Words of Replicant Jesus

I love Asians… I love all womens… this site is dangerous.

http://asianposes.com/

I have nothing more to add… the kawaii factor is off the charts.

I saw Transformers 2 last Thursday and I will say that I enjoyed the film for what it was.  A Michael Bay explosion fest summer good time movie with luscious Megan Fox doing what she does best.  Looking pretty.  But I have to digress that I did like the film for what it was, a shallow action packed onslaught on the senses that rattles off an explosion any time things get even remotely slow.  Some people seem to think that this is a bad thing and that our childhood heroes/shows are sacred cows that are not to be trifled with.

To them I say nay.

Transformers was never a really deep show, sure it may have touched on nuances of good and evil and sacrifice and heroism but it was a formulaic show about giant robots beating the crap out of other giant robots with a sprinkle of humans in the mix.  The show was designed to sell toys/products to children, mainly boys, and at that it did quite well.  It was and still is a vehicle of commercialism gone rampant and was soon as “rabid” fans accept that the better.  I loved Optimus Prime as a kid and I love him now, he is a great, virtuous, strong, and reliable when the chips are down.  He always does the right thing no matter what and he won’t fail you if he even has a chance of success.  He is the kind of man/person we want to be on our best days.

With that said I still hope that Hollywood finds new ideas to make movies out of, but if the success of this current film is any indicator our “sacred” childhood will become a veritable orchard of ideas for future summer blockbusters to come.  I say just enjoy it and realize that a new generation of fans will be introduced to the things you loved oh so long ago.

I am not sure what to make of this EA Mythic + Bioware merger today.  I am excited because I think the merge could mean some experienced talent on the Old Republic MMO but I am not sure what this means for WAR, EA Mythic’s MMO title.  On the one hand I think losing Mark Jacobs will be a morale blow to that team but I think working with Bioware could really sharpen that product up as well.  Bioware usually brings polish and quality to their products and I am excited to see what this new group will do with their established titles and forthcoming products.

Although I never played Dark Ages of Camelot (DAoC) I recognize that the game was rather successful in it’s time and although still kicking and going is in decline as newer products come to the fore.  I recognize that Mark Jacobs played a large part in that initial vision for DAoC and should be respected at least for bringing an influential product to the MMO scene.  The game was successful and although not World of Warcraft numbers at the time it was an MMO blockbuster as far as subscriptions go and impact on products that followed.

Having beta-tested WAR I was not too surprised that it’s success, relative to World of Warcraft, was not what EA thought it would be.  The game never really hooked me and seemed to emulate much of what Blizzard had done without understanding the why it was done.  I do think the game has plenty of legs though and I think it brought some really good ideas to the table that I am sure we will see in future products.  I hope that the success of WAR did not affect this departure but I suspect it may have played a role.

I wish him the best of luck and I hope this merge brings good things to us in the future.

Link: http://kotaku.com/5302069/ea-combines-mythic-and-bioware-into-a-giant-rpg-robot

Coming in 3.2 is the Crusaders’ Coliseum which promises to bring another tier of raid difficulty and content to the game.  Along with that is the inclusion of a new Heroic raid dungeon system which according to Zarhym which include the Hard Modes of the bosses and the tribute system.  It seems that according to the official website raiders will have to unlock the Trial of the Grand Crusader by completing the normal version of the raid dungeon on 10 or 25 versions.  Once done they can attempt the Trial but only get a certain number of attempts per week to try and clearing the dungeon with the least amount of attempts used will net higher rewards.

Which means we will 10-man and 25-man normal raid dungeons and 10-man and 25-man Heroic dungeons, giving us 4 completely different lockouts for a given week for a single dungeon.  This will be interesting and I am not sure how it will play out but hopefully it works.  I am intrigued to see how the achievements will work for these encounters and I can almost assume that any mounts will be given for the Heroic mode of the dungeons only but we shall see.

Hopefully more information will be forthcoming once the PTR goes into full swing.

It’s like Christmas but better.

New patch notes!

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I love achievements on the Xbox 360 and in World of Warcraft; I am not sure why but they drive me to do things that I normally would not care about.  Perhaps it’s just another carrot on a stick but it drives me and it resonates with my gamer instincts to continually achieve especially if I enjoy the game.  Last night I finally hit level 60 in Mass Effect, over fifty hours of play time and a third partial play through.  But I scored 50 extra nerd points.

I have to wonder if I am just addicted or perhaps wired to continually achieve especially in World of Warcraft, although no where near the top I have a respectable amount at 6500… I don’t play often now, just login to raid but with new content coming I will probably get my dailies going again for extra money and tokens.

I love me some nerd points.

I love music and I think that music plays a huge role in my game playing experience. Ever since I was young some of my best moments from playing computer and video games is the music. From Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III to more recent works like Mass Effect and even World of Warcraft. I find that a good musical score can really make the difference between an okay experience and a great experience. I know this isn’t the same for everyone and I am also aware that many people play with the music turned off which is a shame but I understand.

Especially in games like WoW where the music can get repetitive after playing it for so long but still a good musical score can really set a good dramatic tone. I know for my own games, one day, I will demand a good music accompaniment that is appropriate to the setting and tone. I can’t even visualize a game without first putting a musical score to it, or listening to a work that seems to be fitting for the given scene.

One day I shall make it so.

After E3 I have quite a few new projects I am looking forward to; three of them from Bioware; Star Wars: The Old Republic, Dragon Age: Origins, and Mass Effect 2. I am really excited about all three projects, especially Mass Effect which I have beaten about 6-8 times on the Xbox 360. I think I am most excited about Mass Effect 2 but the prospect of messing with the Aurora toolset for Dragon Age has my interest piqued as well. 2009 and 2010 will be an interesting year for gaming and my continued growth as a programmer and game designer… well one day game designer. Below the jump is the Mass Effect 2 E3 gameplay trailer; I think I have watched this trailer like 50 times and I am still not tired of it.

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Well Ulduar is a great place I really like it; finally got to Yogg-Saron last night in the normal version and still stuck on Mimiron in the heroic version. I expect to have Mimiron down soon and hopefully plowing through the General and onto Yoggy in the heroic version soon.

The raid instance is well done and I have main tanked every encounter in there besides Yoggy which I have only seen Phase 2 briefly. But we are pushing Hard Modes as we go and did Heartbreaker in normal and chose Runemaster last in both heroic and normal. Freya +1 and did Flame Leviathan +2 as well.

Overall this instance is well tuned and I like it.

We got Thorim down last nigh and the night before it was Freya on the hit list; so things are trucking along quite well. I am impressed with the Ulduar raid zone and the variety and difficulty of the fights. Mimiron is definitely a challenge and I like the complexity to the fight. This week our challenge is to get past Mimiron and clear all the keepers so we can get down to some business with the General and ol’ Yoggy.

Going to be a fun time.