimaginable re-skinned sequels announced exactly 3-second after the current product is launched.
Congratulations noobs, you've effectively raised an army of consumer gaming zombies who conveniently seem to lack not only artistic standards, but imposable thumbs.
I'd be inclined to look the other way and ignore the thumbless zombie-parade, but these bungling poor sports have the audacity to hate on us. The gamers who play games for game-play.
And so we're subject to the endless abuses of idiotic whiners.
"Rusher Fag.. Hacker.. No life loser.. IMBALANCE!"
But the truth is, the only imbalance here is coming from your under-developed inner-ear
You Uncoordinated Ball of Ghey.
I'm truly sorry you had your ass kicked around in Gym class like a Hacky Sack in the 1980's, but that's no reason to be a sandy-crotch-vagina while I'm kicking your virtual ass in SSBB.
Even more infuriating than the consumer zombie noobs are the noobs who's jobs involve playing video games and then critiquing them for mass public consumption.
These champions of mob-mentality shouldn't bother me since I've grown rather accustom to unqualified nitwits performing undeserved jobs.
Except that within gaming media circles it seems being a noob seems to be some kind of fucking prerequisite.
I know going through life with the lack of a pin-script can be frustrating.
But calling a 3-hour single player experience the height of game design and comparing the dialogue in GTA4 to that of the God-Father, is nothing less than absolutely retarded.
Here's the unpleasant truth.
Your teachers lied to you when they said that anyone, even you, could become an Astronaut. Some people are just naturally better at certain things than others. There's something called talent. No matter how hard I try, I'll never paint the Mona Lisa or invent a quantum computer. No matter how hard you try, you'll never finish Contra without cheating.
Many people have a genuine desire to challenge themselves to make themselves better. This does not make them Alien, or Cruel, and certainly not.. Rusher fags. It just makes them Uber-Gamers.
It's no reason to resent them atleast no more than you resent John Holmes for his enormous cock.
So the next time you think
"I can beat all the pro gamers if I just played as much as them."
Think again.
That belief is pathetic as the accent I'm talking in right now.
All the basket-ball training in the world won't help your pudgy 5ft 4 dimple bottom make the NBA. Just like all the Starcraft training in the world couldn't prevent Park Sung-Joon from sticking his golden mouse up your ass.
----------
Over time it seems that many people have forgotten the important ingredient to a good gaming experience. The good game. And by game, I'm not referring to shader effects, high polygon counts, a compelling story, or any of the irrelevant nonsense I don't get a sub-marining fuck about. I mean the actual gameplay.. The part where you control stuff, have an interaction with other stuff and your brain generates fun.
If I wanted a compelling story, I'd read a book. There is only a few million of them already in existence, the majority written by people who's talents compare to the best video game writers, the same way that Kobe Briant's penis might compare to that of a titmouse.
If in during 90 minutes of CGI cut-scenes dubbed with pornography grade voice actors sounds exciting to you, I suggest you to immediately navigate your web-browser to your neighborhood torrent site and start downloading something called a movie. Any of them really, because apparently you're very easily satisfied.
Perhaps I'm romanticizing the past here, but I remember a time where most games were about being challenged to explore new gameplay mechanics. About learning and solving new puzzles, about improving your skills against all types of advisories, about feeling proud of your accomplishments.
Now the mostly shiny particle effected vessels got any soccer-mom caliber gamer trough a generic third-grade level story where anyone with a brain the size of a steroid shrank testicle can pretend to be a hero and maintain a fantasy of not sucking balls at video games.
"But.. But.. Nahtzee I need a reason for what I am doing.. Motivation for my character.. A back story!"
Would you really need a back story to play Donkey Kong you twat?
How about Foot-Ball, or Poker.
If the process of playing a game isn't fun for you, well maybe you're not a gamer. Of course not to sound unappreciative of all my free kills in CoD:4, but lately I've become rather mythed that the notion of the over-whelming number of noobs has negatively influenced the direction of video game design forever.
Instead of humanity pursuing the development of the next Chess, we have an endless supply of 8-hour long interactive B-Movie experiences at 60$ a pop, with unimaginable re-skinned sequels announced exactly 3-second after the current product is launched.
Congratulations noobs, you've effectively raised an army of consumer gaming zombies who conveniently seem to lack not only artistic standards, but imposable thumbs.
I'd be inclined to look the other way and ignore the thumbless zombie-parade, but these bungling poor sports have the audacity to hate on us. The gamers who play games for game-play.
And so we're subject to the endless abuses of idiotic whiners.
"Rusher Fag.. Hacker.. No life loser.. IMBALANCE!"
