tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11820650706067269372024-03-14T08:14:11.797+00:00Distilled WillpowerA gaming blog to end all gaming blogs - mainly MMO-based banter and musings.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.comBlogger306125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-71954681628859563102016-06-26T03:26:00.001+01:002016-06-26T03:39:00.477+01:00[FIFA] The Handicap Mystery Finally Solved! <span style="font-family: inherit;">Back in July 2012 I <a href="http://dwpgaming.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/fifa12-great-handicap-debate.html" target="_blank">posted the following to this very blog</a>:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">One of the most controversial subjects in the FIFA community is that of <b>Scripting/Momentum/Handicap</b> (for the purposes of brevity, I’ll call it handicap in this post – though I’m aware that scripting and momentum refer to slightly different issues). Handicap is described as the feeling of s</span><b>luggishness</b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><b>, poor ball control and general bad luck</b> that some players with a <b>high-rated team</b> experience when they face a player which has a low-rated team. This only seems to happen when they face a team which is substantially lower rated than theirs, hence why it is referred to as “handicap” – almost as if the game is compensating for their opponent’s poorer players."</span></i></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I went on to explain that it was a controversial subject and how bringing it up on official forums would get the post deleted and after many years of the theory being decried by official and unofficial sources as false, it was considered superstition or conspiracy theory. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Well...</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">Today we might finally have cracked the case. Users </span><span style="background-color: #f0f3fc; color: #4d5763; line-height: 20px;"> </span><a class="userTagged imgScanned" href="https://www.reddit.com/u/RighteousOnix" style="background-color: #f0f3fc; box-sizing: border-box; color: #551a8b; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.15s ease;">/u/RighteousOnix</a> and /<a class="imgScanned userTagged" href="https://www.reddit.com/u/TheFakeNepentheZ" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: #f0f3fc; box-sizing: border-box; color: #551a8b; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.15s ease;">u/TheFakeNepentheZ</a> (someone whose practices with regards to coin selling I do not agree with, but in this case I must concede has done great work), seem to have pinpointed exactly the issue which we've struggled with since the advent of Ultimate Team in 2010. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is potentially<b> HUGE</b>, as it will confirm the suspicions of thousands of FIFA players over many many generations of the game. It will show that EA either knowingly or unknowingly has been handicapping high rated teams in contrast to low rated teams, and it will vindicate all us supposed nut-jobs who have been arguing that handicapping really does exist and its not just in our heads.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To explain the glitch I will need to explain two important features of FIFA Ultimate Team mode - chemistry and upgraded cards. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><u>Chemistry</u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Chemistry is the degree to which your players work well together - the higher the chemistry your player has, the better he will perform on the pitch.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />You can raise the chemistry of your players in a number of ways, play them in the correct position, play them alongside players from the same league, team or of the same nationality, assign them a manager from the same league or of the same nationality and so on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Players can have chemistry score of 1-10 (in FIFA16 at least). </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLxbu3kRuN9iYmZAVkuwAj2GcY3CigCO594liVLGAJ4zQ3L5mA5tm4tOB1zMPi6rafnZv6bhrqf_Vxj4xp6W6ZWOG5M4KNUg80frv2dgiKMnRgBdUzdcuaeOQ9RtR6-xjDXcBqtUpe8Mg/s1600/Untitled3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLxbu3kRuN9iYmZAVkuwAj2GcY3CigCO594liVLGAJ4zQ3L5mA5tm4tOB1zMPi6rafnZv6bhrqf_Vxj4xp6W6ZWOG5M4KNUg80frv2dgiKMnRgBdUzdcuaeOQ9RtR6-xjDXcBqtUpe8Mg/s400/Untitled3.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A team with full chemistry</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What chemistry actually does is that the higher your players chemistry score, the more his in-game stats are boosted, conversely the lower the chemistry the more his stats are reduced. The threshold is chemistry 4: at chemistry 4 your players stats in game are </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">exactly</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> as they are displayed on his card. Anything from chemistry 5-10 and your player will be getting his stats boosted, between 1-3 and his stats are reduced. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And this is the crux of the matter. Remember how I said <i>"</i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.48px;">Handicap is described as the feeling of s</span><b style="font-style: italic;">luggishness</b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><b style="font-style: italic;">, poor ball control and general bad luck</b><i> that some players with a </i><b style="font-style: italic;">high-rated team</b><i> experience"?...</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">It turns out that there is a glitch where certain players will be considered to be at 4 chemistry <b>regardless of any other measures you take to increase the displayed chemistry score</b>. But this glitch only occurs for what is now known as "non-day 1 cards". </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><b><u>Upgraded Cards</u></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">If a player performs well in real life, sometimes EA will release a version of their card with supposed upgraded stats. Take, for example, Gareth Bales original card:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVq3i-9m9IaKicnCvjBs6wYtTSmIBSqq6uSJvNIlBtEYcx_9HMgDhFVKLs5nMvrAXTqdkV1L5blSPGo6JBgOGEIW5xjTYm3CIyhiGQWg-7rAakoSuO7J0O9r9ngOltzf4nIBAbpxXLAsM/s1600/Untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVq3i-9m9IaKicnCvjBs6wYtTSmIBSqq6uSJvNIlBtEYcx_9HMgDhFVKLs5nMvrAXTqdkV1L5blSPGo6JBgOGEIW5xjTYm3CIyhiGQWg-7rAakoSuO7J0O9r9ngOltzf4nIBAbpxXLAsM/s1600/Untitled.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day 1 Bale</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">This was the card available to all players at the start of FIFA16. It could be found in card packs purchasable from the EA in game store. Its relatively rare because he's a really good player. One week during the past season Bale performed really well in a game so EA released an "in form" version of his card:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6fUAtmsWugwrcytSRJB5SF4CEfbywVCanjZNkwLUROWGnUUWRiFY_Dz5Igs_pRZ_SrJMoGgGdObApfc_PqJD9mfawM2TotK-Q3yDewyqQvbo74sjbttQZ4q4PVHDIjQa5N_p7o6_UgS0/s1600/Untitled2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6fUAtmsWugwrcytSRJB5SF4CEfbywVCanjZNkwLUROWGnUUWRiFY_Dz5Igs_pRZ_SrJMoGgGdObApfc_PqJD9mfawM2TotK-Q3yDewyqQvbo74sjbttQZ4q4PVHDIjQa5N_p7o6_UgS0/s1600/Untitled2.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In form Bale</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 18.48px;">It has a pretty picture and its black and most importantly it has better stats. His pace stat (PAC) has gone from 94 to 95, shooting (SHO) from 83 to 86 and passing (PAS) from 83 to 85 and so on. For that week (Wednesday to Wednesday) this card is available in packs. At the end of the week it stops dropping and the original card returns to packs. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">The 87 rated Bale card is his <b>"day 1"</b> card, the 88 rated is an <b>"in form"</b>. There are other types of changes to cards, sometimes EA will release position changed cards (Bale has one in a striker role, as opposed to his right midfielder role on his original card), and at the end of the year the very prestigious "Team of the Season" cards are released and these cards often go for many hundreds of thousands of coins. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">What our intrepid FIFAites have discovered is that chemistry is bugged for any card which is <i>not the "<b>day 1</b>" version. </i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 18.48px;">Day 1 versions of cards will receive all the proper boosts which come from achieving 10 chemistry score - that is, a significant boost to in game stats. Whereas any other version of the card will only ever be considered to be on 4 chemistry and will therefore receive absolutely no benefit from increasing his chemistry to 10. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 18.48px;">This means that sometimes the day 1 card on full chemistry will have better stats than the considerably more expensive in form versions of the card, as these non-day-1 cards receive no chemistry boosts. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">User <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Masakari666" target="_blank">/u/Masakari666</a> mocked up some side-by-side comparisons of day 1 with base stats, day 1 with 10 chemistry and then upgraded with 4 chem to demonstrate the difference:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl1mg1WXIAAIinK.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl1mg1WXIAAIinK.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All credit to MarakariPrime - contacts on the image.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">Here you see the leftmost card is his day-1 card (NIF means non in form), compared to his day-1 card with 10 chemistry in the middle, and his recently awarded man of the match card on the right. Notice how the middle card is almost as good, and often better, in stats than the rightmost card. His pace, shooting, passing and dribbling are better than the significantly more expensive MOTM card, and his defending and physical stats are almost as good. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl1pnvrWkAAGqs1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl1pnvrWkAAGqs1.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">All credit to MarakariPrime - contacts on the image.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">Same again here - the leftmost card is Aubameyang's day-1 card. The right-most is his </span><i style="line-height: 18.48px;">exceedingly </i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">expensive in form card. The second card from the left is his 82 rated day 1 card with full chemistry and it is superior in every stat compared to his 85 rated in form card, as well as being significantly better than the upgraded 84 rated card he received in the winter upgrades list (which, as it is not a day-1 card, is also glitched).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">This glitch has not been discovered until now because the stats boosts attributed as a result of high chemistry scores are <b>not displayed on the card</b>, instead they are hidden. So the only way we've been able to tell the difference is the way the player feels to play with in game - which is a nebulous concept to pin down. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18.48px;">THIS is why sometimes high rated teams feel slow, awkward and clumsy in comparison to low rated teams. Low rated teams will contain many of the cheaper "day 1" cards which receive significant boosts to stats from their chemistry score, whereas higher rated teams full of upgraded versions of players will only ever be using their base stats as if they are glitched on 4 chemistry. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">I have to say, if this is proven to be true then it is really satisfying to be vindicated in my assertions that there was something effecting the performance of highly rated teams in FIFA. How or why this glitch made it into the code for FIFA in the first place and exactly how it seems to have survived not only many generations of the game itself, but also survived the jump to a whole new console generation we might never know! But by highlighting the problem to EA perhaps it might be fixed in time for FIFA17 later this year.</span><br />
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<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Below is a few of the technical details as to how this glitch was discovered, as well as RighteousOnix's original video explaining how he uncovered it.</i></b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">Recently it has been discovered that there is a very specific skill move which is new to the latest generation of the game, and that might only be performed if a player reaches a rating of 86 in dribbling. </span><a class="userTagged imgScanned" href="https://www.reddit.com/u/RighteousOnix" style="background-color: #f0f3fc; box-sizing: border-box; color: #551a8b; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.15s ease;">/u/RighteousOnix</a>'s video displays it visually, but to quickly summarise:<br />
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Onix took a day-1 player who's dribbling was below 86, and when they were on 4 chemistry they were unable to perform the move. He increased this players chemistry such that his dribbling was above the threshold of 86 and suddenly he can perform the move. Chemistry works - nothing wrong here!<br />
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Then he took a similar card, but this time it was an upgraded version of a player. This player again had below 86 dribbling and could not perform the move. But then Onix increased the chemistry such that his dribbling <i>should </i> have increased above 86 - only unlike the day-1 player described above, he still could not perform the skill move. <b>What this showed is that in fact the increase in chemistry was having no effect on the stats of the player. </b><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-73267867309022330102016-03-27T22:36:00.000+01:002016-04-07T12:35:00.273+01:00[GW2] Why Mo's Announcement Takes Gumption, But ArenaNet needs to Pull its Bloody Socks Up<span style="font-family: inherit;">Having to announce the cutting of future content is never going to be easy. Particularly when you are announcing the cutting of said feature in the middle of a somewhat lengthy content drought, and particularly when that content was <a href="https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-legendary-journey/" target="_blank">one of the</a> <a href="https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/hot-new-legendary-weapons/" target="_blank">features upon which you sold</a> your <a href="https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/mastery" target="_blank">recent expansion pack</a>.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGHABSo8oFx5lmqxeXwGxGV82ASkJJkCRcx0mjkCZCDL7SSR7r-8sT-aRHHFgNtL92HUHO1Fhyphenhypheng6PxZqnBLJ5TGtvl4QT36w3qV3Dt9KH59lpTPh9DEjlGCb5sWncNnNnrOXV3b9ZHB34/s1600/323e3Astralaria-side-590x337.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGHABSo8oFx5lmqxeXwGxGV82ASkJJkCRcx0mjkCZCDL7SSR7r-8sT-aRHHFgNtL92HUHO1Fhyphenhypheng6PxZqnBLJ5TGtvl4QT36w3qV3Dt9KH59lpTPh9DEjlGCb5sWncNnNnrOXV3b9ZHB34/s400/323e3Astralaria-side-590x337.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So needless to say that Friday's <a href="https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Legendary-weapons-6" target="_blank">announcement by Mike O'Brien (ArenaNet President) that work on new legendary weapons</a> would be suspended "indefinitely" was met with nuclear-level meltdown on the subreddit and associated forums and social media. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The grievances with this announcement are many, some more legitimate than others - but I think they are covered very well with the countless posts on the reddit and forums. As a result I don't really want to cover them here, instead I want to talk about a very important element of this announcement which seems to have garnered little coverage since Friday night. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">What kind of environment are ArenaNet producing content in where a team of six developers can go a whole half a year and only produce one workable legendary weapon?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, I've found that the gut response to this question has often been: </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">"Well legendary weapons take a lot of work, Will, you've got the collections and NPCs and quests and items and then you've got to produce the artwork, model, textures, animations and sounds for the weapons themselves. Its a lot of hard work!"</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My response to this argument is as follows: <b><span style="font-size: large;">no fucking shit.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So your work is hard? Welcome to the wonderful world of employment, buddy. Game developers are not alone in having to complete complex pieces of work to demanding deadlines. But what the above arguement really implies is that the job is <i>too hard to complete in the time given. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">If your job is too hard<i> </i>to complete before the proposed deadline then you have to do something about it - not get six months down the line and when results are expected simply responding <i>"it was toooo haaaarrrddd :( :( :(" </i>Because that kind of shit will get you fired (or else moved onto another team) work being hard is not an excuse for not getting it done.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">If you are not able to deliver because the work is too hard to complete in the allotted time frame then there has either been a serious misalignment of resources by management in the first place, significant time management issues within the team or else some unforeseen complication which has delayed development. And if any one of these are the case - then you need to highlight that to the people in the hierarchy who can make the changes so you can get the job done. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lots of people have hard jobs; they produce work in restricted time frames and to demanding deadlines. That's the world of work. Saying "its hard" is not an excuse for not delivering.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I respect Mike O'Briens gumption when it comes to this change. It's a real shit show, and it feels like he's made the tough decision and he knows we'll hate him and the team for it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Strictly speaking I don't have an issue with them axing the legendary weapons. I think it sucks, but like - wtf are they supposed to do if they aren't finished? They can't release them now. And if the team working on them was allowed to continue on their current path then we might not get the full set for another two years or so.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No, I have an issue with them allowing it to get to this point at all; I don't know how a properly managed team can work for 9 months and produce so little end product - that's more worrying than anything else. I think that's what Mo means when he says <em style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px;">"spread too thin"</em>, teams must have been working where they were either poorly monitored, poorly motivated or else severely under resourced and so we get to a point where they can only produce 10% of the content we were promised.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Are these same thinly spread resources the reason why a steaming turd of a WvW map was allow to eek out into the game? Or why the fractals update was so off the mark (and why we still have so few new fractals)? Is it why they had to discontinue any support for dungeons? If so then how long have they been working like this - and which of the coming updates can we expect to be below par or unfinished because for the past several years the team has been <span style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin: 0px;">spread too thin</span>?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, because of this royal fuck-up, he's had to come out and put his hands up and say <i>"I'm sorry guys this is going to fucking suck, but here's whats going to happen". </i>And I respect that, even if I don't like it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He's absolutely 100% spot on when he says we will judge when the April update rolls around. They better fucking knock it out the park.</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-67435988687661521362015-08-01T10:31:00.002+01:002015-08-01T10:35:56.914+01:00[FIFA] How FIFA reconnected me with my DadThis morning I noticed <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/3fdhvy/what_is_the_best_way_for_someone_to_become/" target="_blank">a thread on the r/Soccer subreddit</a> from a football fan living in Atlanta, he wanted to know how he might introduce the sport to friends and family when they haven't grown up with it.<br />
