A Green Mushroom

It's almost the end of the year, only a few more hours to go.  2010 was a good year in gaming and here are my absolute favorite picks. Minecraft I like playing with fire (safely) in real life.  In Minecraft I decided to light a tree on fire and watch it burn.  Good times were had by me.  Then I had an idea.  A wonderful, awesome, burning idea.  What if I lit all the trees on fire!?  With this goal in mind I set to work and very soon had a forest fire raging through the world as far as I could see.  It had taken off and was spreading wildly on its own. That's when my brother said, "Be careful where you light those fires, my castle is made of wood, remember?"  The truth of the matter is that I remembered but was having far too much fun with fire to actually care.  I'm a great big brother, I know.  I said, "I'm sure it'll be fine."  It wasn't.  Although, in my defense, his castle did burn gloriously. We th...

One thing driving me crazy about playing World of Warcraft is that I have to pay a monthly fee for it.  In the past all MMOs were set up with this subscription model, but with the rise of free to play I noticed that a monthly subscription is really bugging me. The subscription fee makes me feel like I have to play WoW with all of my gaming time.  If I don't, I feel like I'm not getting my money's worth, like I'm throwing my money away, which stresses me out. There have been a few times in the past week when I was playing WoW but actually felt like playing a different game.  I ended up staying online because I really wanted to make my subscription count for something.  In hindsight I know I would have had more fun playing something else. Does this reflect badly on my mental state or is it the exact way that subscription MMOs are intended to function?  Does anyone else feel the same pull while they're subscribed? This feeling is only increasing my apprec...

Questing was fun, but now I'm 85 I've been using WoW to kill time lately.  It's pretty mind numbing but that isn't a bad thing.  The release of Cataclysm lined up with a gap in my work schedule, so I've already accomplished a lot of the goals I have for this expansion.  I'm all done with questing, but now I'm 85 and there seems to be less to do. The thing I forget when I'm not subscribed is it doesn't take much skill to play WoW successfully.  It's really easy to zone out and play while still accomplishing things and reaching goals.  Once I have the hang of a class I can basically sleepwalk through dungeons and questing with ease.  It's the same button sequences over and over with slight variations on the more complex bosses or pvp. I'm already getting bored of endgame content, but I still want to complete a successful heroic run in each dungeon.  I just don't feel like getting caught up in the gear treadmill when I would rather...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of my readers. No matter how you're celebrating, I hope all your gaming wishes have been fulfilled! -Void

Child's Play Charity has reached over 1 million dollars donated this year.  If you haven't contributed yet, now is the time!  Child's Play is a great way for the gaming community to do something positive for others. The media and general public tend to think of gamers in a negative way.  I love that Child's Play breaks those stereotypes and shows that we're just people like everyone else.  It's a charity that donates games and gaming systems to children's wings of hospitals.  It makes a huge difference in a child's happiness when they get to play and have fun with other children. There are some amazing stories from patients and parents of patients who have seen the difference games can make.  Just read some of these letters and you'll see how much happiness you can bring a child. The entire gaming community has been pitching in.  The Penny-Arcade guys not only run the charity, but also throw a huge charity auction on it's behalf.  The ...

I forgot how fun tanking and healing can be.  Long long ago I tried healing on my druid, but could never get enough group content to actually make it worthwhile.  After that I switched to a feral spec that would let me tank.  I loved tanking because I got to dictate the pace of every dungeon I entered. Then I hit max level and something interesting happened, I started getting shit from everyone.  If I messed up a pull, didn't go fast enough, or if the group wiped I would get called all sorts of names.  People would ragequit and say it was because of me.  I had enough of that, so I switched to a feral dps spec and have stayed there since Burning Crusade. With all the alts I've been rolling I decided to give healing and tanking another try.  The dungeon finder makes it easier then ever to find a group, especially as a healer or tank.  I didn't realize how much I had missed doing something other than dps.  It opens up the game in a whole n...

Our old friend the log-in queue has made a triumphant return!  It's interesting to watch the pull that a WoW expansion seems to have on former players.  They flock back to find old friends, favorite characters, and new content. The upside to this is that we have more people online to play with at all hours of the day.  The downside is that log-in times can get ridiculous during prime time in the evening or on the weekend.  One day it took me over an hour to get past the queue.  It gave me some time to accomplish other things and catch up on my email, but an hour is still a long time to wait. The return of so many players just goes to show how Blizzard has a huge death grip on the title of most popular MMO in the world.  It's hard to even remember most of the other games that released in 2004.  It's unheard of for a game to stay popular as long as the World of Warcraft has, but it currently has something like 13 million subscribers.  Congratul...