But the truth is, the only imbalance here is coming from your under-developed inner-ear
You Uncoordinated Ball of Ghey.
I'm truly sorry you had your ass kicked around in Gym class like a Hacky Sack in the 1980's, but that's no reason to be a sandy-crotch-vagina while I'm kicking your virtual ass in SSBB.
Even more infuriating than the consumer zombie noobs are the noobs who's jobs involve playing video games and then critiquing them for mass public consumption.
These champions of mob-mentality shouldn't bother me since I've grown rather accustom to unqualified nitwits performing undeserved jobs.
Except that within gaming media circles it seems being a noob seems to be some kind of fucking prerequisite.
I know going through life with the lack of a pin-script can be frustrating.
But calling a 3-hour single player experience the height of game design and comparing the dialogue in GTA4 to that of the God-Father, is nothing less than absolutely retarded.
Here's the unpleasant truth.
Your teachers lied to you when they said that anyone, even you, could become an Astronaut. Some people are just naturally better at certain things than others. There's something called talent. No matter how hard I try, I'll never paint the Mona Lisa or invent a quantum computer. No matter how hard you try, you'll never finish Contra without cheating.
Many people have a genuine desire to challenge themselves to make themselves better. This does not make them Alien, or Cruel, and certainly not.. Rusher fags. It just makes them Uber-Gamers.
It's no reason to resent them atleast no more than you resent John Holmes for his enormous cock.
So the next time you think
"I can beat all the pro gamers if I just played as much as them."
Think again.
That belief is pathetic as the accent I'm talking in right now.
All the basket-ball training in the world won't help your pudgy 5ft 4 dimple bottom make the NBA. Just like all the Starcraft training in the world couldn't prevent Park Sung-Joon from sticking his golden mouse up your ass.
July 2, 2009
Blizzard Files Trademarks For "Cataclysm"
"It seems that Blizzard has filed three trademarks related to the name "Cataclysm". I'm assuming this is either for their new MMO or for their fifth game which appeared in their job postings a few months ago."
Check out this page for some more infos.
--
In my opinion, Cataclysm will be related most likely to their new WoW expansion, which I am not looking forward to.
However, I am a large fan of Warcraft Lore, so in my opinion it will be related to the Maelstrom.
Check out this page for some more infos.
--
In my opinion, Cataclysm will be related most likely to their new WoW expansion, which I am not looking forward to.
However, I am a large fan of Warcraft Lore, so in my opinion it will be related to the Maelstrom.
July 1, 2009
Xzi: Karma the Movie
This is a video I started work on about 2 1/2 months ago. It took over 20 hours of reviewing demos, 10 hours of editing, and 10 hours of rendering.
It isn't really heavily edited, but in the future I will make one that is.
I released it about 3 or so weeks back, check it out.
To watch it in higher quality (please do)
Follow this link to Xzi: Karma
It isn't really heavily edited, but in the future I will make one that is.
I released it about 3 or so weeks back, check it out.
To watch it in higher quality (please do)
Follow this link to Xzi: Karma
June 30, 2009
A bit about my Gaming past, and some WoW.
Well then, the first blog post was honestly to see what it looked like on my layout. So, on to the real fun.
I have been a gamer ever since I can remember, starting back of course.. with Mario. However, this blog I probably will not talk about console games too often, it will mainly be about online games, mainly computer, but I don't rule consoles out completely.
I have been a gamer ever since I can remember, starting back of course.. with Mario. However, this blog I probably will not talk about console games too often, it will mainly be about online games, mainly computer, but I don't rule consoles out completely.
Regardless, my past as a gamer has been an enjoyable one to be honest.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It all started.. with Warcraft II and Total Annihilation. Both being RTS games, and me being rather young, I sucked. And if you have ever played on a rather large online community, people can be harsh. I just kept sucking until one point actually begin to think ahead of what people are probably planning due to alot of people who choose a certain race all go something or another. (mass footieslol)
Eventually I came to think out my own strats, do my own thing, test strats out that alot of people have a rather non-optimistic view of. And thus, my competitive side was born.
----
Rapidly working my hardest to get to the top of some form of ladder (Battleladders, WCladders, WarRankings) I wanted so much more, but there really wasn't too large of a player-base that offered better players, other then the absolutely professional players that get paid.. and I'll be honest, I am not that good at Warcraft/TA. So I wanted to move on to a different game.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Move on, I did.
I didn't really discover FPS games until later when two friends of mine mentioned playing Counter-Strike source a lot. I got interested in playing and went and bought it. Now.. when you have never played an FPS game before, you're not "totly l33t" and your reaction time is absolute ass, Counter-Strike honestly is probably the best bet for you out there.