I expected responses such as "go to local games", "get to know the players", "watch other leagues like the Premier League". But the top comment, by a long way, is "Play FIFA", and its not an aberration: "Play FIFA" is a comment which comes up at least 7 times in the top comments, sometimes accompanied by "play Football Manager".<br />
<br />
I was astounded, because that is exactly how I got into football. But I didn't realise it was such a comment route.<br />
<br />
In Britain, whilst you don't HAVE to like football, you are locked out of a lot of "blokey" conversations if you don't know anything about it. It's parodied in those IT Crowd sketch(es):<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/337qtKCkic4" width="420"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6yN2H3--1aw" width="420"></iframe><br />
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(Incidently, Arsenal DO always try to walk it in)<br />
<br />
My dad has always had a season ticket to Leicester City, even when they were down in the lower divisions. My cousins have always been into football, my fiance's family and my coworkers all fluent in football banter. I was always a little behind. I'd watch England matches in European or World Cups, and I'd occasionally put a Champions League match on in the background if there wasn't anything else on - but I wasn't really interested.<br />
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2d/Leicester_City_crest.svg/220px-Leicester_City_crest.svg.png" /><br />
<br />
Then one day I went to my cousins birthday party - I think he might have been 21 or something - and he and his friends were playing FIFA. I gave it a go and though I was terrible I enjoyed it.<br />
<br />
First off, this is the weird thing about football in Britain. People who don't like football simply won't play FIFA - but there is no reason why you couldn't enjoy the experience of the game, what people tend to not like is the ethos around the game, the arrogance of the players, the way they are such arseholes but get paid so much money, the general inanity of the football-talk which surrounds the whole idea of football. But that doesn't mean you couldn't enjoy the experience of moving a player around a pitch and the challenge of putting the ball into the net - that's no different from shooting a player in CoD, or farming loot in Diablo 3. Its all just gameplay. Just look at the popularity of Rocket League amongst non-football types and you'll see what I mean.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I decided to take a pop and when the next FIFA game came out I bought it. I still wasn't interested in football, but I enjoyed the game. Then I tried Ultimate Team - where you buy cards which represent players, and then build your team around those cards. Sometimes a player will perform well in real life, and that week EA will make an "In Form" card for that player - it will be a card with boosted stats. Suddenly I had some link to the real world of football - I was interested who might be getting an in-form card this week, so I started watching football and from then I was hooked.<br />
<br />
I remember about a year ago I was talking with my family and my cousin said "This is weird, Will is saying things about football". I'd made it - I was a bloke. At one point I was noticeable football-illiterate, but now I had the patter, I could talk the talk - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz-EaTwqNII" target="_blank">I knew that Arsenal do indeed always try to walk it in</a>, I knew that Theo Walcott may (at the time of the sketch) have been better as a "super-sub" due to his pace, so Wenger putting him on early might be a mistake, and I would know which displays each week were, or indeed were not, ludicrous.<br />
<br />
So thanks to FIFA I had this whole new connection to my dad. Its not like we were ever unconnected, but now I could go to games with him and we could sit together to watch matches and I'd actually know what was going on. I could talk to him about something he is passionate about, and that is priceless. I think that perhaps now I can even be a little bit insufferable about football, because I read the r/Soccer subreddit and try to keep up with all the gossip and transfers. It was inevitable that I'd get a bit nerdy about it really!<br />
<br />
Either way, I've bought every FIFA game since '10 and, despite all of the games' flaws, I can't see myself stopping any time soon. I'm happy to play because it has given me a new thing to be passionate about, to talk to people about and to bond with my family about, and despite it being owned by the almost comic-book villainous entity that is EA, I still find myself loving regardless.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-55100452928710431372015-06-16T15:15:00.000+01:002015-06-16T15:18:01.674+01:00[GW2] A Bigger Box - a Guild Wars 2 Analogy<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've spent this morning arguing with people about why I think Guild Wars 2 needs more skills for its primary professions. On the Reddit, at least, I think most people misunderstood my arguement. So I've got a little analogy to explain it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Imagine I have a toybox. This toybox can hold 20 multicoloured building blocks, no more. Every day I take my building blocks out of the box and build a house, or a car, or a space ship.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
It doesn't take too long till I've used every block in every workable combination. The blocks are interesting enough, but they are played out and I could do with some more.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Then a guy comes along and tries to solve my problem. He takes my box and takes out all the blocks, he repaints them, and buffs them up so that they are shiny. He hands me back my box of blocks.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
This doesn't solve my problem. Even though they look different, I am still choosing from the same number of blocks and the number of things I can build has not changed. I want more choice, so I can make different structures - not just houses, cars and spaceships, but giraffes, skyscrapers and mobile anti-aircraft units. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
So the guy goes away, determined to solve my problem. After a while he comes back with another box entirely. This box has a whole new set of 20 multicoloured building blocks in. He takes my box away and places his new box, exactly the same size, containing the same number of blocks, in front of me. He says that I can use either box I want, but not both. If I want to switch between the boxes then I have to put all my blocks away in his box and ask for the other one.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />Again, its not long before I've used every block in every combination in the new box. I don't want to go back to the old box, because that is played out as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
What the guy doesn't realise is that <u style="font-weight: bold;">I don't have a problem with the blocks. I have a problem with the box.</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
What I need is a bigger box with more blocks in it. Then I could build more houses, skyscrapers, hotels, mansions, maisonettes, bungalows, wig-wams or yurts than I could shake a stick at. Each time I got more blocks the number of interesting and exciting things I could build would increase exponentially - I could combine new blocks with old ones and put an anti-aircraft cannon on the top of my house, or giraffe, if I were that way inclined.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">ps. My arguement has not been helped by the fact that I totally overlooked the addition of those new healing skills from 2013 in my original arguement. Yes, they do count as new skills, but seeing as most builds are built around the utilities, rather than the heal, they are not very impactful - hence why I forgot them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-30729870920221323612015-05-26T12:47:00.000+01:002015-05-26T17:50:02.109+01:00[GW2] Why I am not Hyped for Heart of ThornsThere is a post at the top of the <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3787tl/why_arent_you_hyped_for_heart_of_thorns/" target="_blank">GW2 Reddit at the moment</a> which asks the question: "Why are you NOT hyped about Heart of Thorns?" It assumes that there is a significant number of players who are indeed not excited, or perhaps are even disappointed about the upcoming Guild Wars 2 expansion.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDbHJu_TPS99LHKyXumREhyAl7JwegRWxIPiSnp3rzFjykWmLn0XpxkwFupek2XjvOeEzTJfHUvMgiNZIX45BMF4bzqOH1SowwyY8k3pMukyzwZ8wXWFvgDaLXhi085fchpmtvgeCU61Y/s1600/400px-HoT_Texture_Centered_Trans.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDbHJu_TPS99LHKyXumREhyAl7JwegRWxIPiSnp3rzFjykWmLn0XpxkwFupek2XjvOeEzTJfHUvMgiNZIX45BMF4bzqOH1SowwyY8k3pMukyzwZ8wXWFvgDaLXhi085fchpmtvgeCU61Y/s320/400px-HoT_Texture_Centered_Trans.png" width="320" /></a></div>
In my case this assumption is pretty accurate. I replied to the thread in what eventually became a <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3787tl/why_arent_you_hyped_for_heart_of_thorns/crkppim" target="_blank">bit of a rant</a>, but I kinda felt I should elaborate on one particular element of my dissatisfaction with Heart of Thorns - so here it is.<br />
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I've said on this blog before that one of my favourite things to do in GW1 was to try out new and interesting builds. There were hundreds of skills, and the fact that you had access to not only your primary, but also a secondary profession and all of their skills as well meant that there were thousands if not millions of possible skill combinations waiting to be tried out. This was, I know, a complete headache for the designers in terms of balance. But what it did mean is that you were always seeing new builds come out to counter certain metas or take advantage of the latest skill balance changes. It might not have been balanced, but at least it was interesting.<br />
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Fast forward to Guild Wars 2 and we launch with the weapon/utility skill system. People tried to argue that it actually meant you had more variation in builds, I think that is demonstrably crap - when you only have the ability to switch out 3 skills on your bar from a pool of just 20 that is not comparable to a system where you can switch out all 8 skills on your bar from a pool of several hundred.<br />
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When you have a pool of several hundred, you can afford to have a few duds - when you've got a pool of just 20, you really really can't. But the simple fact is that GW2 has so many dud skills in the utility pool that out of a possible 20 skills you might find that only 10-15 are usable, but then out of that remaining (lets say) 15 you are further limited by the traits you can slot in.<br />
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When you doll out your trait points you have to invest in lines, some skills have traits which increase their efficacy, whilst others only become viable at all when taken alongside certain traits. when the trait-point investment required to make a skill work is to the significant detriment of the rest of your build because the line you are investing in has other effects which are not as strong, then it simply is not viable to run that skill. So between just having skills that are complete garbage, skills that require too much investment in traits and finally skills which are simply bugged, the already tiny pool of skills dwindles even further.<br />
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Now - this <i>might </i> have been ok if, at some point over the past 2 and a half years we had some new skills introduced into the pool. If your pool of viable skills is about (a rough estimate) 12, then adding 5 more skills is a MASSIVE increase in possible variety. With each single skill the number of skill combinations increases exponentially, adding in 10, or 20 new skills would have been mindblowingly awesome for the health of the build economy. Creative people could get their teeth into a system like that. But instead we've had - nothing.<br />
<br />
Other than a single classless heal skill designed for a specific encounter, we haven't had a single new skill added to the game in well over 2 and a half years. I sometimes wonder if the ArenaNet developers somehow think that their skills are SO UNBELIEVABLY FUN that they will keep a player interested and excited for that entire time. No. I'm sorry, if they think that is the case then they are delusional - even the most exciting and fun skills in the world will not keep a person entertained for 2 and a half years straight if they are given absolutely no alternatives. The skills are stale, and the game, I'm afraid, has become a chore to play.<br />
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<br />
So here comes Heart of Thorns. FINALLY - something new. New weapons, new skills, new classes, new traits, elite specialisations - think of the possible variations! I was so happy!<br />
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But - I'm not sure if they have fundamentally misunderstood how it works, but they seem to have fucked this up too.<br />
Each class gets an elite specialisation. A new twist on their class. They can choose to take on this elite spec or stick to their original spec. For example, a ranger can choose to be a druid or they can choose to stick to ranger. ANet have assured us that there will be a reason to stick or twist and both will be viable. But here's the rub:<br />
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<ul>
<li>If you want to use the new weapon for your class you have to choose the elite spec.</li>
<li>If you want ANY new skills you have to choose the elite spec.</li>
<li>If you want ANYTHING NEW AT ALL you have to choose the elite spec.</li>
</ul>
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<br />
So - just to spell it out. After 2 and a half years of waiting for a little bit, not a lot, just a tiny small miniscule amount of build variety, they finally release an expansion which adds <u style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">absolutely nothing to the existing classes. </u> If you want any variety at all you <b>have</b> to choose your elite specialisation. Its a binary choice - either you stick with your existing class and absolutely nothing changes, you use the same skills you've used for over 2 and a half years with the same weapons you've used for over 2 and a half years, or you switch to the elite spec and gain access to some new skills and a new weapon. And to make matters worse, even if you do choose the elite spec, it locks you out of some other skills and weapons usable by the original class. <i>(EDIT: wrote this, and have since reconsidered it - locking out of existing ranger skills is a good idea because it means that there is at least a reason to choose between the two specs)</i><br />
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I know they are tweaking some existing skills in a balance update prior to HoT release, but even if they get that 100% spot on and make <i>every single </i>skill viable in some way - that still only means that we are working with exactly the number of skills and traits we were supposed to be making builds with at release over 2 years ago and not a shred of new content has been added to the original classes.<br />
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Instead of increasing build variety they've effectively added ONE more build for each class. Because every single person who chooses their elite spec will use the new weapon, why wouldn't you? And every single person who chooses their elite spec will use the new skills, why wouldn't you?<br />
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The distinction to be made is between a binary and granular choice here.<br />
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I was hoping that they'd add skills and weapons so that each ranger will be different, you could make thousands of small choices about which new skill to take, and how to spec your new traits and which new weapon to use alongside them, or indeed to stick to existing weapons with new skills or new traits with old weapons etc etc. You could still have the druid, you could still lock out some skills from the "ranger line", but give the existing classes a bit of fucking variety as well - so any ranger you see could be using A, B, C, D... ad infinitum combination of new and old features etc.<br />
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<b>Instead</b> any ranger you see (if you see any at all) will be almost identical to the same rangers you've been seeing for the past couple of years because they have no new choices to make within their spec. But it won't matter anyway because most players will have switched to their elite spec, they will be using their new weapon, with a combination of the new skills. Either you're a same old ranger, or you're this new druid. 1 or 0. Off or on. A or B.<br />
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The sad thing is that people are so sick to death of their classes, they run through the same key combinations day-in-day-out that they will clamour for something new. So the original classes will likely not be seen for a long time after the expansion, at least in PvE - and this will give the illusion of variety. But it won't be variety, it will just be another class choosing from another pool of 10 useless skills, 10 viable ones and a single new weapon.<br />
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I'm happy to be proven wrong. And all of this could be washed away if they announce (or we find out during the beta that they've been hiding) new skills for original specs, otherwise its just another example of ANet blundering massively over something just so staggeringly simple as building a little variety into the game.<br />
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">EDIT: Like my reddit post I linked at the top, this ended up being a bit of a rant. There are elements I am looking forward to in HoT. I don't think another Elder Dragon makes a compelling enemy, but I'm looking forward to the character development of the new Destiny's Edge, I think the Mastery system will provide focus for continued development and I want to see new weapon and armour skins. But the lack of skills being added just riled me up something fierce, and I needed to vent. </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-28917731433171611662015-03-10T20:51:00.001+00:002015-03-10T20:53:48.259+00:00[FIFA] How YOU Ruined FIFA15 (if you bought cheap reliable coins)I've played a lot of games which have been plagued by illegal coin selling. By illegal in this case I mean outside the laws of the game or the terms of service set forward by the developer and effectively signed by each and every player who plays the game (that's the thing you scroll past and click "accept" at the bottom before starting the game for the first time!).<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Coin Selling in Other Games</span></b><br />
