Modern Marvels - Video Games: Behind the Fun

I found this documentary on Netflix a while back, but I never bothered to watch it until today. I guess I reached that level of boredom after finishing up Guarding Tess. Anyway, it was very long just, just a mere 50 minutes. It was like a very quick overview of the history of video games, nothing in depth. It only went up to 2000 so nothing was truly relevant. If it detailed how games are now, that would be a bit more interesting, particularly since games (and computers) have come so far.

I'd like to see, in an updated version, the show cover World of Warcraft and the Sims, at least. World of Warcraft is legendary in popularity. 

And the Sims I'd like to see just because the game engine is so cool. When I made Sims for my friends in the Sims 3, I tried to give them true to life personalities. So, when I put Mouse, Ith, and myself into a house and saw how they interacted, I was floored. The first thing Ith's Sim did was go and scare mine (he's like this in real life, taunting me the way a tank taunts a boss, etc.). When my Sim was bored, she paused and then thought, "I will go yell at Ith," and she did! It blew my mind.

The Game Mechanics of Fishing

I have tried fishing in a lot of games. Hell, I remember Bass Hunter for the SNES. At least I think it was Bass Hunter. Either way, I remember being really bad at it and unable to afford a lot of the lures and staring at that really pixelated fish tracher on a thirteen-inch television screen. Kids have it great today. You don't even see thirteen inch computer monitors. My iMac has a 24 inch screen. Ridiculous.

At any rate, I remember fishing in Harvest Moon for the SNES. The kind of fishing where you stare at a blurry screen for the slightest wiggle on your fishing pole and praying that when you reel it in, you'll actually have something. The same goes with the other Harvest Moon games AND Animal Crossing.

World of Warcraft's fishing system also pisses me off. Not only do I have to cast and stare at the cast time, watch bobber, but I also have to CLICK the bobber to reel it in...I don't fish. It feels like a colossal waste of time for me.

Which is why I always stay away from fishing in most video games. Take, for example, the Sims 3 has a fishing aspect, including an 'Angler' personality trait which makes all angler Sims want to fish. A lot. I deny those Sims that right because I assumed it was going to be a giant waste of my time (although, isn't that what the Sims really is? A giant waste of time, with you running around getting Sims to the bathroom before they piss their pants and off to work on time so they don't get fired?) Anyway, I was at the graveyard with my goth teen Sim (who is a burial specialist) and there was a pond nearby. I noticed some large dark objects swimming around. Curious, I right clicked and got the option to fish. After months of playing the game, I had my first fishing Sim.

And it was fucking easy. In fact, I could just leave her alone for hours. I didn't have to click ANYTHING.

I love fishing now.

I went and created a brand new garden type Sim who fishes, gardens, and loves being outside. It's so easy!

Thank you, EA, because although you are a horrid, blood-sucking video game 'developer' who is out to destroy every video game you touch, you did make a nice fishing experience. (Although the fish tier system of 'Nice' 'Great' 'Very Nice' 'Excellent' 'Perfect' fish is a bit annoying. Nice try, though.)

Wild Night and Hide & Seek

After the dismal failure of Saturday's ICC10 raid, and being completely bummed out with everyone, I avoided WoW today, up until Nevarcien asked me to come fill in for this healer who'd just left ICC10 at Festergut. While we only downed Festergut until the group fell apart, we did retire to the inn in Dalaran for a little fun.

Nevarcien and I ducked away from Halidril when he went to buy the drinks. We giggled while he hunted for us...

When he found us, we retreated up to one of the bedrooms at the inn and began to drink just a bit.

And sometimes with alcohol, there are just a few things you regret...

I personally had a great time. :D

Arathi Basin

I very rarely PVP. I don't understand how scoring works in most battlegrounds and I use both my specs for raiding, so I always feel a bit gimped without a pvp spec. As I do more VoA, though, I get more and more PVP gear. My two best friends, Mouse and Ith, have an arena team and have lately been dragging me. This is what the scorecard always looks like when the rest of the BG team is good enough to win. The three of us stick together, Ith wrecking house, Mouse melting face, and Mitter keeping them alive.

This honor buff is great, too. I'll have all the Black War mounts in no time. :)

Facebook: Softcore MMO

Outside of WoW, I like Facebook games. Why? I don't need to a portable drive so I can ninja on them in class, nor do I need Windows. I've tried most Facebook games, from Farmville to Wedding Dash, to Vampire Wars. And so on and so forth. Farmville is the WoW of flash games, boasting the most players. You spend the first ten or so levels of FV starving for money. You may as well sell your overalls or something in order to plant some fucking expensive strawberries in hopes of one day owning a mansion (that you can only buy in FV Cash, which is only attainable in bulk through USD, another scam). After, say, fifteen levels and beyond, you're so fucking rich that you don't know what to spend all your money on. In fact, there isn't much of use that you can buy without the Farmville Cash. It becomes monotonous, and the bigger your farm gets, the more work it becomes. When will I be able to just cash in my coins for some workhands?