I say this, because after playing Counter-Strike for a year or two, I obviously became better, but I tried faster-paced FPS games such as Quake. I gotta say, Quakes skill level has much more of a learning curve than Counter-Strike did/does, but if you play for long enough you can obviously adjust. (Such as any game..)
-
In the world of FPS games, I moved on to others such-as Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead. I have been playing both since they have come out, a lot.
I won't say that TF2 nor L4D are hard at all, but however, It is a game that everyone can play, HOWEVER, there is ALWAYS room for improvement in the game. My mains are Soldier and Sniper for TF2. Now.. You're probably like "Oh but hey, you just aim at people feet as a soldier and kill them."
And I will agree with you, and then probably call you an idiot.
Playing Soldier can be much more advanced. Honestly, while playing soldier, you need to realize that your Rocket-Launcher is not your only weapon. The shotgun is extremely powerful upclose, and at a medium range.
I will talk more about this in a future blog-- For now, onto the gaming history.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While all that (before l4d and tf2 obv) was going on, I moved to my third Genre of games.. The killer of skills..
MMORPG.
Yes, ofcourse I started out on World of Warcraft.
I remember it clearly, it was 2003 and blizzard released information on a closed beta, so I signed up, being a huge Warcraft series fan from the past, I thought this game would be amazing. I must say, it was.
Early 2004 I had gotten an e-mail to get into the Beta for World of Warcraft. I didn't get to play too often due to sharing a computer and being grounded all the time (lol middle school) but when I did, it was so fun.
I honestly ran around most of the time exploring the zones and seeing what I could find. My first character ever was an Undead Warlock when the game actually released, playing on the realm Shattered Hand with my brother and a few friends. Only like 2 of us ever actually got those characters to 60 due to excessive realm and faction changing.
Smolderthorn- Mage, PvP Shenanigans.
I ended up switching to a brand new server with new hardware and everything released, called Smolderthorn. There I played a Gnome Mage named Xzi. I got the character to level 59 and then had been stuck at 59 ONLY PvP'ing for about 2 months. I really had no reason to get to 60.. Untill I finally did running instances with my long-termed guild, Empyrean Order.
I soon after got into raiding, you know, Scholomance, Stratholme, Upper Black Rock Spire. Back when they were 15/20 man raids.. then I got a taste of raiding.
After we cleared the first boss of Molten Core, Lucifron our guild leader wanted to start a new character, again, on a new server. So a few of us followed.. And thus the hardcore gamer has begun.
Chromaggus- Druid, Competitive PvPer, Hardcore Raider.
It was late 2005/early 2006 when I made my Night Elf Druid, I had actually leveled the character Resto from 1-60 specifically because I wanted to be a healer. I did explore the other talent trees of the class, but to be honest they were absolute garbage back until TBC.
Anyways, I had gotten to 60 finally doing massive amounts of instance running. I had gotten into the guild Dominus, which was currently then the best progression guild on the server. We did runs of LBRS, UBRS, Ony, and A few bosses into MC. But then.. I got into PvP'ing a bit and proceeded to take a journey to get Grand Marshal. Now.. while doing so I ran into this warrior in Alterac Valley named Lawnmower, and I gotta say, I loved being a healbitch because him and I just wreaked havoc on everything in sight. Lawnmower was the guild leader of Deserter, which was mainly a PvP guild of people helping each other getting Rank 14 (Grand Marshal).
So I ended up joining with Deserter and began PvP'ing with them.. I got to about Rank 8 when I heard that Dominus has split, due to officers up and leaving. So quite a bit of the players joined , however, they did not start PvP'ing with us at all, they became the branch of the guild that raided. I was still interested in raiding because I got to do it on my mage, and it was extremely challenging and gave an amazing feeling when you killed a boss. So I told them, and Paradise accepted my request and let me raid with them, we became one of the top raiding guilds on the server, extremely close to the Horde guild, Nerve.. Who also were large into the PvP game.
We had amazing players throughout the entire guild, everyone was extremely friendly and everyone was honestly like a big "Family". Still to this day, my favorite memory of WoW was being in that guild alone.
We progressed through the end-game raids rather quick. Getting a few server first kills, and even getting recognition on multiple other servers, which brought us some new good tanks and healers. :)
I would continue to write about my experience on WoW, but I have played it off and on since Burning Crusades release up until now, and I have to say, about halfway through BC they just made random fucking terrible decisions which more and more stray me from the game.
So.. that is a bit about my gaming past and a rather long post about WoW...