In various games these sites have varying degrees of authenticity (in terms of whether they will actually deliver the product they claim to be able to provide) for example, in Diablo 3 there is a bot which spams a link to a site which claims to be able to sell you Diablo 3 coins and armour - I have no idea how it could ever do that, seeing as item trading is removed from the game at this point, so its an obvious scam. And the players react as I'd expect them to - "please just block the bot" "ignore the spam" etc etc. Reasonable.<br />
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In Guild Wars 2 if you pass through the edge of the mists you might be bothered by the occasional coin seller. Generally they are detested, I'm not sure many people take them up on their offer - perhaps they do, but it is not discussed in polite company I can tell you!</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">What about FIFA?</span></b></div>
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Then there's FIFA15. Now, coin sellers have been around for a while and for the most part the big sites which operate will not scam you as such - you pay your money and then put a cheap bronze player on the market for the amount you paid for, and they will buy him from you - delivering your product. I'm sure there must be scam sites, which would steal your money or account details - but thats by the by for what I want to talk about in this post.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbPYTZO9s-tG-LZrahlD79qfr_K-SphhwDhw3ONaN7utABYp8Giq3Ifmsg1pFE1Rlcio985hS8IEKlfkGdxlVF-9zNW87frfqSPiLP2bqCGBXRWStC6lp66XX8By_oNqUhjpLxS-FgEKg/s1600/3e0b3d16887abd97e67c1d5e98c1dcc0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbPYTZO9s-tG-LZrahlD79qfr_K-SphhwDhw3ONaN7utABYp8Giq3Ifmsg1pFE1Rlcio985hS8IEKlfkGdxlVF-9zNW87frfqSPiLP2bqCGBXRWStC6lp66XX8By_oNqUhjpLxS-FgEKg/s1600/3e0b3d16887abd97e67c1d5e98c1dcc0.jpg" height="320" width="290" /></a></div>
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Games in FIFA15 reward around 350-550 coins depending upon a number of factors (whether you win, quality of your play and your DNF bonus), you might be able to fit three games in an hour considering the breaks between games for squad changes and finding a new opponent. That means that, end-of-season bonus aside, an average above-board player might expect to make around 1500 coins in an hour. If you buy coins you can purchase millions of coins for less than £5 in seconds. It has completely destroyed the Ultimate Team market and ruined this year's game for a lot of us.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>So What?</b></span></div>
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This frankly lazy, selfish and illegal system of coin selling/buying for real money seems to have become an accepted norm amongst a lot of FIFA 15 players - I'll go into why I think this is in a moment, but first I want to set out the three reasons why FIFA15 coin selling is lazy, selfish and illegal. </div>
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1) Coin selling forces card prices far far far outside the scope of any player who does not want to engage in this illegal practice. When you can buy millions of coins in the push of a few buttons, it means that the prices of the best players can be pushed further and further into the many millions of coins - a number of player cards have even reached the upper price limit of 15m coins. There is no way that a normal law-abiding player could earn that amount of money.</div>
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This is why buying and selling coins for real money is <i>selfish. </i>Imagine children who don't have free access to their mummy's credit card playing FIFA15, there is no way they could ever buy any high rated players, even if they played every day of their lives for hours on end. All because some lazy, selfish asshat 17 year old yob can't be arsed to earn his players and would rather pay his way to victory.</div>
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2) Coin sellers simply cannot be earning their coins legitimately, as I said - the reasonable yield per hour might be around 1500 coins - so its incredibly likely you are not only supporting one illegal industry (coin selling) but also another one (autobuying). </div>
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What about those of us who don't want to support an illegal industry which is built upon bot autobuyers which trawl the online marketplace snapping up any players being sold for a below average price? Again, no chance we could ever compete. These coin selling sites must get their coins from some where and you can be damn sure they aren't playing the game legit to get them. And as the prices of players rise, so the autobuyers ensure they never drop - scalping any players being sold below the average and selling them on again for profit. So - just because some <i>lazy</i> arsehole doesn't want to put the effort in - the rest of us have to suffer through a bloated market trying to compete with autobuyers and coin buying dickweeds outbidding anyone who comes along with their ill-begotten gains. </div>
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3) Coin buying begets coin buying. So, players buy coins, prices rise because people have more money, so players have to buy more coins and more coins. There is no way a new player could ever hope to buy a player worth more than a few thousand at this stage - so now they have to buy coins too - and the prices keep on rising until they hit the golden 15m ceiling. Its frankly ridiculous. For some people at this point the choice is removed - either you buy coins or your enjoyment of the game is severely reduced. </div>
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You are forced to break the terms of service and risk having your account banned in order to compete all because some fucking lazy selfish mindless twats are too braindead to realise what they are doing is fucking up the game for everyone else. Good job you cunts, this is why we can't have nice things.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Morally Bankrupt YouTubers</b></span></div>
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But the actual buying/selling transaction is only one part of this story, the other half of the story are the morally bankrupt shills known as the YouTubers:</div>
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I've followed the FIFA YouTube scene for a long time. And in the past I've enjoyed the content they produced - but over the past year I've been slowly but surely unsubscribing from FIFA content creators one by one as they continue to sell out and lie to their viewers. These coin selling sites fund YouTubers with FIFA coins so that they can continue to make YouTube content without having to.. you know - play the game a bunch. So rather than try to build their fame legitimately with hard work, innovative content and building a fanbase upon trust, they create lacklustre content, and instead take money from shady sites which actively destroy the game they are basing their fame upon and advertise a service to their fans which might lead to any of their viewers who follow the "LINKS IN THE DESCRIPTION BITCHES" and buy coins to be banned from the game and their account terminated. </div>
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The phrase "CHEAP RELIABLE COINS" has become an all-too familiar preface to any and all YouTube FIFA content. The creators themselves have become parodies of themselves - shrieking harpies who create the very lowest of the low - the "pack opening" video (simply a video showing them opening and overreacting to players pulled from FIFA ultimate team packs). HatFilms' recent parody of the whole Pack Opening/Coin buying/selling scene was eerily fantastic:<br />
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People (the YTers included) argue they are just trying to make a living. But they ignore the position of trust they occupy and their responsibility to be a role model to their viewers. There are few YTers who really <i>make it</i> in the scene nowadays and for the most part the way they do that is by building a respect amongst their peers and the companies upon which they build their reputation. Is that what KSI and Nepenthez and all the other morally bankrupt shills are trying to do with their content? Hell no - they are trying to make a quick buck while they can and who gives a fuck about anyone else, right? They are supposed to be representatives of the community - and perhaps in supporting coin selling, they are - and that is very very depressing.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Excuses </b></span></div>
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There are usually 2 main excuses touted by the lazy selfish greedy mongs who buy coins. And here is why they are bullshit:</div>
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<b>"FIFA points are too expensive!!!!"</b></div>
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FIFA points are a currency introduced by EA - you buy points with money and then spend the points on card packs. They are expensive. But they are a luxury and if the market had not been vastly inflated by coin selling you wouldn't need to do anything but play the game and earn coins legitimately in order to afford the players you want. <i>"FIFA points are too expensive so I have to buy coins!"</i> is a tautological arguement - you only need to look for alternative revenue because people have bought coins, you need to buy coins because you've bought coins. It doesn't matter how expensive FIFA points are.</div>
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<b>"You never get anything good in card packs, they aren't worth the money!"</b></div>
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No shit. Whenever you buy a card pack you are gambling and when you gamble the house almost always wins. If you buy a card pack worth 7.5k then you should never expect to get a player worth 7.5 out the other side - you are paying for the thrill of the potential payoff, not input money output player. </div>
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The long and the short of it is that these people are too stupid or too ashamed to admit that the reason they bought coins is because they are lazy and selfish and greedy and would rather blame EA than themselves for fucking up the game.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">So What are EA Doing about it?</span></b></div>
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So we've got punters buying coins, fucking up the market and funding botters, and the YouTubers who advertise the coin selling websites and then you've got the sites themselves scalping players using autobuyers and generally being the scum of the earth. What are EA doing about it? </div>
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Well, up until recently they've been engaging in seemingly random strikes against coin buyers and YTers who advertise the sites:</div>
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But if the coin sellers are the pimps then the YouTubers are their girls on the street selling their wares, and if the police (EA in this loose analogy) take them off the streets (ban their FIFA accounts) then you can bet your bottom dollar it won't be long before they're back on the streets (ie, their coin funder will just give them a new account within minutes). This isn't just me being cynical, its exactly what <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl4kfbwaVs4" target="_blank">Nepenthez said happens when his account gets banned </a>. </div>
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The repercussions for players themselves (if they've bought coins, lets call them punters if we are carrying on the analogy above), are a little more severe. Typically they'll get a warning - they've bought coins and been caught, and if they do it again their account will be terminated/wiped. Its a pain because they could lose everything they worked/didn't work for. But again - make a new FUT club, sure you lose the ill-begotten coins and players but spend another £10-20 or so and you're back up and running with a club worth several million. </div>
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Random band-aids, really. There was no way for EA to strike at the sites themselves who were selling the coins.</div>
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Until a couple of weeks ago when EA took FIFA15's webapp (a browser based system which allowed access to the market and your ultimate team squads) offline. This was the first blow - most coin selling went on through the webapp - it was simply an easier interface. Not the mention that almost all of the autobuying went on through the app as well - without this autobuying we began to see the price of players drop down to more manageable levels (myself I was able to pick up a couple of decent bargains). But then today EA brought the hammer down in a MAJOR way. </div>
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Starting from today all players in FIFA15 Ultimate Team will have a set <i>price range </i>including both a lower and upper limit. The price of these upper and lower limits will be set based upon previous purchasing history of the player and other factors (such as card weight etc). There are a number of repercussions of this drastic change, but primarily this strikes at the fundamental method through which coins are transferred from seller to buyer - typically a player would pay the seller online with real money, then agree on a trade - the buyer would list a cheap bronze card on the market for the price agreed upon by the seller (say 3m coins) and the seller would buy that card from the buyer - effectively transferring the coins over. Now that an upper limit has been set which should be appropriate for the card, you can no longer list a crappy bronze card for 3m - if you want to list a player on the market for 3m you'll have to have a player who is worth roughly 3m (at which point you might as well sell the player legitimately and avoid the risk!).</div>
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The price ranges are a blunt instrument. They have effectively removed the chance for traders to make any legitimate money - and that is a real shame. But I believe it is recognition from EA that FIFA15 is a bit of a lost cause. They were not able to quell the problems caused by coin selling in time - so they've brought the hammer down on the market and the baby has definitely gone out with the bathwater. But if your baby is bathing in fetid bathwater then perhaps that's for the best. </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>So what now?</b></span></div>
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My advice for anyone who was banned and lost everything, and now can't buy coins to make up the difference - fuck you, first of all, but second - adapt. Its perhaps a different game now - maybe you should try earning your money legitimately.</div>
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To traders - I'm sorry they messed it up for you. That's fucked up. Hopefully you got the money you needed in time, at least players will be more affordable now. </div>
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To everyone else - enjoy that 150k Di Maria. Sweet.</div>
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\u\TheBeardedPole put it most succinctly in his reddit post today, better than I have above: <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/FIFA/comments/2ykezj/the_hard_truth_ea_didnt_ruin_fut_we_did/" target="_blank">here</a></div>
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Anyway... bring on FIFA16. Its going to be... interesting.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-10249914857544681792015-02-19T23:59:00.004+00:002015-02-20T00:01:55.641+00:00[Hearthstone] Who on Earth is MagicAmy?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Is MagicAmy Hyerim Lee, a young attractive Korean pro Hearthstone player? Former Starcraft: Brood War pro and currently top ranked female player for Hearthstone? A player who seemingly dropped out of nowhere and nonchalantly smashed her way to victory at the ESL Legendary Series beating well established pros like Hyped and Trump. Subsequently recruited by Reynad team TempoStorm as both a "competitor and a coach". Is that MagicAmy?<br />
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Or is MagicAmy a face, and is the player pulling the strings not based in Korea, but in Canada, a Mr William Blaney? Are the claims of previous pro experience in Brood War actually a fabrication? And is MagicAmy, in fact, the result of a collaboration between Lee and Blaney to create a character who could at once appear to be perhaps one of the undiscovered gems of Hearthstone pro play, and also a vivacious and infectious personality, well thought of amongst the pro scene - at least until now.<br />
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When Amy smashed onto the scene many people were entranced. The casual nature with which she brushed aside some of the absolutely top ranked players was fascinating, and perhaps a little intoxicating. It was not a surprise when she was snapped up by a pro team like TempoStorm and she has been a witty and effervescent contributor to the Hearthstone subreddit since. Recently she <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/2wahi8/tempo_storms_magicamy_unable_to_attend_esl_finals/cop1wq8" target="_blank">dropped out</a> of the ESL Legendary Series Quarter finals in California due to "visa problems".<br />
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Specialist (Eric Lee) today made claims that MagicAmy is not all she appears to be. In a lengthy Reddit post, Specialist claims that MagicAmy is a <i><a href="http://i.imgur.com/Zck5VWf.jpg" target="_blank">"trick to decieve people into thinking she is a girl"</a> </i>so she might be able to garner more attention than she might be due. He presents his evidence that she never attends real-life events, even though there are many opportunities to do so in Korea. Unlike a lot of pro players she never streams her gameplay and she "screenshares" with other people during competitive play. His final conjecture is that he believes the ultimate goal of this <i>"being"</i> is to milk the NA scene for as much money as possible.<br />
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To be honest Specialist's evidence is really just opinion, it can't really be seen to be concrete in any way.<br />
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But this is where Chakki (Keaton Gill) and Blackout (Lewis Spencer) step in. Through some Poirot-like social media sleuthing they managed to work out a number of connections between MagicAmy, Hyerim Lee and a player called William Blaney from Canada. This information was posted to reddit and it was spread widely - however much of it has now been removed as it contained lots of personal information and so breached Reddit policy.<br />
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In addition, <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/esports/hearthstone-magic-amy-hyerim-lee-identity/" target="_blank">Callum Leslie at DailyDot </a>provides further evidence: when he approached MagicAmy for an interview on 30th January she provided a Skype ID which is actually registered to William Blaney and a number of other connections exist (Facebook accounts for MagicAmy redirection to Blaney, the same skype ID appearing on profiles for both Hyerim Lee and Blaney on other sites and a twitter account for "William Blaney" having the username "@magicamy_65199")<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reddit user \u\TimothyAssPoppins evidence</td></tr>
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On Reddit as the hype train whirred on people started putting together other pieces of evidence. Some people reviewed the footage of the ESL Series, as part of this tournament players were required to provide a live webcam of themselves whilst playing their matches - MagicAmy had always been noticeably calm and almost nonchalant in her visage as she destroyed opponent after opponent. But Redditors noted that this calm could almost be interpreted as boredom, some even matched up the timing of her card movements to periods of time where her hands were recognisably away from the keyboard.<br />