I've been having fun with WoW since the Shattering changed the old world.  With the release of Cataclysm that fun has been extended to my main too! I currently have a 13 Paladin, 17 Priest, 6 Mage, and a 82 Druid that I'm playing around with.  Since I created all the alts in the past 2 weeks I've had a chance to test out a bunch of starting zones.  Overall the quests are much tighter and have a more cohesive story then they used to.  I really appreciate that quest text tends to be shorter then the old world.  I always like to read the lore but I hate running into a wall of text at quest givers. The tighter quest pathing gives the game a more linear feeling, but I would rather have that then the way the old world used to be.  Besides, I can always go off the beaten path if I choose to.  The only starting area I tried that still feels scattered is for the draenei.  It needs work.  I can't believe how long it took me to get to level 15....

I've had another busy week with just a little bit of gaming time.  I managed to finish up the main story in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (awesome) and had a little bit of WoW time on the side.  I'm still loving Cataclysm and the shattering of the old world.  Hopefully I'll get some impressions up soon. Until then I just wanted to say thanks to Blizzard for finally getting around to making new cat and bear forms for druids!  Sometime between when I quit last year and started again last month they patched in the new models.  It took long enough, but thank you for the change.  I was tired of looking at that model and having no individual characteristics.  Thanks!

I'm so excited I don't have to wait in the cold at midnight for Cataclysm.  Blizzard finally got with the program and is releasing the digital copy of Cataclysm at the same time as the retail version.  I wish they would have done it sooner (I'm looking at you Wrath and SC2) but I'm glad they're catching up with the times. The truth is if I buy the digital copy I can actually play the game earlier then the diehard midnight release folks.  The Blizzard downloader has already downloaded all of the Cataclysm data to my computer.  This happened as soon as I payed for my digital copy and started the patcher.  At midnight all they have to do is bring the servers online and I'm ready to play. No long lines.  No waiting in the cold.  No install from a DVD that I have to wait through. Chances are the servers will crash on the 7th, but for today I'm going to be optimistic and happy about digital distribution as the wave of the present.  My friends, ...

The media is not what it used to be.  There are so many channels of information that we have access to today that there's no possible way to intake and process it all.  With cable, books, movies, video games, magazines, the internet, our phones, newspapers, cable, satellite TV, and more where do we turn for entertainment and information?  Well, if you're in your twenties or younger the answer is the internet. But even if we narrow down our media channels to only the internet there is still an overload of content at our fingertips.  Even if we say that we only want to talk about the news of the day the question remains, "Where should we turn?"  Almost every cable news network has a site, as well as every paper, local station, special interest, and political leaning. I've given up on keeping track of current events, and I'm sad to say that many of my generation have.  With untold amounts of data generated every day there needs to be a way to sort the wo...

My server transfer request has been placed for my main and I have an awesome new Pally alt that I'm playing with my brother.  After a year of absence I'm really having fun with the World of Warcraft again.  A few days of running Wrath dungeons for nostalgia plus the sweet new leveling with alts has combined to make me feel content with my playtime.  I really want to write more about my alt experience in the future, but for now I just wanted to say that I'm having a blast! It's also worth mentioning that the World of Warcraft is extremely cheap at the moment.  WoW and the Burning Crusade expansion are each on sale for $5 and Wrath of the Lich King is only $10.  If you haven't picked up the expansion packs or were waiting for a good time to try WoW you should definitely take a look at the current deals . Until next time, I hope everyone is enjoying their post-shattering pre-Cataclysm playtime as much as I am!

  Deathwing says, "I'll give you a challenge." In the year since I last played World of Warcraft there are only a handful (I think 2) new 5-man dungeons.  5-mans are my favorite since they can be run quickly but still take skill and thought.  Raiding is too time intensive for me, so 5-mans are perfect bite sized chunks of group activity.  I always liked the cooperation and challenge it took to get through 5-man dungeons. Imagine my surprise to resubscribe and find that the challenge is gone.  Everyone is so over-geared for the old dungeons that they just blast through.  One of the tanks in a group the other night said, "Ugh, we've already taken 10 minutes, hurry it up guys."  I couldn't believe it!  These used to take a slow, measured, thoughtful approach and were run in about 30-45 minutes.  Now 10 minutes is a long time?  I guess when the dps can just AOE everything to death then the whole run goes a lot faster, but I think it's l...