I'd settle for being able to trade coins for FV Cash.

I've noticed this to be the way of a lot of games. Petville, more and more, requires its PV Cash. Less and less items are purchasable via the coins you make by doing dailies (like cleaning someone else's too-big house for them).  At first, I thought Petville was really cute, but by the time I had gotten the sixth room on my house, the server was lagging too hard to actually play it. It's unfortunate that those types of resources might hold a game back. I like it, but watching MiuMiu float across the screen like she was in the Matrix and take ten minutes to eat (which she is OBLIGATED to do when you refill her bowl) just isn't my idea of fun.

The one I like the most and feels the most complex is, ironically, Sorority Life. I play Sorority Life the way that Aber plays WoW: multiple accounts. Primarily, using the two accounts to buff each other. In the game, there's actually a very strong (well executed, by comparison to other games) PVP system. Your gear is called Glam and it has stats. Charm for offensive, and popularity for defense. You stack whichever you choose. I don't PVP much, so I stack defense which protects me from attacks. You have better stats the more girls in your house and the more glam that you own. SL is falling into the same for-money trap that the others are, needing Brownie Points to get the best glam from the store. It's not the only way, but it's the most prolific. The game itself is well-thought out with a good style to it, although it doesn't a "video" so much like Petville and Farmville, but some buttons and a lot of numbers. Yet again, however, it's another game where I have too much money and nothing to blow it on.

These developers need to learn the term "money sink" and NOT for my real life money. I'll save for that games like World of Warcraft and Eve, which actually have something worth paying for to offer me.

The Call of Spirits (and Heads)

I sat down and leveled my shaman today. Well, when I say leveled, I mean I queued her over and over for a random dungeon and got two levels hammered out. The shaman is one of those classes where you truly have to be thinking about what you're doing, your totems, your weapon buffs, your shield. I queue for both DPS and healing, and I always forget ONE of those, no matter how hard I try to remember. I've been running through Scarlet Monastery Library with the off feeling that I've forgotten something and perhaps if I tied a string to my finger I might remember what it was. Usually as I level, I have an idea of what I want to do the character when I get to 80. Ravindra will heal, Vigdís will tank, etc. This one...I don't know. I really don't know.

Curious thing that happened today. When it comes to Scarlet Monastery in the LFG system, you only have to suffer the Graveyard until level 31, whereupon they congratulate you on surviving the grind of hell and present to you the Library. Not today, however. I was inches from 33 and I STILL kept getting the Graveyard. Over and over. With others that were 31+. I wanted to cry each and every time. That is the problem with leveling six characters between 31-42: you become fucking sick of the four or five dungeons that are available.

Daze's Saturday night raid was a flop tonight. Both tanks afk, a mage MIA....It was one of those tragic nights where groups can't seem to form and even if they did, the regulars were already depressed about the number of absences. For a group that raids once a week, we really can't afford this.

Portals and Teleports

Does anyone else find it funny that a mage should get a portal to Theramore before anywhere else? The first teleports you get are at level 20 for Stormwind, Ironforge, and the Exodar. At thirty, you can collect one to Darnassus, and finally, at 35, you'll get a teleport to Theramore. Additionally, they give you the portal there as well, while you have to wait until level 40 for the others.

Of the cloth wearers, I like the mage the least. The portals, etc, are amazing, which is why I have her leveling out Desolace (which is truly a hell-hole and sings to me a reminder of the Doldrums in that one play with the kings of numbers and words...the Phantom Tollbooth! All it needs are those lethargic slugs.) When I first started in Desolace, it reminded me of leveling Mitternacht after she was bumped fifteen levels and couldn't kill anything. Although it's a level 30-40 zone, it seems like you can't possibly succeed there unless you're at least 34. 

That or I suck at mages :)

I think it might be dungeons for this character from here on out. She's not as fun (or easy) as a warlock nor do I love her the way I love a priest (and you know, when you love someone you are blind to their flaws). I don't think I can suffer her for very long.

Level 1

And this is the beginning, kinda like the introductory montage of game footage, explaining the history of the race you've just chosen and exactly what your role-playing mind should be thinking of as you roll this new character. Most of the time, you pay no mind to the plight of immortality (and what to do now that you no longer have it, bummer) or how your people are homeless and need to eventually get up and get their city back so they can stop mooching off the dwarves. Instead, you're already thinking of getting to 80, or whatever end level it is that you're working towards.

I guess I'm thinking of the ride to 80 (and what else you can do when you get there).

Well met.