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Following all this evidence emerging, <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/2wcfzv/magicamy_megathread/copkg47" target="_blank">some other players</a> have come forward claiming to have had long-distance relationships with Amy which involved large sums of money being transferred to her overseas for pizzas and plane tickets amongst other things. Celerity Desu signs his post with: <i>"TLDR: She is shady as fuck, she is a pathological liar, but she is not a guy. Thanks for your time."</i><br />
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So at the moment the position appears to be MagicAmy is a person, at least that much we can tell! But several players have confirmed that they have been playing on her account for her, and there are accusations that this may have been going on during competitive tournament play. The Hearthstone community is no stranger to controversy, we are only just getting over the accusations put towards the former member of Team Archon - Hosty - who was accused of stream cheating during tournament play. Ironically, MagicAmy herself posted this rather ominous message Hosty's thread regarding the allegations of cheating:<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-4873509738981408782014-12-10T23:32:00.002+00:002014-12-10T23:32:58.036+00:00[GW2] I Only Wear Skirts on Sundays - Trenchcoats in Guild Wars 2What is ArenaNet's obsession with trenchcoats? Seriously, its getting a little bit old now. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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By my count there are <a href="http://argos-soft.net/GW2/ArmorGallery/index.php?lang=en&color=10&sex=0&w=2&race=2" target="_blank">37 full medium armour sets</a> in Guild Wars 2 and all but 1 include coats which extend beyond the waist. Furthermore, most are full-blown rain macs which go down past the knee (28/37). All but one includes butt-capes which stick stiffly out from our arse-cheeks, often they clip with boots, the edges of gloves or backpieces, weapons sheathed on the waist or back... every single medium armour player out there is dressed in a coat which you wouldn't be surprised to see donned by an old man hanging around the gates of the local primary school.</div>
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Frankly, its become a bit of a joke by now. One of the great things about MMOs is getting interesting and varied gear, so every player you see looks unique and individual. Seeing an announced armour set (or the illicit guilty pleasure of an as-yet unannounced <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2ow2mk/datamining_new_armor_sets/" target="_blank">datamine of new armour sets</a>) is an exciting experience - but finding that, once again, the designers have created another trenchcoat is just disappointing. Its this disappointment I felt over the <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2la079/carapace_and_luminscent_armor_gallery/clstfn1" target="_blank">carapace/luminescent set</a>, and the latest that_shaman find is absolutely no different.</div>
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I like the armours. I really do (Once I've completed the set I'm thinking of switching over to carapace or even luminescent if it dyes well). And I am super-super-super happy to have in-game armour added with at least some regularity now. But does it have to follow this exact same mold every time? Seeing players wearing these two armours at any distance but up close, it would be hard to tell them apart! Flared gloves, check, long coat, check, high boots, check. Its just such a wasted opportunity. </div>
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This problem is not limited to the medium armour professions, heavy armour seems to be also cursed with an over-abundance of armoured skirts as do the casters. But I think this lack of imagination is felt most potently in the medium armour professions.</div>
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The GW2 medium armour professions have so much scope for variety. It doesn't just have to be leather or cloth coats! What about light chain mail or a bodice/vest of hardened hide or chitin? What about scales, shells or fur? We had all three of those in GW1 and they didn't need a leather tail to balance out the set! There is so much opportunity for imagination, and whilst I don't doubt that whatever style this new armour set ends up having (and its important to note we've only seen the bare-bones image as of yet), it still appears to be a long coat, just like 36 of the 37 (now 37/38) other sets we have already.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-7792454195382130152014-11-15T15:55:00.001+00:002014-11-15T18:29:44.791+00:00[GW2] A Villain with a little Va Va Voom<a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/are-arenanet-working-guild-wars-2-expansion" target="_blank">Lewis over at Ten Ton Hammer</a> wrote a piece recently detailing why he thinks a Guild Wars 2 expansion is on the horizon. I don't want to repeat all the stuff he said about why its coming, needless to say its an argument with which I agree - and I've seen other very clever people saying the same thing, so I'm inclined to believe that we are right.<br />
He also asked what we'd like to see. I think most people's reactions are all stuff that I'd like to see too - new races, professions, armour, weapons and skills. To be honest I took these to be a given, what I'd <i>really really</i> like to see is a good ol' fashioned <b>villain. </b><br />
<br />
I want a villain akin to Moriarty, Lex Luthor or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2_cJxYYhM" target="_blank">Doctor Claw</a> (ask your parents, kids!) and I'm going to tell you why the Elder Dragons simply won't cut it this time, at least not on their own.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130218225259/bakerstreet/images/1/18/Asjm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130218225259/bakerstreet/images/1/18/Asjm.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a>Think of the baddies who make you squirm, the ones who make you gnash your teeth or slam your book, controller or theatre viewing binoculars down in disbelief - jaw gaping at the sheer skulduggery of it all.<br />
<br />
The ones who betray the hero at the last second, revealing their Machiavellian plan as they slowly wheel him or her towards a pit of lava or into a pool of ill-tempered sea bass. They all have real personalities and lives, relationships to the characters - more often than not they have qualities which the hero of the piece sees in themselves (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20B4Dvk_9cY" target="_blank">"we're not so different, you and I"</a>). Some are flawed, others are downright damaged (often by the actions of the protagonist earlier in life) and we get to know them personally and the connections they have to every other character and how our lives are interwoven with theirs and, in a way, how poetic it is that we should be the ones to face them in the end.<br />
In some ways we see ourselves in them, or at least we understand how they reached the brink of madness on which they teeter... and so we hate them, because we know how easily it could have been us.<br />
Given a different circumstance Bruce Wayne could have ended up mad like the Joker, Prof Xavier could easily have used his powers for evil like Magneto, and we even saw it in what I believe to be the best villain in a video game to date - GlaDOS (spoilers) - we see how quick and easy it was for Wheatley, our mild-mannered sidekick, to become corrupted by immense power.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrRbbuCvgXaUgca6TT10VVhaMRCueyVlRwQ1RM28UEz3P_KOuUuSxQJY5ymlyCaHNE3mK0GsmTwq5ZXRpYCY9CC3vUqTXMMG3ElcsQEA17ETqIRz3Wf-TiJQkJot6cgqIYofiTT8xxaY0/s1600/Glados.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrRbbuCvgXaUgca6TT10VVhaMRCueyVlRwQ1RM28UEz3P_KOuUuSxQJY5ymlyCaHNE3mK0GsmTwq5ZXRpYCY9CC3vUqTXMMG3ElcsQEA17ETqIRz3Wf-TiJQkJot6cgqIYofiTT8xxaY0/s1600/Glados.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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An Elder Dragon does not have any of these qualities. An Elder Dragon is a whirling thunderstorm of hate, hunger and lust. They are elemental. They do not have personalities and so we cannot see ourselves in them, and so we cannot hate them. Our drive to destroy them is simply <i><b><span style="color: red;">"they are a bad thing, if I do not kill them more bad things will happen and that would be bad". </span></b></i><br />
<i><b><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></b></i>
They are a daunting foe, sure, but they are no villain. If we are going to face Mordremoth (and there's no telling if this confrontation will be saved for the Living Story ending or if they might stretch it out to an expansion) then I think another soulless strategic campaign against an enemy which we have no real strong feelings for will not provide as compelling a narrative as one with a truly despicable (and hateable) supervillain at the end.<br />
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What we need is a pre-existing character. One who is close to our party. Someone who might betray the group and drag them to their lowest point - just when they think they are getting the upper hand.<br />
No no no - Trahearne is far too obvious, come on use a little imagination. We need someone with a little vavavoom, a little mystery. There are, in my opinion, two main candidates:<br />
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<a href="http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/f4/Canach.jpg/450px-Canach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/f4/Canach.jpg/450px-Canach.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<b>Canach </b>has shown a certain ruthlessness, a willingness to do a little bad in order to achieve a lot of good. This is actually a relatively common trope amongst villains, (Bane, Tyrion Lannister, Walter White, Gabriel in Constantine etc etc) and it is easy for the "little bad" to become "lots of bad" as things spiral out of control and the antagonist rationalises ever more evil deeds in pursuit of his or her noble goal.<br />
He hits the "not so different, you and I" quota also. He is a good guy driven bad by circumstance and again that could have so easily been us.<br />
The only drawback is that he is currently on a path of redemption, and I'm not sure the message ANet want to send with his story is "rehab doesn't work, kids". That might just be too much of a downer. I wonder if he could simply be a fall-guy - the one which we all suspect as being behind it all, the one which all clues point to until the very final second when the true puppetmaster is shown to be:<br />
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<a href="http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/f5/Faolain.jpg/449px-Faolain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/f5/Faolain.jpg/449px-Faolain.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></div>
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<b>Faolain.</b> She is a character who seems built to make our skin crawl, and we really don't know why yet. She has a past with Caithe, and claims to love her very much. They were close friends once, perhaps even lovers and Caithe still, on some level at least, trusts her. Caithe has always been seen to be stoic, infallible almost to the level of humourlessness but Faolain seems to be able to break down these walls and get underneath her leaves.<br />
She is the leader of the Nightmare Court, an ostensibly evil character, an enemy even, but nevertheless she seems to be Caithe's one weakness and there seems to be the very strong suggestion that "Caithe's Secret" has something to do with her. Something in her past which she has buried somewhere deep inside and hopes will never see the light of day. Scarlet knew it, perhaps as a result of delving deep into the history of the Pale Tree.<br />
I've ruminated on the idea that perhaps the sylvari could be the Pale Tree's natural defense against the Elder Dragons. In light of new information, perhaps the relationship between the dragons and the Tree is not so antagonistic, and this is what Caithe and Faolain know, and what Scarlet saw, on account of being "first born"?<br />
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I would like to see Faolain be the Eldritch Horror at the end of Guild Wars 2's first expansion. As a servant of the Elder Dragons - a part of the earth, just like the Pale Tree and the Dragons themselves. <br />
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<u><b>How I'd Like to See it Go Down:</b></u><br />
<u><b><br /></b></u>
Imagine a story in which we delve deeper into the dream, and the deeper we get the more clues about the connection between the Tree, the sylvari and the Dragons are unearthed. But the closer we get to the truth, the more drawn and distant Caithe becomes - she warns we are digging too deep, and might not like what we find, she argues with Canach and they both disappear into the darkness. The group suspects Canach (and perhaps there is some handily planted evidence to support our suspicions) has kidnapped Caithe and is some kind of Dragon worshipper.<br />
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The final confrontation takes place at a bloodstone site somewhere in Maguuma, we face off against our foe - who we suspect to be Canach, he is standing alone shouting fos us to "stay back!". Nonetheless, we march forward, but as we approach to make an arrest a thick vine appears out of nowhere and impales him!<br />
Riding upon a twisted tendril is Faolain and at her feet is the mangled body of Caithe. All these years, she tells us, she had been grooming Caithe for this - this blood sacrifice to bring about the rise of an age of Nightmare. Using Caithe's first-born blood, Faolain channels the Elder Dragon energy from the earth, absorbing it all and driving her mad in the process, she can't contain all that energy in her small body - she explodes into a gigantic sylvari nightmare beast!<br />
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<a href="http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/e/e0/Sylvari_11_concept_art_(A_Dark_Queen).jpg/800px-Sylvari_11_concept_art_(A_Dark_Queen).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/e/e0/Sylvari_11_concept_art_(A_Dark_Queen).jpg/800px-Sylvari_11_concept_art_(A_Dark_Queen).jpg" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
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We struggle to keep up with the pace of battle, but are no slackers, we persevere but just as we are about to strike the killing blow the dragon takes over, knocking the entire party to the ground and rising up above us - preparing to consume us all!<br />
Off to the side comes a beleaguered groan - the air seems to stand still and silent - Canach claws his way to his knees and grits his teeth, snarling at the dragon beast in front of him. Struggling he rises to his feet but bereft of energy, he stumbles and is caught by a flash of light - the image of the Pale Tree draws him to his feet. Just as the Dragon poured all his energy into Faolain, so too does the Pale Tree pour her energy into Canach.<br />
Enraged, the Faolain/Dragon beast screams of the injustice of a <i>second born </i>being granted such a blessing - drawing up all her hate and spite, the beast lunges at Canach but he swats her away easier than a fly, Faolain smashes against the trunk of the Tree and the Dragon Spirit bursts forth from her body. The love of the Pale Tree is no match for the choas and hate of the Elder Dragon.<br />
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We then begin our final battle with the dragon spirit itself, but we are imbued with great gifts of strength and ability from the Pale Tree's blessing and with Canach at our side we fight our way through the spirit and to Faolain's body - the conduit which is giving him form - just as we did with Scarlet, we finish her once and for all.<br />
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After the battle we mourn the loss of Caithe and Canach who cannot return to his former life, he must now live as the vision of the Pale Tree, one with the eternal alchemy having restored balance for a while at least. His is truly a story of redemption, willing to sacrifice his own life to save others, but not in such a way that he takes the fight away from us. Faolain is a villain who betrays us, kills our friends in front of our faces but is still ultimately a victim of the draw of the power of the Dragon.<br />
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Sales soar. ANet become billionaires. Everyone is happy.<br />
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Apart from Trahearne who was killed at some point.<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #cccccc; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #cccccc; font-size: x-small;">ps. The only drawback is that it would be yet another female sylvari corrupted by dragon power. Maybe they all just look evil to me, I dunno.</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-79558697694404020772014-11-01T03:14:00.002+00:002014-11-01T03:14:44.233+00:00Whatever Happened to the Wizard?There are, perhaps, three significant stalwarts of wizardry in fiction - relatively evenly distributed across time, they are comparable in a number of characteristics: wisdom (typically they are advisers and guides, trusted by less experienced characters), great big white/grey beards (almost, some might say, essential) and most significantly for this article they are similar in their extremely advanced age. They are Merlin from the stories of King Arthur, Gandalf from Lord of the Rings and most recently Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Its the advanced age (and general wizenedness) which I want to focus on. All three are immensely powerful beings, venerated across the lands and respected as such. There is the implication that their immeasurable power was gained through many years of learning, training and reading dusty scrolls on the arcane arts. So much time and effort has to go into developing their skill that they presumably forget to shave for a couple of decades, leading to impressive beards. Similarly, with time being of the essence, they don't want to waste precious seconds unbuttoning or unzipping flies, so they all go for cloaks and cowls which allow just a quick <i>lift </i>and you're ready to roll. My point is that their training consumes decades of their lives, and by the time they reach the kind of power where they might legitimately call themselves wizards they at least appear to be very old men.</div>
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<b>So where on earth is this trusted archetype in modern gaming? </b>The Guild Wars elementalist, the Warcraft Mage, the Diablo Wizard, Amadeus in Trine, the wizards in Magicka... all fresh faced youths in the prime of their lives. Have they even had half the time to develop skills through which they might call themselves spellcasters of note? I say nay. Some games (like Skyrim) give you the option to change the appearance of age of your character, but this is for appearances sake only - to all other agents in the game you will still be a youth of relative inexperience.</div>
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In fact, the old wizard archetype is often employed as a secondary character to your own: the greybeards in Skyrim being a good example. Again, they are elderly bearded advisers - though their wisdom could be somewhat questioned. But still I miss the chance to <b>play</b> that character - a character whose staff is not only a deadly weapon, but also an essential walking stick to soothe his aching back! In the future I want my RPGs to include in character creation a slider for "hunchbackedness" and the further I slide it to the left, the more broken and bent my character becomes. Instead of dodge rolling, he could shift or phase out of the way, instead of fizzing out puns like no tomorrow, he can dispense golden nuggets of wisdom ("a wizard arrives precisely when he means to!").</div>