 Image by Spacemancer I've rejoined the World of Warcraft .  I haven't played a lot yet, but I've gotten my feet wet with all the Cataclysm happenings taking place in the world.  I thought it would be interesting to look at my current breakdown of time spent doing various activities since I resubscribed. Character Maintenance - 3 hours I did a lot of sorting my inventory, setting up some auctions, figuring out my gear, setting up my talents and glyphs, and generally getting reacquainted with my characters.  It wasn't exactly fun, but it was interesting. Cataclysm Quests and Atmosphere - 3 hours  I did all the shattering quests I could get my hands on from the questgiver in Orgrimmar.  These were a lot of fun.  I really enjoy questing and interesting storylines in my MMOs and this had both.  Besides that, I was just taking in some of the atmosphere and tension from the shaking world, the attacks on our cities, and the general sense of unea...

I've been busy lately, so while I've been gaming I haven't has as much opportunity to write about my thoughts and experiences.  I wanted to do a quick update on what I'm playing and what I've beaten lately.    Fable III I beat Fable III a few days after it came out.  If you were a fan of Fable 2 then Fable III will provide you with some more fun.  There is little in the way of sweeping changes or improvements over the last entry in the series, but there is some solid hack and slash adventure waiting for those interested.  I think in the long run my wife will get more play time out of this game then I will. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood For an explorer like me, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is shaping up to be well worth it's price.  With a myriad of missions, collectibles, and objectives I feel that I'll be having fun with the single player campaign for quiet some time.  So far it's a great entry into the series and I can see myself pl...

Child's Play charity just opened up their site for 2010.  Child's Play is an amazing charity that gives video games and video game systems to childrens' hospitals and childrens' wards of hospitals.  There have been a lot of happy kids thanks to the contributions of the gaming community since the charity started.  Gaming can help kids through very challenging stays in the hospital.  It lifts spirits, makes kids happy, and keeps them thinking positive.  I plan to write a longer post about Child's Play in December, since people always seem to be in a giving mood during that month, but I highly suggest taking a look at their site and seeing what they're all about. If you're a gamer this is a great chance to show the world that gaming can be positive.  Hop over to the site to find out more about Child's Play .

I have MMOs on my mind this week.  Here are some good posts on the subject. Syp on our MMO choices during the coming winter. WoW Insider has a good resource for those returning to WoW for the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. Of Course I'll Play it give us a vision of the future of MMOs. This video reminded me of why I love language.

I'm anticipating a return to World of Warcraft shortly.  I have that MMO itch and WoW is the most appealing to me at the moment.  Peer pressure and the looming expansion are helping to steer me that way.  But, I'm running into a problem. All of my friends are scattered across WoW servers.  The first server I played on, Alleria, no longer has any of my friends on it.  Bonechewer, the server with my level 80 main, now has none of my friends on it either.  My brother and a group of our friends are playing on Marudin and my other main chunk of friends is playing on Dragonmaw.  Besides those, I also have a few friends here or there playing on servers without anyone else I know. If I make a return to WoW and actually want to play with my friends, which I do, then I'm going to have to do a server transfer.  I'd like to get that out of the way before the expansion lands.  I'd also like to transfer to a server where my friends are still playi...

I've been sick for the past week and haven't had much of a chance for gaming but I did get a chance to read a few books.  One of them was The Shattering, which is all about the events in WoW leading up to the Cataclysm.  It really got me excited to play the game again. I think at this point it's inevitable that I'll resubscribe for at least a few months.  I looked at my WoW account today and saw that I haven't played in about a year, but I don't feel like I've been missing out on anything. I have a level 80 that's done almost every quest in Northrend and beaten Naxx a few times.  I never got into hardcore raiding because I hated the time investment and I don't plan on picking it up ever.  I always liked doing random 5-man dungeons, but I quit before they launched the dungeon finder.  I do regret that. I think I'll start back up in the next week or two, try out some of the newer Wrath content, enjoy some 5-mans, and get my main ready for Ca...

