Author Archive for Julian

Obsessed with Poo

Published
by
Julian
on 04 Dec 2008
in World of Warcraft
. 9 Comments

What’s in the water down in Irvine? We have ignored the signs for so long. It all began with that (presumably) Dwarf stuck in the outhouse in Searing Gorge. A predicament, but one easily solved by some mass murdering in the area. Proximity to poo: close.

Then Burning Crusade regaled us with the wonderful quest experience of having to dig through twenty bundles of gazelle crap in Nagrand to look for digested cherry seeds. Yum, amirite? Proximity to poo: touch. Unless you RP’d using a stick to sift through the things, which many a roleplayer has done, as I understand it.

Now come Northrend, I’ve taken part in two of these high-class adventuring quests. One in Borean Tundra where you not only have to administer (by way of tossing) a powerful laxative to some wolves so they can evacuate important microfilm fragments, which of course you have to sift through. Proximity to poo: touch. Again. Then in Grizzly Hills not only you eat a bunch of seeds, maliciously tempted by a yellow exclamation sign, but you then have to remove those seeds from the digestion equation by means of yet another laxative. This time one you must prepare and ingest yourself. Then you go to an outhouse, and in between aoe’s of mist and mini-earthquakes (I kid not) you emerge triumphant holding what laid hidden in your detritus: partially digested seed. Proximity to poo: touching. Touching your own poo, man. Far out.

Of course the seeds go back in the bucket for the next trusting soul to pick. It’s the cycle of life. And this is only at level 74 or so. What lies next? Is Kel’Thuzad, well, ‘blocked’? Gotta do something about that too? Do we find out about the Lich King’s irregularity? Is this what the plague was really all about?

One thing’s for sure, Blizzard sure loves shitty quests.

Lich King Tidbits

Published
by
Julian
on 18 Nov 2008
in World of Warcraft
. 8 Comments

Still digesting it all, slowly, but I can offer some quickies. Longer lasting impressions might follow at some point.

- Yes, Death Knights are cool.
- Some folks are complaining about itemization. This ain’t like Burning Crusade, where the greens you got in Hellfire were better than your epics from Naxx. From what I gather, 71-75 items are only slightly better, and in the vast majority of cases only sidegrades, assuming your character did a minimum of Karazhan, Magister’s Terrace or Outland instances. Blizzard smoothed out at least the first half of your Northrend journey in terms of gear. This has heavy raiders from BC slightly miffed, and it’s naturally bad news for them. However, it’s great news for…
- People who didn’t get to raid at all in BC, or… wait for it… wait for it…. people who rolled Death Knights, headed to Outland straight away and blazed to 68 riding on quest reward gear only (which is perfectly doable). By the time those lvl68 Death Knights set foot in Northrend, everyone else’s ’sidegrades’ are actually huge upgrades for them. Blizzard can be shrewd like that sometimes.
- The Nexus is hands down one of the best-looking instances I’ve seen in years, and Utgarde Keep holds its own as well. It seems they really raised the bar for this one, visually at least.
- Just to be fair and balanced, I glanced at my wife playing in Azjol Nerub for all of 20 seconds and didn’t find it very aesthetically appealing at all. But I cannot judge from a 20 second glance. We’ll see. I have high hopes for Uldum, personally.
- If you’re about to head into Northrend, you really, really, really wanna take your time and take the boat from Menethil instead of the one from Stormwind. The one from Stormwind leaves you in Borean Tundra. The one from Menethil, in the Howling Fjord. Why? How do I wanna put it…

Borean Tundra: Pasta.
Howling Fjord: Pasta with a freshly made tomato, basil and mushroom soft sauce, topped with freshly-grated parmesan cheese. Served just at the right temperature, by a 10th generation family chef from Tuscany, who made the whole dish right before your eyes while you sipped the season’s red wine, in a delightful summer sunset, on the terrace at his private villa. Then his daughter appears, and she’s none other than Isabella Rossellini. She sits next to you, takes a sip of wine from your glass and smiles at you, saying how much she loves men who play MMOs, and how virile they seem.

It’s about that level of difference in the experience, give or take the beautiful female. It’s like they dropped the Northrend map and it hit the floor on the Borean Tundra side when it was young.

- All quest gear, depending on class and gear type, apparently shares the same bland models (well detailed bland models, though), and you’ll come across a lot of recolors. Bad mojo. I don’t know if this is intentional and the good looking gear is only found in instances or later on, or if there’s an upcoming patch to introduce some variety. Dunno. But it is a serious turn off.

More to follow at some point. Overall verdict so far (very early on): Thumbs up, with some reservations.

I’m not anti-social, just anti-grouping.