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Power does not necessarily need to be communicated through vim and vigour, the kind of boundless energy which the Guild Wars elementalist seems to possess in spades - shooting around, throwing out wise-cracks and one liners like no tomorrow. Power can be like Yoda - old and immense, but with the appearance of being small and inert. These old characters, Merlin, Gandalf, Dumbledore were thoughtful in their movements, slow and steady, their calm masking their immeasurable power because when required to act they act swiftly and decisively, I understand that there are certain examples (I believe the wizard character in Gauntlet is old and beardy) but rarely are we given the chance to factor age into a game which allows character customisation and certainly in MMOs the robe-wearing bearded wizard seems to have been superseded by the young spell-slinger type.</div>
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I get that game developers want us to identify with the characters we create, and its easier for us to identify with a character who appears to be of a similar age to the standard gaming demographic. Perhaps I'm getting a little more advanced in age now and with my back I can't see myself dodge rolling much in the near future. Instead, I'd rather play a character who is as immobile as I am, but still gives me the feeling of being old and powerful. </div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">There is a whole other article about how wizards are venerated, but witches (until the Harry Potter franchise at least) got the shorter end of the stick and largely still do. That's a topic for another time and one I'm sure which is tied up with various cultural views on power and femininity.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-64867272372689377052014-10-22T09:53:00.000+01:002014-10-23T01:07:37.692+01:00[GW2] Here's your feedback - The Gem Store [UPDATED!]<span style="color: red;">For a TL:DR (and particularly if you are an ArenaNet dev) see the bottom of the post.</span><br />
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The Guild Wars 2 gem store has always allowed players to convert their in game gold into "gems" which they can use to buy items from the gem store.<br />
This system has worked in tandem with the ability to buy gems with real money.<br />
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Before this latest update players could choose the amount of gold they wished to spend to buy items.<br />
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Need a key for 125 gems? Then buy 125 gems! Need an outfit for 700 gems? You guessed it, buy 700 gems!<br />
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The new system works like this:<br />
<br />
Need a key for 125 gems? Buy 400 gems and have 275 left over! Need an outfit for 700 gems? Buy 800 gems and have 100 left over! Because reasons!<br />
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Players can now <i>only</i> convert their in game gold to gems in increments of 400. Once again ArenaNet's justification for this change has been: <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2jy4rj/gaile_gray_addresses_concerns_regarding_gem/" target="_blank">new players found it confusing</a> and as veteran players <b>we wouldn't understand. </b><br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: CronosPro, 'Courier New', Georgia, serif; line-height: 21.2800006866455px;">Hey there,</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: CronosPro, 'Courier New', Georgia, serif; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 21.2800006866455px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Here are a few tidbits from the team:</div>
<ul style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: CronosPro, 'Courier New', Georgia, serif; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 16px; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em 2.5em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 21px; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 21px; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 21px; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 21px; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: disc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.</li>
</ul>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: CronosPro, 'Courier New', Georgia, serif; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 21.2800006866455px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">
So please keep your thoughts coming on the new system. Feel free to make suggestions but please, keeping them constructive would be very much appreciated."</div>
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<br />
This is an argument they've used before, and <a href="http://dwpgaming.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/gw2-why-your-opinion-on-new-player.html" target="_blank">I've written about here</a>.<br />
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As one eloquent redditor quite rightly put it: <i>"Bullshit"</i>. First off, if the interface is confusing players -<b> then change the fucking interface</b>. This has nothing to do with the ability to convert however much gold you need. The interface is just the way the player interacts with the system, not the system itself.<br />
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Second, which "new player" has the gold stashed away to be able to convert gold into 400 gems anyway!? At the current conversion rate that equals 75 gold! I played for a good 6 or 7 months before I had that kind of currency lying around, and even then I wouldn't have thought of converting <b>all</b> my worldly possessions into gems to buy a cheap looking outfit! There is nothing about this update to this system which is helpful to new players, in fact it isn't even a system which new players will have the option to use because they simply will not have the gold to buy the required 400 gems.<br />
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I'm afraid the actual motivations for this change are <i>very</i> thinly veiled. Before you might convert a small amount of gold into gems to buy a Black Lion Chest Key from the store, now you are far less likely to have the spare change required - so instead you BUY the gems with real money. That's the reason this change has been made - the only thing confusing is why ArenaNet are so brazen about it. It is mind boggling.<br />
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So, just to spell it out for ArenaNet - feed this back to your team:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">There is absolutely no way that a <b>new player </b>will have the in game gold to buy 400 gems, so they will spend real money instead. This is<b> NOT </b>a system which is friendly for new players, it is absolutely the opposite. This is a system to rinse more real money out of new players. You. are. fucking. it. up.</span><br />
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<b>Update:</b><br />
Kotaku (I know, ew, but bear with me) are claiming that <a href="https://archive.today/CnJlB" target="_blank">ArenaNet will be reversing the changes to the gem system</a> in light of our "ranting". They don't actually give any source for this announcement but I anticipate a statement from ANet soon if its true. The system works. Rant for justice. All haile the rant.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-26067052903654915912014-10-18T14:04:00.004+01:002014-10-18T14:05:40.439+01:00[HS] Seatstory Cheerleaders Tarnish the EventOne of the first big flashy Hearthstone tournaments ever held was the ESGN Fight Night series first held in January 2014. It was run like a big-budget TV show, with a colourful studio set up, interviews, animated player profiles and, most controversially, boxing style "card girls" who would saunter across the stage at the start of each match with the "Game Number".<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgot95yPWNhRbGN2e8s8MNpOnKy4Kyd2c9QkfUyWPiIg90EN3hLAwLLznboF0FeIDAoaI6zcbalgO2-0rUAjlmVAQlZKIRYD1utlbObyl6D_wXNIR17jqdU3CEdowfF6EJMlZna5bgjb_I/s1600/3103-6043584533-Trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgot95yPWNhRbGN2e8s8MNpOnKy4Kyd2c9QkfUyWPiIg90EN3hLAwLLznboF0FeIDAoaI6zcbalgO2-0rUAjlmVAQlZKIRYD1utlbObyl6D_wXNIR17jqdU3CEdowfF6EJMlZna5bgjb_I/s1600/3103-6043584533-Trump.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a>The girls were an effort on the part of the organisers to inject a flashy sports-style professionalism to the broadcast, but what it ended up being was an embarrassing mess. Viewers and players <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/1unnkz/esgn_fight_night_feedback_for_future_broadcasts/" target="_blank">broadly criticised</a> the decision. Dressed as "sexy schoolgirls" (a still relatively unnerving, though not uncommon trope) aside from the actual gameplay, the girls were the element of the broadcasts which attracted the most attention.<br />
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The whole debacle was not helped at all in that there was not a single female player in the whole event. I don't believe that is unheard of - whatever stats you believe about the percentage of gamers who are female, it can't be argued that they are relatively underrepresented in pro-gaming. During and after the event, criticism ranged from <i>"they don't add anything to the show"</i> through <i>"they didn't even speak to the players"</i> and up to <i>"its pretty much straight up exploitation". </i><br />
I was a little disappointed when a number of the players, talking on the popular "Turn 2" podcast after the event, did not seem to recognise the sexism argument and as <a href="http://www.liquidhearth.com/forum/hearthstone/456833-esgn-fight-night-week-1-recap-week-2-preview" target="_blank">Wunder (at Liquidhearth)</a> recognises:<br />
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<i>"It doesn’t help that Ek0p, one of the members of Dogehouse, said on Turn 2 that you should consider them “decorations or something, to make the show prettier”. Now, he goes on to say that not all women are decorations but that was the purpose of those two girls’ existence."</i><br />
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Wunder goes on to note that though the girls were only a very small part of the show, if that was the case, then why include them at all? Why alienate such a large section of the Hearthstone community? It's only anecdotal evidence, but Hearthstone does seem to have a large proportion of the playerbase who are female (perhaps more-so than other games) - so why risk it? Its simply the most blatant form of objectification, the girls existed simply as an attractive sign-holder, nothing more.</div>
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It didn't even achieve the purpose of making the event seem professional and sexy - all the players looked awkward and uncomfortable. It would have been interesting to see what the reaction would have been if the sign-holders were muscular gentlemen in hot pants and crop-tops. Perhaps the male members of the community who defended the girls' inclusion as being <i>"all part of the fun"</i>, would re-evaluate their opinion if they were faced with some well-toned man meat in between each round.</div>
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Regardless, as good as the gameplay was (and, to be honest, aside from the girls the event was a lot of fun) ESGN eventually ran out of money and had to shut down. But thats another story.</div>
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Fast forward to the past few days and the Seatstory Cup. And exact same arguement emerges. Seatstory is a different beast to the Fight Nights. It's a house cup: taking place in a single apartment rather than a sprawling studio. It still feels just as slick, but the ambience is much more laid back and I believe its an event which many of the players were very much looking forward to due to it being a nice social occasion as well as a competitive tournament. </div>
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Unfortunately, Seatstory (and TakeTV on whose Twitch account it is being broadcast) seem to have learned nothing from the debacle of Fight Night - including scantily-clad pom-pom wielding cheerleaders alongside the exclusively male cast of pro-players. </div>
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The exact same arguments as with Fight Night emerge - perhaps the disbelief is even more prominent here as its hard to believe someone would think it appropriate given the ambiance of the event doesn't seem to fit, and the backlash which emerged as a result of the Card Girls at Fight Night. There has been some suggestion that the girls are an ironic nod to the mistakes of Fight Night itself - but I believe that's a bit of a longshot, and even if that is the intention, the <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/2jj5qx/seatstory_cheerleaders/" target="_blank">effect is still to alienate the same female audience which occurred in January</a>. </div>
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Its a huge shame and is astoundingly misjudged especially considering that sexism in gaming is just about as hot as a topic can get at the moment. And this all comes on the heels of a smaller event cast by Kripparian and Reckful where they were <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/2gudyp/reckful_caster_on_lord_of_the_arena_2_tempo_storm/" target="_blank">accused of sexist remarks</a> towards the female players in the event.</div>
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Poorly placed as I am (being male) to effectively communicate how crap a decision this was by the organisers. I thought I'd just post a quote by<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/2jj5qx/seatstory_cheerleaders/clc7d64" target="_blank"> /u/Shavri</a> on Reddit (emphasis added):</div>
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<i>"As a girl who watches HS regularly, this was a 10/10 facepalm moment. I thought maybe after the backlash from the signholders on ESGN people in the community might have realized this is pretty cringe-worthy. I understand that I'm in the minority for the e-sports community, <b>but can you at least pretend there might be some women watching.</b> From an advertising standpoint I think it was pretty insulting to the guys watching too---or maybe I'm wrong. inb4 women-hating/jealousy comments"</i><br />
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Viewers, players, casters and event organisers need to recognise that even "jokey" casual sexism is not acceptable. Not only is it unprofessional, but its damaging to the Hearthstone and gaming community at large. It just continues to reproduce the perception of the gaming community as male dominated, chauvanist and unwelcoming to girls.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-64096523603212266672014-09-10T17:20:00.000+01:002014-09-10T17:22:26.994+01:00[GW2] Why Your Opinion on the New Player Experience Doesn't Matter <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I had a big long post detailing the problems I had with the new update - the fact that it appears to have <i>removed </i>more features than it added, the patronising way it treats new players, the frankly ridiculous gating of skills and gameplay features etc. Ultimately, I just encountered the one single sentence which encompasses it all and it comes from this <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2g04i7/how_a_player_of_about_2_weeks_feels_about_todays/" target="_blank">comment from a new player on Reddit:</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">"It gave me freedom to play how I wanted, something sorely lacking in most MMOs, which force you to do things a certain way or unlock things in a certain order."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">and later...</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">"What the hell is this! That constant drive for success, and the feeling of connection that the story and world quests combined to give has been skewed to all hell. I tried playing again today, but these changes changed the parts of the game I liked the most, the freedom of progression at your own pace."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #fafafa;">And I think ultimately, thats what this update has all-but removed from the levelling process - the freedom to play how you want. Wasn't that central to the all-holy Manifesto? Play how you want! </span></span><br />
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<i>Now its: play how you want, as long as you don't want a second weapon set until level 15. </i><br />
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<i>Play how you want as long as you don't want to customise your stats or gain access to interesting traits before level 30!</i><br />
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<i>Play how you want as long as that involves <b>dying one way before level 5 and dying another way after level 5. </b></i><br />
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You can no longer play the game your own way if you're levelling, that feature has gone out the window (its by the bins along with the personality system and the game's eSports ambitions). Play the game ANet's way, please - where skills are unlocked when ANet say you're ready - wouldn't want to overheat your likkle brain by challenging you in any way.<br />
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Unfortunately, ArenaNet hold the lion's share of the cards when it comes to this arguement: we've got only anecdotal evidence and experience, but ANet have, presumably, done user testing and those tests have shown that holding an item in your main hand takes up almost 100% of a new player's cognitive capacity, and providing them with an item to feebly grasp in the other is just far too psychologically taxing unless they've been playing the game for a good couple of hours.<br />
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I'm exaggerating for comic effect. But the truth is that ANet have already disregarded our opinions on this new experience. <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2etzxq/a_fresh_start_the_new_player_experience_in_guild/ck35771" target="_blank">We are simply too experienced with the game to have a valid opinion on what a new player's experience with the game might be</a>. Even when we were new players, we weren't <i>really </i>new players like the new players are now - we had watched all the videos, voraciously absorbed all the information ANet were willing to divulge about the game pre-release and then when the game finally dropped we rushed in alongside many thousands of other super-fans and experienced the whole thing together. How could we possibly know what its like to be a player coming in blind nowadays?<br />
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Well, a whole lot of us are what can legitimately be called "experts" when it comes to Guild Wars 2 (studies show that someone can be judged to be an "expert" after <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cG49BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=expert+7500+hours&source=bl&ots=erOuSFiwkk&sig=K2-1KX01rFCkWzhzxv_ONON-Vds&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_HMQVISNMorpaK_-gbgM&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=expert%207500%20hours&f=false" target="_blank">7500 hours</a> of interaction with a task or concept) but just because we are experts does not mean we don't know what it is like to be a new player, just like how <i>not being an 8 year old doesn't mean you can't teach an 8 year old the alphabet.</i> It really doesn't take an expert to know that <i>hiding key features from new players so as to teach them how to play the game</i> is just arse-backwards.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-75788431389795960232014-08-26T02:43:00.001+01:002014-08-26T02:43:43.724+01:00[GW2] Flipper Tested, Aquaman ApprovedIn these troubling time of community chaos, bad PR and dilapidated dungeons I think its important we refocus our attention on the important issues facing the Guild Wars 2 community:<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Why is it that we don't have more underwater breather skins?</span></b><br />
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I mean, the opportunity for flavour is immense, many of humanity's greatest tales take place deep below the sea, and they've come up with innumerble means through which us feeble fleshy pods can venture deep below the waves. Just a few ideas I came up with on the fly:<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Bubble Head Charm</span></b><br />