  This Living Room is Not Kinect Friendly Oh Kinect... I had high hopes when I first saw you, but now they've been smashed upon the rocks of reality. You see, there's a little issue I like to call the coffee table problem.  For Kinect to detect the user it must be seven feet away from them.  Sounds good in theory, but in reality most people don't have that kind of space in their living room and, if they do, there's a high probability of the seven foot mark being exactly where the coffee table sits.  Just look at some of the sample living rooms via Joystiq . Kinect won't work if it can't detect a person's whole body, so the coffee table poses a problem.  Some living rooms without coffee tables don't even have the space required to play.  It sounds like a minor issue, but when you think about sitting down to relax and play a game do you really imagine yourself moving furniture?  I don't.  It's extremely annoying. With my coffee table sitting...

Xbox 360 Kinect launches tomorrow and I have to say I'm not completely impressed with the launch game lineup.  When I first saw the Kinect technology I couldn't help but imagine how amazing it's games could be.  With launch day just around the corner I'm already disheartened with some of the games presented to the public. It seems like the two types of games that will be dominating the system will be mini-game collections and work out games.  There are some other offerings like Kinectimals and Dance Central that look to make a unique impression with their gameplay, but most games look like they could be Wii games ported over to a new system. The thing I'm most worried about is the land of shovelware that the Wii has become.  I can't even look at most of the releases because they're so awful, unless they have Mario in the title .  What are the chances of the Kinect succumbing to the same fate?  I truly hope that doesn't happen. Itsa Me! The Cash Co...

I've been thinking lots about grabbing Cataclysm when it releases and in the meantime I've been playing the descendants of DoTA to fill my gaming time.  In that vein I found some great articles about the upcoming WoW expansion and DoTA too.  Spinks on the front loaded nature of expansions.  Syp talks about how WoW is like an ex-girlfriend .  A great index of info for WoW players looking to come back after a break. A look at DoTA and the games it has spawned recently. A new Dragon Age 2 trailer that got me excited.

  She just lost a game of StarCraft 2. Lately I've been playing StarCraft 2, League of Legends, Minecraft, and Fable 3.  I've noticed that the game I play is dependent on the feeling I get while playing the game.  Let me try to explain. I was playing a lot of League of Legends last week and I took a break to play some SC2.  When I jumped into the 1v1 ladder I felt an enormous amount of stress while playing.  Because of the ladder system I constantly know that I'm being judged and only I can do anything about it.  In a 1v1 I have no back up, no help, no one else to blame my flaws on.  On top of that, in SC2 I have to manage my base, my resources, build my army, control my army, and execute a strategy all at the same time.  It's extremely hard to do, which is why the game is interesting, but it's also stressful to juggle all those tasks simultaneously. Stressful but interesting to play. I switched back to League of Legends and instantly my str...

With Halloween on the horizon you know it's almost the holiday season.  In the world of gaming this means tons of new releases, holiday marketing pushes, and special events in our favorite games.  MMOs especially love to celebrate holidays with their own versions of real life holidays. There are a lot of games that I want to try out this release season.  We're finally in the opposite of the summer slump .  The holiday release season was kicked off by Halo Reach late last month and is followed by Fable III, The Force Unleashed II, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, and World of Warcraft Cataclysm .  Those are the main games I want to get my hands on in the next couple of months. Those are just the games on my personal list, there are many other titles hoping to get their fair share of holiday spending.  Playstation Move is out and the Xbox Kinect will be released on November 4th.  Those new motion control systems should both be huge with the younger cr...

A lot of my friends have been talking about World of Warcraft.  The pre-expansion patch was just released which apparently changed a lot of gameplay mechanics.  Events leading up to the Cataclysm are happening in game and there's a general excitement for the impending expansion. Discussing WoW has gotten me excited for it again.  I haven't touched the game in over a year now but my resolve is weakening every day.  A side effect of my account getting hacked is that there is still some pre-paid game time on it from the gold seller.  I might use the couple free days that I have to give WoW another try. I would probably have to get a server transfer to play with my friends again, which would suck.  I might even just start from scratch when Cataclysm rolls out.  I love my druid though, so I don't want all the effort I put into him to go to waste. Along with the peer pressure from my friends, Blizzard just released the awesome introduction video to C...

I was playing a bunch of League of Legends yesterday and having a great time until I got into this one game where a teammate would not shut up about the way everyone else on the team was playing.  He was trying to micro-manage everyone else while at the same time telling us and the other team how much we sucked at the game.  In less then a minute I had him on my ignore list. I realized that I used to have a much higher tolerance for rude people.  I would try to work with them, or be nice to them and make them understand that some people are still learning a game.  Now I just ignore them.  I have better things to do with my time.  If someone else is ruining my gameplay experience why should I bother listening to them? It isn't only League of Legends either.  When people are whiny, complaining, or making fun of teammates in Halo Reach I'll mute them as soon as possible.  I'm sure if I went back to WoW and started running dungeons I wouldn't ...