Hope You Enjoyed!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-RTS-
It all started.. with Warcraft II and Total Annihilation. Both being RTS games, and me being rather young, I sucked. And if you have ever played on a rather large online community, people can be harsh. I just kept sucking until one point actually begin to think ahead of what people are probably planning due to alot of people who choose a certain race all go something or another. (mass footieslol)
Eventually I came to think out my own strats, do my own thing, test strats out that alot of people have a rather non-optimistic view of. And thus, my competitive side was born.
----
Rapidly working my hardest to get to the top of some form of ladder (Battleladders, WCladders, WarRankings) I wanted so much more, but there really wasn't too large of a player-base that offered better players, other then the absolutely professional players that get paid.. and I'll be honest, I am not that good at Warcraft/TA. So I wanted to move on to a different game.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-FPS-
Move on, I did.
I didn't really discover FPS games until later when two friends of mine mentioned playing Counter-Strike source a lot. I got interested in playing and went and bought it. Now.. when you have never played an FPS game before, you're not "totly l33t" and your reaction time is absolute ass, Counter-Strike honestly is probably the best bet for you out there.
I say this, because after playing Counter-Strike for a year or two, I obviously became better, but I tried faster-paced FPS games such as Quake. I gotta say, Quakes skill level has much more of a learning curve than Counter-Strike did/does, but if you play for long enough you can obviously adjust. (Such as any game..)
-
In the world of FPS games, I moved on to others such-as Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead. I have been playing both since they have come out, a lot.
I won't say that TF2 nor L4D are hard at all, but however, It is a game that everyone can play, HOWEVER, there is ALWAYS room for improvement in the game. My mains are Soldier and Sniper for TF2. Now.. You're probably like "Oh but hey, you just aim at people feet as a soldier and kill them."
And I will agree with you, and then probably call you an idiot.
Playing Soldier can be much more advanced. Honestly, while playing soldier, you need to realize that your Rocket-Launcher is not your only weapon. The shotgun is extremely powerful upclose, and at a medium range.
I will talk more about this in a future blog-- For now, onto the gaming history.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-WoW-
While all that (before l4d and tf2 obv) was going on, I moved to my third Genre of games.. The killer of skills..
MMORPG.
Yes, ofcourse I started out on World of Warcraft.
I remember it clearly, it was 2003 and blizzard released information on a closed beta, so I signed up, being a huge Warcraft series fan from the past, I thought this game would be amazing. I must say, it was.
Early 2004 I had gotten an e-mail to get into the Beta for World of Warcraft. I didn't get to play too often due to sharing a computer and being grounded all the time (lol middle school) but when I did, it was so fun.
I honestly ran around most of the time exploring the zones and seeing what I could find. My first character ever was an Undead Warlock when the game actually released, playing on the realm Shattered Hand with my brother and a few friends. Only like 2 of us ever actually got those characters to 60 due to excessive realm and faction changing.
Smolderthorn- Mage, PvP Shenanigans.
I ended up switching to a brand new server with new hardware and everything released, called Smolderthorn. There I played a Gnome Mage named Xzi. I got the character to level 59 and then had been stuck at 59 ONLY PvP'ing for about 2 months. I really had no reason to get to 60.. Untill I finally did running instances with my long-termed guild, Empyrean Order
I soon after got into raiding, you know, Scholomance, Stratholme, Upper Black Rock Spire. Back when they were 15/20 man raids.. then I got a taste of raiding.
After we cleared the first boss of Molten Core, Lucifron our guild leader wanted to start a new character, again, on a new server. So a few of us followed.. And thus the hardcore gamer has begun.
Chromaggus- Druid, Competitive PvPer, Hardcore Raider.
It was late 2005/early 2006 when I made my Night Elf Druid, I had actually leveled the character Resto from 1-60 specifically because I wanted to be a healer. I did explore the other talent trees of the class, but to be honest they were absolute garbage back until TBC.
Anyways, I had gotten to 60 finally doing massive amounts of instance running. I had gotten into the guild
So I ended up joining with
We had amazing players throughout the entire guild, everyone was extremely friendly and everyone was honestly like a big "Family". Still to this day, my favorite memory of WoW was being in that guild alone.
We progressed through the end-game raids rather quick. Getting a few server first kills, and even getting recognition on multiple other servers, which brought us some new good tanks and healers. :)
I would continue to write about my experience on WoW, but I have played it off and on since Burning Crusades release up until now, and I have to say, about halfway through BC they just made random fucking terrible decisions which more and more stray me from the game.
So.. that is a bit about my gaming past and a rather long post about WoW...
Hope You Enjoyed!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