This is perhaps most famous for being the charm used by Cedric Diggory and Fleur Delacour during the Tri-Wizard Cup in Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. In the movie these character use the charm to rescue their friends and family from the bottom of a lake. Interesting piece of trivia: Fleur also used it to steal a sneaky glance at Edward Cullen all wet before he became a vampire. The more you know.<br />
Imagine your character with an undulating bubble of air surrounding their head instead of the boring old mouth-breather they currently have. That'd be pretty sweet - eh? EH?<br />
The effect could encompass the entire head, or just the mouth and nose. Maybe it could even expand and contract as if your character is breathing?<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Big Old-World Divers Helmets</span></b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG1_abTHlpgkHINASmrJdsX_mP-YPMCJ3gNNtsT9DOQOY1a1fkpC0v-AHa674qdbJmQwJgUYrk2CEWW4MH9PeQzCS23T70rqMzAoINvSD07IWnEHuPoMdJGGerxt3T0JpDVYNOwfeX2wI/s1600/1943-schrader-us-navy-diving-helmet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG1_abTHlpgkHINASmrJdsX_mP-YPMCJ3gNNtsT9DOQOY1a1fkpC0v-AHa674qdbJmQwJgUYrk2CEWW4MH9PeQzCS23T70rqMzAoINvSD07IWnEHuPoMdJGGerxt3T0JpDVYNOwfeX2wI/s1600/1943-schrader-us-navy-diving-helmet.jpg" height="200" width="145" /></a>Olde-worlde divers donned cumbersome diving helmets to provide a constant supply of air and to protect their head from falling fish and sharks and stuff. The helmet had a pipe which lead to the surface and air was constantly pumped down to the diver. Crucially, the helmet was just a part of an entire air-tight suit (you couldn't just pull the helmet on and hop into the ocean, you crazy person. tsk).<br />
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I guess the whole suit would be a bit of overkill for simply underwater-wear (though, perhaps an outfit for when we take on The Deep Sea Dragon? ANet? Gotta get dat Gemstore dollah), so in-game we could make do with just the helmet resting on our shoulders and we'd have to suspend disbelief and trust that it provides adequate oxygen (perhaps a pipe could also trail from the top of the helm and fade off a couple of foot above the characters head?)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghzZmhnDL34dUgzdhYfXyk0EoMdAyS6GWUgAGi0mFynqDVp9uO3vviXZ7Qsh5kKzTetQNhkvetc_qMMtfd4Lcy3hYAOT0jWIfSliJRUdHNcNd5LZdmWf9_Cprbbm5nxg7V3sqps72KUyQ/s1600/636px-Conceptual_Artwork_of_Viktor_Krum_(Half-human%2C_Half-shark).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghzZmhnDL34dUgzdhYfXyk0EoMdAyS6GWUgAGi0mFynqDVp9uO3vviXZ7Qsh5kKzTetQNhkvetc_qMMtfd4Lcy3hYAOT0jWIfSliJRUdHNcNd5LZdmWf9_Cprbbm5nxg7V3sqps72KUyQ/s1600/636px-Conceptual_Artwork_of_Viktor_Krum_(Half-human%2C_Half-shark).JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Some Kind of Animorph?</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Again - an idea I stole from that one chapter in Harry Potter, so sue me. In the book/film Viktor Krum transforms himself into a half-shark-half-man-bear-pig in order save Hermione from the lake and sneak a peak at Edward Cullen all wet n stuff. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm no marine biologist, but I reckon ol'Vik must have changed into a Bull Shark ((<i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Carcharhinus leucas</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">), </span>one of the fresh-water versions - thanks wikipedia), but there's no reason why we as open minded Tyrians of</span> the world couldn't branch out. Alligator heads, seal heads, PENGUIN HEADS come on people, seriously. Jees.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Freaking Snorkel</span></b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLje1gkJtX3MPS71eSemuT76Wz-1Zz849MjDcpePm1YFLMEdoAvlKaZY197E7jHh-5LBaAUWhGUYS2v1xhUZQ6JJE_EhZnisqX_ngXn9WBkX0wLE3tc21VwTtLQJTQSev-9IXzzeeRYT0/s1600/SNORKELING.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLje1gkJtX3MPS71eSemuT76Wz-1Zz849MjDcpePm1YFLMEdoAvlKaZY197E7jHh-5LBaAUWhGUYS2v1xhUZQ6JJE_EhZnisqX_ngXn9WBkX0wLE3tc21VwTtLQJTQSev-9IXzzeeRYT0/s1600/SNORKELING.jpg" height="135" width="200" /></a>I mean - why isn't this already a thing? Hang on, let me check the wiki to see if this is already a thing...<br />
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It's not. Seriously? Stick it on the Gem Store for 100 gems and I bet people would buy it. We've already got the goggles skin and the aqua breather skin - just stick them together and poke a pipe out the top. Bobs your uncle, Fanny's your aunt. Thanks ANet I'll expect a cheque in the post.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Kevin Costner style Gills </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">(<span style="line-height: 18px;">Are they merely vestigial or are they functional now?)</span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Just kidding. Kevin Costner, Ew.</span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-33126516712916095792014-07-08T02:25:00.002+01:002014-07-08T02:26:43.985+01:00[GW2] 5 Glaringly Obvious Omissions from Guild Wars 2There have been a lot of improvements to Guild Wars 2 over the past (almost) two years (!!), but there are still those few features which - if they were in the game - you would not even mention to a friend who you were trying to convince to play the game, because they would probably think they are in the game already. These are features which, for some reason or another (time, the engine, finances, goblins disrupting production), ArenaNet refuses to introduce, despite them being either heavily requested or absolute no brainers.<br />
<br />
<b>1. Filtering the TP for Wearable Armour</b><br />
Seriously, why doesn't this exist?<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCdTFpxDMk9cZu4WbcmRDx6QupjoKmGGHGtr6g8JvdE-hLr6jZxEbiqV97BXCL23p_6Xc16Tvnk3QqceXKGbKoJcAJgT45QQ_Y4SmAqySxcO8_rpxCbwkCHNFqOi06gsyH8QB2ENkXoIY/s1600/Untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCdTFpxDMk9cZu4WbcmRDx6QupjoKmGGHGtr6g8JvdE-hLr6jZxEbiqV97BXCL23p_6Xc16Tvnk3QqceXKGbKoJcAJgT45QQ_Y4SmAqySxcO8_rpxCbwkCHNFqOi06gsyH8QB2ENkXoIY/s1600/Untitled.png" height="153" width="200" /></a>Currently, when you search for armour about your level in the trading post you get all of the armour around that level, regardless of whether you're able to wear it. My Guardian is sick of having the silly caster skirts and endless trenchcoats suggested for his wardrobe - he simply doesn't need them. It makes searching for armour a complete pain.<br />
I see the TP as like a spreadsheet and, surely, amongst the metadata for each wearable item there must be an "armour class" column - light, medium, heavy? Right? Just give us the option to select one of the three by which to filter.<br />
Or better yet just give us a "Filter for items I can equip" button. That way all we would need to do is set a lower level limit and all of the wearable items for our level would be shown - jackpot!<br />
<br />
<b>2. Filtering the TP for Back Items</b><br />
Whilst we're at it - why can't we search for back items? They're a wearable piece of gear, yet the TP offers no support for searching for them. Instead you have to be a master in the dark arts to find the special combination of search terms to find them. Muchos confuso.<br />
<br />
<b>3. First person mode.</b><br />
This is the first of a few "we had it in GW1" features. Completely different game, I know, I know - but every other MMO seems to have a first person mode, so Guild Wars 2 seems to fall just that little bit short. You zoom and zoom and zoom until finally - BUMP - you hit the back of your head and can go no further.<br />
The screenshot takers amongst us are at a loss.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVBmJ5lsLclIGWr5qQTlSSmV9J4CqyfT9vNN5q34Wq_eyEERl5DuLOqjNK22PyfFz8uhOIO5Cc9VLBq6Ik2GOZWnKum-_P0neGG2CsfG5mI2udee4SK3zumLQpZHk_PLtUYzFkjaP5qr8/s1600/gw332.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVBmJ5lsLclIGWr5qQTlSSmV9J4CqyfT9vNN5q34Wq_eyEERl5DuLOqjNK22PyfFz8uhOIO5Cc9VLBq6Ik2GOZWnKum-_P0neGG2CsfG5mI2udee4SK3zumLQpZHk_PLtUYzFkjaP5qr8/s1600/gw332.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<i>"Nice screenshot - it would be a shame if someone were to, I dunno... get their fucking head in the way"</i><br />
And don't tell me to buy a tonic to change into an air elemental and zoom right in - its not the same!<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8uzbnPmJUtEMLg3_ooLOpnXNYDTr9ufwX5EZJ09xBn5w8sdpIDu6StOotkQzNlWY4eQ9XXbEFKuGDd912aJAwj34-kwMDOIkCWwwjIbxrdR5jQfH3L58J2oPquh2dsJhrJNYLdkGT2GM/s1600/gw258.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8uzbnPmJUtEMLg3_ooLOpnXNYDTr9ufwX5EZJ09xBn5w8sdpIDu6StOotkQzNlWY4eQ9XXbEFKuGDd912aJAwj34-kwMDOIkCWwwjIbxrdR5jQfH3L58J2oPquh2dsJhrJNYLdkGT2GM/s1600/gw258.jpg" height="200" width="91" /></a><b>4. Guild Capes</b><br />
Or capes in general. Maybe the server would explode if it had to render 300 fluttering mantles during a WvW zerg, but considering the avalanche of back-gear we've recieved over the past couple of years its incredible we haven't yet recieved the item no self-respecting guild warrior would leave home without - the humble cape.<br />
<br />
<b>5. Hiding the Quest Log</b><br />
I did a survey last year for my ergonomics class. I surveyed 400 GW2 players to find out their opinions on the UI. The absolute top requested feature was the ability to customise it further, and out of the many suggested customisations - the ability to hide the quest log reminder in the top right was absolute premium.<br />
For those altaholics amongst us, sometimes we don't want to be reminded that it's time for us to take back claw island, or to assist a Queensdale resident, or Dwayna forbid - tackle Zhaitan. We'd like to put that little bit of the game out of our minds for now and focus on other things, but noooooOOooo we have to be constantly reminded with flashing and obnoxious green stars everywhere we go.<br />
At the community meet-up I went to a while back Colin Johansson said that this was to ensure that newbies knew where they were going. Well, thats all very well and good Colin - but give us more experienced players the option to turn it off, please? Put it on by default, sure, but just the option would be nice.<br />
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<span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">Honourable mentions for glaringly obvious features now implemented after far too long: minis not depositing with materials, wardrobe for our gear skins, TP text size actually readable, last log-in date for guilds... etc etc</span><br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-35057761123510160242014-06-17T10:31:00.000+01:002014-06-23T10:42:06.525+01:00[Hearthstone] Dreamhack Final Controversy Over the past few days the biggest (to date) Hearthstone tournament at the Dreamhack festival in Sweden. With a $10000 prize going to the winner, it was a pretty big deal in the community, and it was all the reddit and other community sites could talk about for the days preceding and during the tournament.<br />
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The final boiled down to two very good players: the popular Korean streamer Amaz and the less well known, but no less skilled, RDU.<br />
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The set was a best-of-three series - throughout both matches RDU seemed to be receiving a lot of innocuous messages "hi mom!" etc. But during the final few turns of the second game the messages changed in nature:<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At the bottom left is RDU, and at the top is Amaz. The message reads (roughly): </span><i>"he still has a bow and a hunter's mark" </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
It's worth putting this message into context for those who don't know Hearthstone, because that small amount of information is very important for how the match progresses.<br />
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">Context</span></u></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyhZA4mnWalV9d5cAiohBjeBbQslD7S_M5ycZsl6dt-rJFspL-W_VRbkJD2MhMllD3OrFwO_2jXdnGk83IcczNQg2aPeF0eAwpjGv44u9DSnaRT0QbrP-txiRvzGFuBqdvgKpLiC8fmkE/s1600/Alexstrasza(303).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyhZA4mnWalV9d5cAiohBjeBbQslD7S_M5ycZsl6dt-rJFspL-W_VRbkJD2MhMllD3OrFwO_2jXdnGk83IcczNQg2aPeF0eAwpjGv44u9DSnaRT0QbrP-txiRvzGFuBqdvgKpLiC8fmkE/s1600/Alexstrasza(303).png" height="320" width="227" /></a>At the bottom of the screen is RDU, his hand of cards is laid out in front of him, in front of his hand is his Mage hero (with his HP indicated by the red "1"), in front of that is the board (with an Azure Drake in play) and then on the other side is Amaz's Hunter hero (29 health) with 2 secrets in play (the green "?"s) and a single card in his hand.<br />
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RDU knows that Amaz has very few options, with only a single card in hand. But Amaz has a substantial health lead on RDU - being almost at full health with 29, with RDU on the verge of death with just 1.<br />
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RDU himself has a single secret in play - an "Ice Block" which, when he takes fatal damage, will protect him from dying till the end of that turn. He is holding an Alexstrasza card: a big minion card which can bring a hero to 15 health immediately - he can choose to use it on himself (to bring himself up from 1 to 15 health) or use it on Amaz (to bring him <i>down</i> from 29 to 15 health).<br />
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This card is vital for RDUs deck: the aim being to use Alexstrasza on the enemy before the turn you intend to kill them, then pass the turn to them knowing that you cannot die during his turn due to the Ice Block protecting you. You then burst them down with spells the next turn for the win.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyVtN2S0IE7otkaGENVTtroLIzPr2Xv5TN3UOLy208lrm_BiAKwYTYQojDbuprtp9SwXjjIOrAZqN0wjsuCggesCiHI4POsDjHcBuZkjt_rgZVtoKtkLF5xtTX_-qMyvyMEJWV3uXupU/s1600/Ice_Block(28).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyVtN2S0IE7otkaGENVTtroLIzPr2Xv5TN3UOLy208lrm_BiAKwYTYQojDbuprtp9SwXjjIOrAZqN0wjsuCggesCiHI4POsDjHcBuZkjt_rgZVtoKtkLF5xtTX_-qMyvyMEJWV3uXupU/s1600/Ice_Block(28).png" height="320" width="228" /></a><br />
BUT the Hunter, in his arsenal somewhere, has a card called "Flare" this single card is unique in Hearthstone in that it removes secrets from the board. If Amaz has this card in hand then the win is his - he waits for RDU to play his Alexstrasza and pass the turn to him - then he plays his Flare, removing the Ice Block and he swings in for the lethal damage and the $10k prize. Its important to emphasise that this play would not be uncommon and, indeed, we'd already seen it earlier in the tournament - in an earlier game Reynad held a single Flare in hand the entire game (holding off on numerous chances to play it earlier) in order to play it after his opponent played Alexstrasza and to swing in for lethal damage.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRM-9pRvxpRhDIC2EA-Nfln4hjNjNrBc5sLUEWprwqgprINCg9H_mK745dfzz-u4rBi_7I5MyURs_hUmTOyCm3-NfP_cMZiHnkW7uBfxyyZdD23nPKvZoV1giq3orzfgzdZ7waMp71a8A/s1600/Flare(630).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRM-9pRvxpRhDIC2EA-Nfln4hjNjNrBc5sLUEWprwqgprINCg9H_mK745dfzz-u4rBi_7I5MyURs_hUmTOyCm3-NfP_cMZiHnkW7uBfxyyZdD23nPKvZoV1giq3orzfgzdZ7waMp71a8A/s1600/Flare(630).png" height="320" width="228" /></a></div>
The safe play then, for RDU, is to use Alexstrasza on himself - bringing himself up from 1 to 15 health and allowing him to attempt to win the game in the long-run.<br />
But with this new piece of information - Amaz only has a "Hunter's Mark" card as the single card in his hand - RDU doesn't need to worry about Flare. Consequently, he is free to reduce Amaz to 15 health and pass the turn - safe in the knowledge that he can do 15 damage to him when the turn is passed back to him (double Fireball (6x2) and a single Ice Bolt (3)) and there is nothing Amaz can do to stop him (unless the single Flare card in his deck is pulled off the top of the deck that turn - which is unlikely) - and of course that is what happened.<br />
<b style="font-size: x-large;"><u><br /></u></b>
<b style="font-size: x-large;"><u>The Upshot</u></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>
Firstly, and perhaps most importantly (because this contradicts message that Artosis and other guys surrounding the event have been saying) regardless of whether RDU arranged the message - <b>there is absolutely no way you can guarantee that the information did not effect the way he played out that turn. </b><br />
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Granted, whether Alex'ing himself or Amaz - RDU still had a very good chance of finishing the match off. If he did Alex himself then he'd still be able to deal 24 damage to Amaz next turn through spells and the minions on board (likely taking only a couple of points of damage in response), before doing a possible 10 damage with Pyroblast the next turn. So it was unlikely to alter the outcome of the match - but you simply cannot guarantee it, you cannot account for the longer turn leading to possible miss-clicks (particularly because this was one of the, if not the, first pro gaming tourney to be played on a tablet), you cannot account for Amaz potentially getting a really lucky draw and being able to cycle his cards till he gets his Flare and enough damage. Stranger things have happened, and whilst it is very unlikely, I don't think you can argue with absolute certainty that it wouldn't have happened this time. So making the argument that "it doesn't matter" is incredibly short sighted, it absolutely does matter if a player is receiving outside help which influences their decision making process, and how it came to happen needs to be investigated.<br />
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I'm not saying RDU in any way organised for this message to be sent to him: it would be pretty stupid of him to tell someone to just obviously blurt out the contents of his opponent's hand during the turn. It is being filmed, after all, with thousands of people watching in the arena and countless others watching the stream, it would be utterly <i>ridiculous </i>for him to even consider attempting to cheat in this way. I believe it is more likely that he has some pretty slow people on his friends list who don't know how to act appropriately.<br />
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So my second point is: unlike <a href="http://www.twitch.tv/trumpsc/profile" target="_blank">Trump</a>, I believe that RDU is absolutely responsible for the kind of people he adds to his friends list. He's not responsible for their actions, but he is absolutely responsible for adding them in the first place, and if they are going to act like complete idiots during one of the most important moments of this guy's early gaming career then perhaps he should reconsider their place on that list.<br />
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Finally, the community's response has ranged from dismissing the incident as inconsequential to the outcome of the match, therefore not worth debating. To calling for disqualification for RDU and the awarding of the prize money to Amaz (who, incidentally, still received a $5k prize for second place). Disqualification or even a replay seems unlikely now - the tournament is over and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOJxX4l9Kqk" target="_blank">even Amaz has asked people to drop this particular path</a>, which I think is wise.<br />
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<br />
But I think it is important for a few things to be learned:<br />
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For Blizzard - we need an <b>observer mode</b> to allow easier access to both sides of table. Hearthstone, in the short few months it has been running, has evolved into one of the biggest pro-gaming scenes out there. Eclipsing Magic the Gathering as an eSport at least. An observer mode is absolutely vital, not only for the big tournaments such as Dreamhack and the upcoming Blizzcon Tourneys, but also for smaller scale community driven tourneys such as Deckwars and iHearthU's King of the Hill.<br />
We also need a <b>"tournament mode" </b>for the friends list, which will block all incoming and outgoing messages whilst it is active. I think that's a no-brainer.<br />
