Words of Replicant Jesus

I had a blast last night running Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) with my two new players and I think they had some fun too.  It was fast and easy to run and I plan to document the game as best as I can for as long as I can keep running it.  In other news I saw Inception and it was amazing the sound track is also fantastic so yeah, not much to say there.  I am still kind of baffled by the new Protection changes for Cataclysm, but Wigglylight will soldier on once they get all the kinks worked out.

Anyway quick update, next post will be for my new L5R possible campaign, hopefully long term campaign.

Just more random screens from my time in Alpha and Beta!

Just some screenshots of me running around with my tauren paladin Go Wigglylight go.

Halion is an interesting encounter in Ruby Sanctum, even on normal it’s fun for a tank.  You start off with a single tank but in the third phase you switch to two tanks one for the Incorporeal realm and one for the Physical realm and the raid has to balance their damage or they will force a wipe.  I like it overall and can’t wait to see the heroic version.

With the first of the Cataclysm class change previews going up today, I can’t help but wallow in anticipation for the 16th when Blizzard finally posts the new information for Paladins. Our class is so awesome we need that much more time to perfect our ground shaking changes.  With the recent announcement of the Death Knight tanking tree being Blood in the expansion and some preliminary changes about Rage Normalization I am excited to see what they have cooked up for the paladins.

I don’t have too many inferences yet on where they will take us but there is some writing on the wall:

- I expect them to make changes to Hammer of the Righteous or Seal of Command and even possibly both.  I think the fact that our threat rotation is exactly the same in single target and AoE is just boring.  I look forward to this.

- The Dispel mechanics will definitely change some of how I play at least when it comes to dispelling my own magic effects like on Steelbreaker.

- I think paladins in general will get a low level instant attack ability to add to the low level experience and make it more interactive.  At least more interactive than auto-attack and judgement.

- More of a wish and inferred guess based on similar vanity shaman changes; but I suspect that the varying paladin races may get race specific mounts in Cataclysm.

The 16th will be a good day, I look forward to the new class changes being posted today!  And now some Thom Yorke to soothe your weary soul.

Just messing with something.

I have made up my mind when Cataclysm comes out I will be race changing Vanifae into a tauren because I think a tauren paladin would be pretty awesome.  Also my shields and weapons won’t look all tiny and wimpy.  I am really excited about this and can’t wait to do it, should make for a fun new fresh experience come Cataclysm.  I will still hang out in Silvermoon though; just on principle because that is my favorite city.

Between Mass Effect 2, school, and a general unreliability to keep my site updated I had lapsed on my updates. But thanks to some encouragement from a fellow guild mate I am back to try and remedy that. I don’t have anything particularly moving to say today but I do have much to talk about.  I picked up Mass Effect 2 in January, hard to believe it is already March and Final Fantasy XIII is right around the corner.

Speaking of Mass Effect 2, what an awesome second act for the series.  I know some people don’t like some of the elements but I found it amazing.  Being able to transfer my character into the second game and continue his story was awesome and hooking up with Tali’Zorah vas Normandy was the icing on the cake.  from start to finish it is an awesome ride and the combat system is so much tighter and better than the first game I absolutely love it.  My main grips is that I wish there was more armor customization, more conversations between and with quad mates, and deeper friendship paths for all the characters.  My enthusiasm is high for Mass Effect 3.

I also started up on Valkyria Chronicles for PS3, which I got over Christmas and I am enjoying it.  The story is so-so but the actual game mechanics and the tactical combat is very fun.  I should beat it here soon.  I am getting Final Fantasy XIII for the PS3 as well, don;t really know much about the game story wise so it will be interesting to go into it blind.  I also started playing Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition with some friends from school.  It’s really nice to run a game again after so long and it keeps the creative juices flowing.

As far as World of Warcraft is concerned, I was burnt out for awhile but I am getting back into it and working on the Lich King.  Interesting fight, I like it, keeps you moving and thinking and is quite the challenge for my guild.  I am interested to see new Cataclysm stuff and I am still debating if I want to race change to a Tauren or not just for the fun of it.  I also plan to do some writing over Spring Break and try and put some progress on this crappy novel idea I have.

Also despite what my guild mates think I am not an atheist or a scientologist.  But I do love me some Asian women.  One final note the soundtrack for Mass Effect 2 is awesome.

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.