League of Legends is my favorite game that you've probably never heard of.  It's one of the games that I come back to time and time again when I'm not playing the newest releases.  Team Fortress 2 falls into this category as well, but that's not what I want to talk about today. League of Legends is based off of DotA , a custom map from WarCraft 3.  In League two teams of 5 players fight each other across a map while eventually trying to destroy the enemy's base.  Unlike in a RTS you're only in control of one unit, your hero.  Heroes gain levels, buy items, and gain abilities as the game goes on.  Along with the 10 heroes there are also "creeps."  These are much weaker and only walk a set path between your base and the enemy's base.  If the heroes didn't do anything then the two forces of creeps would cancel each other out.  With the help of player-controlled heroes the creeps are able to "push" a lane and slowly take down the defen...

Turbine Entertainment has done it again with the LotRO switch to free to play.  They are amazing at making the free to play plus an option cash shop pricing model work for them.  Their revenues have doubled already. After the success of DDO's switch to the same pricing model I guess it was a no brainer to do the same with their other MMO.  Turbine is a great example of free to play done right.  I hope more MMOs follow their example in the future. Subscription MMOs seem to be the exception lately.  When so many games are launching or switching to a free to play model why would MMO players still want to pay $15 per month to play a game?  World of Warcraft is the exception since they have market dominance and a 6 year track record with players.  Almost every other subscription MMO on the market is struggling. I think that the free to play model with an optional cash shop is the future of MMOs.  With the occasional exception, we should see most ...

Time for another edition of Sunday reading!  I haven't posted one in awhile, so I have a bunch of links for you today. First up is Spinks with an extremely insightful post on globalisation, consumerism, and F2P in realation to MMOs. Seraphina had a great anti-aliased column that inspired me to try minecraft. Spinks strikes again with a few thoughts on achievements and Cataclysm. Ars Technica looks at how game prices have changed over time. Their conclusions may surprise you. And, of course, what happens when yogurt takes over the world . Here are some TF2 characters dancing.  Enjoy.

After 6 years World of Warcraft is still going strong.  Blizzard just announced that WoW has reached 12 million active players .  Last time they did an announcement along the same lines was when they reached 11 million.  This means that WoW is still gaining more people then its losing.  I think that's amazing for a game that was released in 2004. Cataclysm now has a December 7th release date and I've been thinking about resubscribing to play the newest expansion.  I love exploring new content and leveling up my characters, even though I've never been big into the raiding scene.  I like to jump online at my leisure and explore the world.  Cataclysm's revamp of the old world levels 1-60 plus the new content for levels 80-85 was designed for players just like me, which is why I'm so interested. I also love new expansions because they completely level the playing field for max level players.  This means that after only a few levels my 80 druid t...

Bioshock Infinite looks sweet.  It's strange for me to type that because I loathed Bioshock 2 because of the shear potential that was wasted in it's creation.  Bioshock 2 was a complete rehash of the first game without compelling advancements or changes.  On the other hand, Bioshock Inifinite is absolutely the correct way to handle an intellectual property. Do you remember what I wrote about the importance of developers ?  Well, I just learned that Bioshock 2 had a completely different developer than the original.  2K Marin handled that game instead of the original developer, Irrational.  That explains the feeling of sameness that permeated the game.  Irrational is back at the helm for Bioshock Infinite and they're taking the series in a new direction.   Our New Playground Gone is the underwater city of Rapture.  Instead, Columbia is a floating city in 1912.  It's an American city that has taken nationalism too far.  Big dadd...

Well, maybe not supreme, but the future is officially here.  PC games sold via digital distribution finally overtook boxed copies last month .  I, for one, couldn't be happier to see more people using digital distribution services. I've been a long time supporter of Steam and they are, by far, the main reason that digital distribution has taken off for PC gaming.  They have a massive catalog of games that can be bought with the click of a button.  Not only bought, but linked to your account forever .  With Steam there's no need to worry about losing a CD or DVD or losing that string of alpha-numeric characters that lets you access your games.  Steam stores it all. They also have fantastic prices.  Steam prices are almost always cheaper than finding the game elsewhere and they constantly have sales and specials.  Their collection of games under $10 is always worthwhile when looking for a cheap new title to try out.  And these are good...