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For players: <b>you are absolutely responsible for who you add to your friends list</b>. Particularly at the moment when there is no way to block messages if you're in a competitive setting. It shows a lack of maturity and forethought to add random people to your friends list who might act in such a way as to compromise your reputation - as has happened at Dreamhack for RDU.<br />
I honestly don't think the community will let RDU forget this particular event, even if this all blows over he will always be remembered for this particular incident, simply because it was so public, there was such a large amount of money on the line and his opponent Amaz is such a popular player in the community. His lack of forethought will have long-standing repercussions for the perception of him in the community for a long time to come.<br />
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EDIT: Turns out Amaz is Chinese, not Korean, my bad - *slap on wrist*<br />
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EDIT 2 (the Salt Continues): So the third placed competitor, a popular streamer called<a href="http://www.twitch.tv/reynad27/profile" target="_blank"> Reynad</a>, who was beaten in the semi-finals by RDU, has straight come out and accused RDU of cheating (in both his semi-final game and the final itself) and agreed to put his own money on the line in a one-off match to win the title from RDU.<br />
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First off, he needs to grow up. He can't throw his money around and essentially lay down a gauntlet that a 17-year-old RDU can't really afford to run. That leaves Reynad in a pretty comfortable position to say "well he won't play me because he knows he will lose" - that is the arguement of a <i>bully </i>and regardless of RDU's actions during Dreamhack, Reynad should be pretty ashamed of himself for that.<br />
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On the flip side, this is further evidence against the Artosis arguement of "all the pros agreed to drop it". And, unlike some of the people Artosis is likely to referring to - Reynad is one of the players directly effected by RDU's supposed cheating. I don't think, at this point, it can be just "dropped" - and the organisers of Dreamhack really really need to take a look at the games and their set up and consider a course of action. If, ultimately, this comes back to "drop it" then so be it, but Reynad needs to let other people take care of this rather than starting some kind of one-man schoolyard bullying campaign against RDU.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-17471576161502323572014-05-01T11:30:00.003+01:002014-05-01T11:37:41.244+01:00[GW2] Living Story Season 2 ThoughtsMy fellow Brit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzMNn41Itl4">WoodenPotatoes</a> put up an interesting (and very well researched) video about what he expects (and in some cases, kinda hopes) to see in Season 2 of the Living World. There are things I agree with and things I don't and I've been tossing this particular post around in my head for a while, so when WP posted his vid I thought it might be about time to try to coalesce those thoughts into some kind of cohesive word structure.<br />
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I think there are three <i>main </i>threads ANet are going to have to address in the next season, simply because it would leave far too many questions open if they didn't touch on them. In addition to these three main ones, there are innumerable other questions which still remain unanswered from Season 1, and even more which persisted even before the Living World was introduced. I'm only going to cover the biggies in this post though, and they are Lions Arch, Mordremoth and the Black Market Traders.<br />
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<b><u>Lion's Arch</u></b><br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
At the end of Season 1 Lion's Arch (LA) is kinda like the ruins of Zanarkand in Final Fantasy 10: a ruin of its former self, it feels more sad than dangerous. Lion's Arch is such an icon for many Guild Wars players, and has been right from the very start of GW:Prophecies all those years ago. LA has been a focal point of trade, community and celebration.<br />
Unlike WP, I don't think they'll wait too long before starting the process of rebuilding. For one, I don't believe they could justify it lore-wise: LA has already been re-secured and wrestled from Scarlet's forces; the many thousands of people who lived there and the numerous traders and factions who operated out of the city simply wouldn't stand for it staying a ruin much longer - it's bad for business!<br />
But, as WP rightly points out - the Captain's Council, those responsible for running LA, are in ruins themselves. They are without a base of operations and they're battered and bruised. They will probably require assistance to get the city back up and running.<br />
Obviously, they'll get help from us, but I think that there will also be other interested parties:<br />
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I think the rebuilding of Lion's Arch will likely involve some interaction with the <b>Consortium</b>. This shady conglomeration of traders have been actors in the Living World from the start, they were heavily involved with the early parts of the story, but their involvement dropped off as Scarlet became the focus of our attention. I think this kind of operation is exactly the kind of thing they'd like stick their grubby little hands into, and the Captain's Council, under pressure from the traders and factions of LA and without the man-power to do it all themselves, will have to cede a little power and give the Consortium control of the project.<br />
I believe it will be up to us as players to gather resources, artisans and, most importantly, gold and bring it to the Consortium who will put it all to work in rebuilding the city. I don't believe this will be plain sailing, and I think this will eventually lead to us discovering a lot more about the Consortium's motivations and ultimate end-game. Additionally, I think that LA will still suffer from the aftereffects of Scarlet's drill boring a hole in the centre of the port and into the ley-lines beneath.<br />
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That is my conservative estimate about how the rebuilding of LA will go down. If I were being a little more optimistic I might suggest something a little more daring:<br />
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<u><b>Mordremoth</b></u><br />
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We know that the Tengu retreated behind their walls in response to the rise of Zhaitan*, but how long can they stay cooped up (lol, puns) in their fortress now they know that the Elder Dragon has been defeated. It's reasonable to assume that the emergence of Scarlet was further justification (in their eyes) to keep the walls up and the gates closed, but I think now that evil has passed they will be more open to interaction.<br />
The rebuilding of LA will require a fresh look at the place, perhaps new materials and new building techniques will lead to a more defensible and efficient city overall. But where might we get these new materials? Perhaps behind the Tengu wall?<br />
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Furthermore, we know that the next big threat that Tyria will face will be the "Jungle Dragon" Mordremoth. It's long been theorised that this dragon will have strong ties to the Maguuma Jungle and so we will be combating this threat in new zones in this area. The Tengu were able to retreat behind their walls because they could shut out the terrors of Zhaitan as he was focused on Orr and the Krytan coasts, but the Jungle Dragon seems to have his eye fixed on Maguuma, which would put the threat much closer to home for the Tengu - maybe even on their side of the wall.<br />
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This is more what I'm hoping for, than what I'm expecting: but I hope that Mordremoth begins to threaten the Tengu lands beyond the wall and, seeking help from the rest of Tyria, the Tengu reluctantly open their gates to allow heroes to pass through and assist in the defense efforts. In return for assistance, the Tengu promise to help rebuild Lions Arch with new materials from the Dominion of Winds.<br />
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What this would mean is that, at least in the early parts of the Living World Season 2, the story will not push us north-west towards Bloodstone Fen, but instead take place in the Dominion of Winds between Caledon Forest and Lion's Arch. I believe, like WP, that Mordremoth will have some connection to the Pale Tree and Caithe's secret. But, I think this new dragon will directly threaten The Grove and the Dominion of Winds rather than impacting first in Maguuma to the north-west - (perhaps through a new (TBD!!) dragon Champion in this area?)<br />
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Later in the story I don't see why we wouldn't progress further towards the Bloodstone (an incredibly powerful seat of magical power - ie, dragon food), towards the dragon's lair - I think that would be a fascinating story, but for the moment, at least, I hope that we will be able to peak beyond the wall.<br />
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<b><u>The Black Market Traders</u></b><br />
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Right at the end of Season 1, during the celebration at the Dead End Bar in Divinities Reach, we were introduced to a new character: Belinda Delaqua - the sister of the shark-jumping necro Marjory Delaqua. Belinda is a Seraph, and has recently been reassigned to the Brisban Wildlands - a section of the Maguuma Jungle which borders Caledon Forest and Kessex Hills.<br />
She has been reassigned from Fort Salma in order to investigate and combat a group of black-market traders who are headquartered in the Wildlands. You don't just drop that kind of Chekhov's Gun without following it up, one would hope.<br />
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The Brisban Wildlands is already a pretty heavy bandit infested area, so it's not unreasonable to expect some nefarious activity to stem from the zone. Bandits in Lionshead Outcrops can be seen building a bridge leading to a currently unreachable portal - if we eventually gained access to this portal it would lead to an area north of the Wildlands (closer to the Bloodstone etc in the north).<br />
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It's difficult to say what this storyline might lead to. I think it might eventually lead to an excuse to open up a zone north of Brisban and lead to encountering Mordremoth dragon-spawn further into the Maguuma Jungle. I don't believe, however, that this will happen straight away. I think this will be a parallel storyline to the one leading to the rebuilding of Lions Arch. I think the first parts of Belinda's story will take place in Divinities Reach and Brisban itself, rooting out bandit-holes and secret underground markets. Once the rebuilding of LA has begun in earnest and we start encountering Mordremoth dragon-spawn in the currently existing Maguuma Jungle (and the Dominion of Winds), I think we'll then eventually move through the new portal in the North to combat the HQ of the traders directly.<br />
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As to who these Black Market Traders are, and what they actually want. Well, it's difficult to say. Nefarious traders screams Consortium to me, but they tend to work out in the open, with a corporate front, rather than in secret. Perhaps it could be less-than-savoury characters scavenging items from the ruins of LA and selling them on in Divinities Reach? Who knows, I'm quite looking forward to being surprised by this storyline... It may even simply be a filler in order to give us something to swing our swords at while they work on the Mordremoth story.<br />
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There are countless other questions which I'm looking forward to having answered over the coming months: the mysterious "E", the importance of Canach, Caithe's secret, the second Pale Tree, why rise of Tequatl, Rox and the warband, the effects of the ley-lines, the "TBD" meta event, numerous other Elder Dragons, Hobo-tron and the minstrel, Super Adventure Box and Moto, Taimi and Braham and perhaps even GWs' first same-sex marriage. I can't wait.<br />
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*Whilst WP states that he thinks that ANet will have to do some kind of reemergence of Zhaitan (to put right the currently woeful end of the Personal Story) I don't think this is the case, I think they'll patch the PS to make it more compelling and then leave it at that (and I don't think that will happen any time soon).Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-51662311099175338862014-04-22T12:13:00.001+01:002014-04-22T12:13:18.875+01:00[GW2] Rediscovering the LFG SystemAs a replacement for the good old yell in general chat, the in-game LFG system has, in the past, had a rather uninspiring run. I've always been part of a reasonably active guild, so it usually isn't too much of a problem to gather 2/3 people together and then try to pick up (and ultimately probably carry) a PUG through a dungeon path or fractal run.<br />
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However, with the latest update requiring all accounts to run through the Story mode of each dungeon in order to unlock the attributed PvP reward path, I've been dusting off my little level 45 thief and turning my eye on a few of the story modes.<br />
Even with this update encouraging at least one run through, there still isn't a huge influx of players looking to do story modes. Old players only need to run through it once more after all, and no-one is looking to the story mode as a means of repeatable content they can return to for a regular income. So, as is customary for me, when I came to do the content a few days after the initial rush, I had to turn to the LFG system to scrape together a rag-tag bunch of PUGs to get the job done.<br />
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And I have to say, I've been pleasantly surprised.<br />
The system worked fine: I posted my advertisement, within about 15 seconds I had a team together and we entered the dungeon. That's it. That's absolutely all I needed. No bells and whistles, just "this is what I want to do" "That is also what I want to do, lets do it together".<br />
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Honestly, I don't know why I was so surprised - but I was! For a long time I've been floundering in this game, I completed my second legendary and turned towards yet another long-term crafting goal (Infinite Light) but that was just because I really didn't know what else to do. Any and all time spent afking in LA (or Gendarren) was time wasted, I've got a thesis to write after all. If I wasn't afk then I was hopping from meta-even to meta-event, doing the same 7/8 events over and over was becoming soul-crushingly tiresome - if I'm going to waste it then I want to waste it doing something fun!<br />
I think I started to think that there was nothing left to do in the game which lead to boredom and frustration, but with the LFG system I've been able to rediscover some of the early-game enjoyment I had in the very first few weeks of the game by re-exploring the story mode and explorable paths of the earlier dungeons. I'm hoping to progress this exploration of the world of PUGs into the more difficult areas of the game and whilst I recognise that this is riskier, I've never had a horror PUG experience (excepting PvP) and I really hope this good-PUG-luck can continue.<br />
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Having said all that, they could do with making the system a little more visible.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-28738810853565593262014-03-24T11:34:00.003+00:002014-03-24T11:49:16.928+00:00[FIFA] How KSI Monopolised the Kick-Off and Nep Crashed the MarketFIFA has a strange community. I often think that it might be so strange because the players aren't primarily gamers, they're primarily football fans. Nothing wrong with that, of course, I count myself as a fine helping of both.<br />
Compare the community to something like Guild Wars 2 - obviously the game community with which I've been most involved. GW2 has a whole myriad of media circling it - official and unofficial blogs, numerous active forums and reddits, Twitter feeds (concerning news, lore, fansites etc etc) and podcasts. FIFA, conversely, has only a few fansites (sparsely updated), a few twitter feeds, little interaction with the developers (they <i>are</i> EA after all) but perhaps the most active and vibrant element of the FIFA community are the YouTubers.<br />
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For Guild Wars 2 we've obviously got some big YouTubers (Woodenpotatoes, MattVisual etc) but they mostly act as news/opinion sites. The FIFA YouTubers, for a lot of people, are venerated as deities. KSI, perhaps the biggest of the lot, has recently been on an<i> international</i> University tour and has attracted massive crowds just to come and have the chance of playing a game with him.<br />
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As an example of how influential these YouTubers are on the community, here's two cases where a single video has effected the way the <i>entire game </i>is played:<br />
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1) On 11th October 2013, KSI posted the following video:<br />
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It details a cheap method to score a goal straight from kick off by passing straight back to a midfielder once you've kicked off and then simply whacking the ball up the field to a big striker. It abuses the incredibly poorly programmed AI of the defenders in FIFA 14. It's a method of scoring which was around around 3 years ago, but we generally thought that advances in AI had squashed it, apparently we were wrong - it's become known as the "KSI kick off" and is incredibly frustrating to go up against.<br />
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The outcome KSI posting this simple two minute video is that EVERY SINGLE PLAYER is now doing this exact method straight from kick off. 90% of the time it doesn't actually work, but whether or not it is successful is entirely based upon the luck of the draw, will your defender stand around like a numpty or will he be in the right place to head it away? Who knows, lets hope the luck is in your favour. KSI is just one guy, but he's managed to influence the play-style of 75% of the players of one of the most popular games in the world.<br />
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2) Another popular YouTuber Nepenthez, made short video "Easiest Trading Method EVER!" The general idea being "buy cheap Irish players a month in advance in preparation for the St Patrick's Day Cup, when their prices will drastically rise".<br />
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A simple idea, but it was so influential that everyone bought Irish players, and I mean EVERYONE - the price of Rep of Ireland players rose steadily for the month between the release of the video and the much-anticipated St Patrick's Cup. Then when the tournament was announced everyone dropped the THOUSANDS of players they'd been hoarding back into the market.<br />
Now, it doesn't take a degree in economics to work out what happens if you flood a market with players which <i>everyone</i> has already bought a month ago. What actually happened is that almost everyone invested thousands of coins into Irish players, and almost all of them lost all that money because <i>no-one </i> was buying them. No-one needed to buy them! They were trying to sell their stockpiled players, not buy more! The whole thing was a debacle.<br />
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These are just two examples of the strange position of power held by FIFA YouTubers. I'm not really placing any blame on them, they're just doing their job, but a single video can crash the market or influence the play-style of the entire community, and I don't believe that is necessarily a good thing.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-8530800939457389252014-02-07T13:00:00.004+00:002014-02-07T13:00:58.800+00:00[GW2] E is a Chekov's Gun<div>