Published
by
Julian
on 27 Oct 2008
in General
. 12 Comments

This is a topic that has caused considerable discussion in the past. Not all of it awesome discussion. So let’s just get it out of the way: I like playing with by myself. I like soloing. If you give me the choice, 8 times out of 10 I’d rather be out there doing my own thing than being in a group.

But I’m not anti-social. At all. All my characters (of some importance) in every MMO (that I played more or less seriously) have been guilded. I have many good game friends, and these friendships persist even when either party moves on to another game.

Is there a disconnect here? No. Why? After the break.

Continue reading ‘I’m not anti-social, just anti-grouping.’

I’m not dead

Published
by
Julian
on 23 Sep 2008
in Asides
. 9 Comments

But I’ve been playing Spore a lot, hence the absence.

How is it? Mini-review: It’s like going on a date with a cute girl. She’s smart, funny, makes you laugh, very easy to be around her and you two have a blast. Then you take her home at the end of the evening and realize she’s really a man. As in, she actually has male equipment in the crotch locker. So what do you do? Call it off then? Or go through with it anyway so you don’t finish destroying a great date?

That’s what I’m debating.

In non-gaming news, got ourselves a cheap telescope yesterday. Thought I’d get my oldest son interested in science with some hands-on observing time, and we had a great time with it last night. The moon wasn’t up when we went out, unfortunately, but I could show him the disc of Jupiter, a couple of stars and told him how to spot the Milky Way, and what it was.

It was a very nice night that made me warm and fuzzy. One of the most honored and solemn duties of any geek is to pass the torch to future generations. I feel I’ve started doing that last night.

10 Steps to Better Roleplay

Published
by
Julian
on 22 Aug 2008
in General
. 3 Comments

Just as a PSA. Not that I’m the super expert in these things, but in the few years I’ve been RPing I’ve noticed there’s always common mistakes made which can hold back everybody’s enjoyment.

Besides, I didn’t get into that Warhamster thing the kids are playing, and I didn’t get that other one. The Age of Clonan game. So I have nothing to write about except this.

So, basically, it was either this or an essay on the barren wasteland of sociopolitical commentary that is the modern MMO. Hm? What’s that? Oh, you want the 10 steps? Thought so.

Hit this mofo right here.

Continue reading ‘10 Steps to Better Roleplay’

Translations and Mistranslations

Published
by
Julian
on 30 Jul 2008
in World of Warcraft
. 19 Comments

So, WoW finally opened up its Latin American servers this past 25th, and made available a localization and language pack to go with it (optional, though. you can play just fine on Latin American servers with the good ol’ vanilla English client and launcher). Being the native Spanish speaker that I am, I decided to give it a whirl. See if I could get in touch with a few friends from really down south and get together in-game.

But nothing could prepare me for the translation to Spanish. How do I want to put it? Okay, let’s try this: It’s repugnant. How about that? Need more qualifiers? Happy to oblige: Obscure, Nonsensical, halfway between machine translation and surrealism.

I won’t make a laundry list of all its sins. But having done a lot of translation work in the past myself, I had to switch back to English before my liver gave up the ghost. I can mention a few things, though:

Continue reading ‘Translations and Mistranslations’

Out of 100 people who hate Bartle…

Published
by
Julian
on 28 Jun 2008
in General
. 6 Comments

- 20 probably shouldn’t be allowed on the human section of the internet.
- 10 miss his points. Completely and repeatedly.
- 15 corner themselves with their own arguments.
- 5 point at those cornered guys and laugh.
- 30 have arguments which basically reduce to “I don’t like you dissin’ my game”
- 10 think he’s an old fart/academic/smartypants therefore he’s unable to have real opinions of real value.
- 5 think he can’t comment on MMOs because he really hasn’t put in 200 hours in “Barbie Genital Herpes World Online: Arena”
- 3 read, and don’t post, when they probably should.
- 2 guys actually prove him wrong here and there. And Bartle loves it.

The Next (two) Best Things (pt. 2)

Published
by
Julian
on 03 Jun 2008
in General
. 6 Comments

Last time we talked about user content, and how it would inevitably have to be brought in, and properly managed. But now we’ll see the other next best thing we’ll surely be talking about in ten or fifteen years: Population Control.

This one is funny because it immediately gets people’s panties in a bunch, and forces them to think. That’s why I like it so much. It’s also a bit more nebulous and theoretical than user content, so we’ll have to draw from a few places in order to offer something presentable. Namely, the history and evolution of both the real world and virtual worlds, human nature and a nice dose of prophet complex.

Continue reading ‘The Next (two) Best Things (pt. 2)’