Author: Zubon

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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

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Metaphor From the Road

You have a great maintenance plan that takes into account the 25-year lifespan of the highway as designed. Each year, you perform maintenance that effectively replaces 4% of the road while doing minor touch-up work on the rest. You are on a different span of the road each year, only coning-off 4 miles of a 100 mile span. You proudly regard your system that keeps as much of the road as possible in as good of shape as possible, this year and every year.

To your users, it looks like the road is continuously under construction and never fully available. The four miles of construction lead to backups that extend further, and they are there every year. Why is this road always breaking down? Can’t they build it right?

: Zubon

This Week in Sexual Objectification: Mobile App Edition

Pepsi advertised one of its brands last week with an iPhone application (new link) that divided women into 24 categories and provided recommended pickup lines to help you “score” with them. What puts it over the top into real notability is that its developers have embraced Web 2.0 and included a “Brag List” so you can name and share your conquests on Facebook and Twitter. After the world noticed, Pepsi issued the usual non-apology.

Classy.

: Zubon

More Arguments Against Zubon

I have said many times that developers will make more money working directly opposed to my preferences. The mass market is somewhere over there. The menu-builders at Taco Bell may be amongst our readers, because every item I used to order is now gone. Perhaps the rest of America decided that a “big taste taco” is not worth the extra dime.

I applaud their wisdom and wish them greater profits in years to come.

: Zubon

Improving Achievements

Unheralded in City of Heroes Issue 16, some of the more insane badge grinds were toned down. Some were cut in half, some had a 0 lopped off the end, and a couple added more enemies that count towards earning them. This is a good thing: do not encourage your players to leave the computer on overnight in a low-damage perma-mez situation, for several nights, to earn a badge. That would be aberrant gameplay. Which I have done on a few characters…

I approve of making badges/achievements/deeds/trophies/accomplishments more about exploring and doing a variety of things, less of making them about grinding.

: Zubon

The Death Knight Intro

As has been stated, the tech is good. Phasing is interesting the first couple of times you see it, but you quickly notice exactly when they’re changing sets. Oh is that why they keep having me mini-zone? I am starting to get the hang of vehicles.

Most of the storyline is good. Betray your former allies, slaughter the innocent, corrupt the living, torture people for information: everything you should demand from a soulless monster under the will of the Lich King. Then you get to the ending, which is long and boring and lousy. Let’s dial up all the numbers for the big fight, then make it so none of them matter anyway! Let’s have a story of betrayal, which is exactly the Lich King’s right and what you expect from him, rather than a stunning revelation; the whole point of having undead minions is to send them on suicide missions for your fleeting tactical advantage, which he somehow fails to convert despite being the freaking Lich King. Way to have the Big Bad fail, lose, and be defeated trivially in his first appearance. Let’s have a story of redemption that no one cares about because we have no reason to care about any of these characters, to say nothing of wtf did that come from. And what, we piggyback on his redemption?

I’m parking the Death Knight just because I no longer care about it after that introduction. But it seems like a good first class whenever you go to a new server, because you can get Burning Crusade gold quickly and mail it to a character you are interested in.

: Zubon

Red Queen’s Race

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

: Zubon

Platefail 2

unnecessarynavel WTF is this? This right here, in the red circle? “That is a female gnome’s navel.” Yes, but why is it there? Why on Azeroth is a female death knight’s outfit midriff-baring? This is a male tauren death knight, and his stomach is perfectly covered. Every other class manages to start with a shirt, so this is not a problem. Why did someone think it was proper to have bare midriff armor for female death knights? Rule 36 aside, is our need to make all women sexual objects so severe that it applies to gnome death knights?

: Zubon

Also, a gnome’s two-handed sword clips pretty badly. She should be leaving a furrow in the ground behind her when she runs.

What I’ve Been Doing Since 70

Cooking and fishing dailies organize my life. I want those last recipes that The Rokk is hiding. His first quest gave me Delicious Chocolate Cake. Given repeats, it looks like it will take me a couple of weeks to earn the four daily cooking/fishing achievements, but I am in no rush since I want other toys from them.

Start in Dalaran, pick up those two, head to Shattrath, pick up those two, pick up any Outland dailies near my questing path. Fish and farm what I need, maybe explore a bit or do a random quest. That takes me back to Shattrath, which takes me to Stormwind, which takes me to Borean Tundra to get what I need for the Dalaran dailies. I notice that Vegetable Soup is half meat; these people learned to cook from hobbits. While I am there, hit a few !s and ?s, which could take a few minutes or a few hours depending on how much I get into it. Hearth back to Dalaran, all set.

One of my ! pursuits led me to the murloc quest chain in the Borean Tundra. That was fun. Continue reading What I’ve Been Doing Since 70