The question of who "E" is might prove to be one of the most important ones we can ask over the coming weeks. </div>
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I'm viewing it as somewhat of a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun">Chekov's Gun</a>* at the moment - the only interaction with "E" that we've had is that one mail around Dragon Bash which asked us to contact Marjory Delaqua (and tell her "E" sent you - she later confirmed she has no idea who it is). </div>
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Whilst this brief interaction might not suggest a large role at the moment, plot devices such as a "mysterious stranger" are rarely inconsequential when applied in good storytelling. So, as our various questions get answered and we begin ticking off the remaining mysteries, the ones left unanswered will become more and more important (and suggest a centrality in the narrative). </div>
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Contacting Marjory has proven to be a pretty good move - she has been instrumental in taking down the Tower of Nightmares and puzzling out Scarlet's clues in the Dead End. This would seem to be a pretty big tick on the "Good" side of the debate regarding E's intentions. </div>
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On the other hand, who knows how deep the plan might go? Perhaps E's Machiavellian scheme includes bringing Marjory into the equation. Without Jory and Kasmeer's anti-toxin, Scarlet wouldn't have been able to perfect her poison, after all. </div>
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It's difficult to say at this stage. I've got a feeling one of the continuing threads after we finally take Scarlet down will be either the identity of the big-bad who is controlling her or the identity of E (or both!); and it will be this question which will take us into the next story arc.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*<em style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." - Anton Chekov, 1911</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><i>ps. Could it be Ellen Kiel? ANet wouldn't call them "E" without "E" being in their name. Plus, the story would work just as well if we'd voted Evon Gnashblade into office (?) I dunno. Just wankin' in the dark here.</i></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-42296617737941423872014-01-03T14:49:00.001+00:002014-01-03T14:50:06.344+00:00Five Easy Steps to being an Utter D**k in HearthstoneHave you tried, filled with sincerity and naive hope, to play Hearthstone honestly and conscientiously? Using balanced cards and solid, well-thought-out decks? Have you done so and found yourself smashed for the 50th time by some who simply outplays you and has the audacity to wish you "Well Played" before finally finishing you off? Did this infuriate you beyond belief?<br />
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Perhaps you should try <b><span style="color: red;">being a complete dick</span></b>!<br />
Being a dick is the number 1 way to get the most out of Hearthstone. Why try to learn the mechanics of the game, make value trades and maintain board control and card advantage when you could just be an utter dickwad about the whole thing and frustrate your opponent into submission?<br />
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<b>Step 1: Remember to abuse imbalanced cards and decks. </b><br />
Build a cheesy deck which requires little more than a simple keyboard face-roll to execute. You don't want the game to distract you from your quest towards dickification - throw out your minions willy-nilly. Try warlock murloc or one of the one-turn-kill decks. Even if your opponent beats you, it's not because of you: they cheated, the game is broken and you weren't trying anyway.<br />
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<b>Step 2: Be <i>patient</i>.</b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHV2OBfO-ea6LBZZsDArzj0HbcNY9rsD8W6-MuGSKrjaznSfBmGwwsW-_UTi1GtN_YLbYYoCHEA1KDDfpyeitdeTdxvIzA3TrPP9Vv9RyzBHiE6kST_Gb64QIiBGCVmjVY4VwC194sBIo/s1600/axsfagfs.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHV2OBfO-ea6LBZZsDArzj0HbcNY9rsD8W6-MuGSKrjaznSfBmGwwsW-_UTi1GtN_YLbYYoCHEA1KDDfpyeitdeTdxvIzA3TrPP9Vv9RyzBHiE6kST_Gb64QIiBGCVmjVY4VwC194sBIo/s1600/axsfagfs.png" /></a>The race to become a dick-maestro is a marathon, not a sprint. Remember to wait out every turn and pass only when the timer is about to run out. Especially turn 1: turn 1 is the most important turn and even if you have no cards you can play it's important to give yourself the longest time possible to enjoy this moment. You and your opponent are going to have an experience together, he or she will thank you later for allowing them so much time to enjoy quite how much of a dick you are. Remember, the most important quality a dick like you can have is <i>patience</i>.<br />
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<b>Step 3: Be as <i>impatient</i> as possible.</b><br />
Your opponent is being an asshole if they make you wait any longer than 2-3 seconds before passing the turn back to you. Remind them of this fact by continuously taunting them. Say "Greetings" or even "The light shall burn you!" whenever possible. The chat clips are condescending for a reason, remember to use them as often as they are available. For maximum effect remember to pop Draxxus and shout "OBLIVION" 50 times.<br />
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<b>Step 4: Never say "Well played".</b><br />
Your opponent is a scrub and you bested them - in both the game and life. Say "Thankyou" before stealing a minion with Mind Control, a quick "Sorry about that" before finally opting to finish them off and, of course, 50 "OBLIVION"s every time you make a move will really add a dickish finesse to your playstyle.<br />
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<b>Step 5: Never finish your opponent quickly - even if you have lethal.</b><br />
Your opponent will appreciate the time you take to clear their board, taunt them a few times and shuffle the cards in your hand - perhaps even play a couple of minions and pass the turn if you know they cannot retaliate. It's all part of the dicksperience which you and your opponent are going through together: savour it! Rest assured that your opponent is most likely sitting at their computer with tears of adulation in their eyes, slowly clapping and shaking their head. "I can't believe this dick" they'll likely say.<br />
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Just follow these five simple steps, as many thousands do every day, and the path to complete and utter dickdom will open to you.<br />
Friends and co-workers will mutter "dick" or "wow, what a dick" or even "Hey, is that X, I heard he's a complete dickhole!" as you saunter past.<br />
Enjoy that, you dick, you've earned it.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-1862478825773124812013-12-24T13:12:00.002+00:002013-12-24T13:12:48.514+00:00Sincere Christmas Message ep4This message is written from my parents living room - Virgin still dragging their feet over connecting our new internet - apparently "oh, don't worry, we'll have you in before Christmas" doesn't necessarily mean by <i>this Christmas. </i><br />
But I guess at least that introduces the main thing which has changed for me this year - I bought a fricken house. Like an adult! Weird, right?<br />
<br />
So, I've lived without internet and TV for about a month now. There's only so many DVDs of Game of Thrones you can watch before you feel like poisoning a monarch. Sorry, spoilers.<br />
It's from Season 1, get over it.<br />
<br />
So, our new abode is like a fort of boxes and large blue Ikea bags - no fit place for Christmas dinner. So I'll be back in my parents living room again tomorrow. However, having been without internet since 29th November I've gotta ask you this question:<br />
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Is it ok to bring my laptop and use their wi-fi on Christmas day?<br />
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If it is, then you might hear from me again tomorrow. If you don't hear from me, then let me wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.<br />
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Ta,<br />
<br />
WillAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-50453799117447001302013-10-23T15:42:00.001+01:002013-10-28T13:09:06.666+00:00[GW2] Why GW2 will never be an eSport in it's Current FormatI can't see a way for Guild Wars 2 to succeed in eSports in it's current state.<br />
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I've tried watching a few of the big match-ups on Twitch TV etc. Frankly, the whole experience is disorienting and confusing. My familiarity with sPvP is relatively limited, and you might make the argument that this could be the reason why I struggle to keep up with the casters, but should inexperience really be a drawback for enjoying an eSport? Surely a game which wants to be seriously considered as a viewable competition should cater for newbie viewers? And, as a layman, there are a few vitally important improvements which I feel ANet need to take note of:<br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>1) The observer mode is, pure and simple, abysmal. </b><br />
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In many ways it's a step back from the one we had in GW1. First of all, it can only be accessed in one single space - the sPvP lobby (in GW1 you could start observation from anywhere in an outpost), and this requires you to approach the sPvP NPC and choose from the long list of potential games to watch. How am I supposed to know which is worth watching; which contains the "pro" players and which are just scrubs messing about?<br />
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You can only view already running games and have no access to any past matches. Not only does this mean that 95% of the time you are going to miss the start of the match, but it means that if there is a specific match you want to watch, but for some reason miss, then there is absolutely no way to view it unless someone used a third party program to record the footage.<br />
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In GW1, the observer mode picked out and recorded the top GvG, Heroes Ascent and (at one point) Hero Battles of the day and displayed them to you. Allowing you to view them when you want, or as they were happening, from wherever you were in the world. <b>We absolutely need to bring this feature back.</b> I don't care about Joe and Jane Newbie fighting their insignificant battles, I want to be able to view the top players and I want to be able to view them when and where I like.<br />
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<b>2) No ability to pause, rewind or fast forward games.</b><br />
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This particular problem is obviously linked to only having access to present and running matches.<br />
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Whilst I appreciate the effort that shoutcasters have gone to try to explain and keep up with action when they're casting the various sPvP tournaments, you can only follow one player view at a time and sometimes events will happen so fast - arrows, particle effects, stomps, leaps, jumps all happening in the space of a few seconds - that the events on the screen get incredibly confusing. Trying to watch a twitch stream in 480p as the caster jumps from player to player dragging the camera across the map to try to cover all the salient events actually can be a nauseating experience.<br />
If the caster had the option to pause the action, rewind it and switch views to catch again what might have been missed by the layman viewer, then the whole experience could be far more enjoyable and just a whole lot less messy. Giving this option to players in general would allow them to watch games at their own pace, reexamine interesting and insightful moves from the best players in the game etc.<br />
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I understand the technical difficulties which this poses. Giving players the option to pause the action, and then allowing them move about the paralysed landscape with a free camera would give the designers nowhere to hide when it came to level and character design: fireballs frozen in mid-air, arrows stopped just at the point of impact, every graphical element of the game crystallised and open for scrutiny and examination. Neither GW1 nor GW2 has ever had a system which freezes players in place, so it would have to built from scratch (and require the current observer mode to be, essentially, scrapped).<br />
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<b>3) The "Domination" style of capturing various points on a map simply doesn't create a compelling narrative.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Think of the most popular eSport formats: Starcraft 2 and LoL/DotA 2 - both of these games feature maps which have a similar basic narrative - two opposing and opposite teams - fight your opponent back across the map and eventually back to their home base and destroy them.<br />
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The same went for GW1 GvG. If you loaded into a GvG battle halfway through you could quickly see who was the dominant team simply by the placement of the two parties, you could probably draw a line across the map which indicated where the "front line" was at that point. It was like two glorious armies locked in battle: a mistake by a warrior could see them overextend and cause the monk to have to move forward to heal and expend more energy, thereby forcing them, and consequently the entire team, to retreat backwards to reduce pressure. The game ebbed and flowed like that, the entire team moving as a single unit (or, sometimes, as two units if they split). But on occasion you'd see a totally crazy or heroic play from one or two members of a party which could snatch victory from the very jaws of defeat.<br />
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The current format does not display this kind of advantage/disadvantage dichotomy in an interesting way. If you load into a game and one team is 280 points ahead you know there is very very little chance of the other team bringing the game around, no matter how inventive or heroic they are - they simply won't catch up. The format doesn't seem to allow for that "all or nothing - here we go!" attitude which other eSport formats seem to include.<br />
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In GW1, the further you pushed your opponent back towards their base, the more difficult it would be for you to maintain pressure and the easier it would become for your enemy to wipe you out. They'd get support from NPCs etc, their resurrected allies would have a shorter distance to run before rejoining the fray, whilst you would be moving further and further away from your own res shrine - giving your own fallen allies further to run. Maintaining pressure on the enemy and totally defeating them by pushing them back into their own base and still wiping them meant you had entirely dominated them.<br />
The domination format in GW2 doesn't have this kind of variation, whether you're winning or losing your fallen allies have just as far to run, as do your enemies, if you are dominating your opponent you only need to sit on points and wait for the points to tick over and the game to end - rather than the far more compelling narrative of pushing through and truly ending it with a Guild Lord kill (but, in the process, giving your enemies a chance at wiping you out in their base and rebalancing the board!). It's simply not as exciting.<br />
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So, to summarise: the format is awkward to access, and if you can access it, the feature lacks usability, and if you CAN access it and fumble through the interface... the content isn't hugely compelling anyway.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-37970275841466705212013-08-11T20:02:00.001+01:002013-08-11T20:02:03.382+01:00[GW2/FFX] Liadri Brings Back Bad Bird MemoriesYou know the one thing in gaming-memories past which the fight with Liadri Concealing Dark recalls?<br />
A good portion of you reading this will be familiar, no doubt, with the Chocobo racing minigame from FFX. If you were a completionist like I was, then you would have no doubt spent several hours playing this thirty second to one minute minigame over and over and over in order to gain Tidus' sigil.<br />
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The idea was that you ride a chocobo across this large plain. Your ride might be somewhat unruly and occasionally the bird would attempt to pull you one way or the other and you had to pull them back to compensate, at the same time you had to dodge flocks of birds which fly at you and slow you down/add several seconds to your overall time. Conversely, you had to collect balloons which would deduct seconds from your score.<br />
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In order to complete the game and gain Tidus' Sigil (and so, his final weapon) you had to finish the race<span style="color: red;"> IN LESS THAN 0 SECONDS</span>. Impossible? Well, not if you collected a tonne of balloons and weren't hit by a single bird during the entire run!<br />
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My point is that you had to play it <b>completely flawlessly</b> otherwise you'd mess up, hit a bird and it would all be over. I can't tell you how many times I played a perfect game, got right to the end only to be hit by a bird just before crossing the finish line (mainly because they seemed to spawn right at the end, and could just swoop down on you before you could react).<br />
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The feeling I get fighting Liadri is that exact same feeling - that breathless, blood-pumping urgency which comes with a high-pressure situation mixed with a touch of randomness (curse those stupid pulling-orbs) with the anticipation of a big payoff if you could only play that one <i>perfect round. </i>Its that feeling which stops me from packing it in after the thirtieth time round, and keeps me shelling out for consumables and armour repairs.<br />
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I'm not 100% sure I enjoy it. But it's certainly a rush.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1182065070606726937.post-75673780617144001092013-08-07T23:46:00.005+01:002013-08-07T23:50:13.534+01:00[GW2] Requisition me another Million Clockwork Punching Bags<a href="http://i.imgur.com/pmRtM9F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://i.imgur.com/pmRtM9F.jpg" width="140" /></a>So - these writhing hoards of centaurs, pirates, destroyers and flame legion are enchanted clockwork automatons covered by very convincing mesmer illusions?<br />
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And we are tearing through them like they're going out of fashion. Millions and more have likely been utterly smashed to smithereens by our fireballs, arrows and the edge of our blades.<br />
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So who's paying for all this?! Are the coffers of Divinities Reach utterly endless?! There is obviously some poor bugger going around after us, collecting all the bits of broken metal and <b><span style="color: red;">still </span></b><span style="color: red;"><b>sizzling metallic arse-cheeks</b></span> and mackling them back together again.<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;">As the indomitable Sergeant Nicholas Angel says:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><i>"<span style="line-height: 18px;">Well, I wouldn't argue that it wasn't a no-holds-barred, adrenaline-fueled thrill ride. But there is no way you can perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a considerable amount of paperwork."</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
<b>No wonder the bloody things went haywire</b> - they're obviously shoddily made to cut the costs!<br />
*cough* sorry, SPOILER.<br />
Mark my words, we're heading to a double-dip depression in Tyria. Bulk-buy your canned goods now.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01909713428481327028noreply@blogger.com1