About gold and gems

So about a week ago all hell broke out when Arena.net posted about their micro transactions. I'm not sure what people were expecting since for me it was pretty much a given that their would be micro transactions.  There was at the same time, and my say with malicious intentions imho, leaked images from the store.

The reasons seems people are angry that Arena.net is trying to make from their game.  I mean how "dare" a business try and make money.  It's a totally absurd to point of view.  How do you expect Arena.net to maintain servers over the coming years with just the upfront payment when you buy the game?  A game I might say that is cheaper than most other PC games at places like Kalahari.net (linky)

Then their are others that are saying that people can buy power.  Being able to buy small XP boosts that last an hour is hardly going to make you more powerful that someone who plays the extra 10 or so minutes to get the same amount of XP.  Everything that has been leaked of the shop relatively benign and you don't need them to succeed in the game.

And then their is being able to trade the gems you buy with real money for ingame gold and vice verca via the Auction House.  I applaud this.  Hopefully this will cut down on gold spammers in general chat.  It also gives a solution to both those who want to buy gems with real money and those that don't want to.  It will give both groups access to the shop.  Don't want to spend your real money to get something from the shop, play more. Want an item from the shop and you don't want to play more then pay for it.  As Benjamin Franklin would say: "Time is Money".

Who am I

Posting this as an entry for blog carnival for character diversity that GuildMag is holding. I first heard of it from the Under the Pale Tree blog (brilliant Guild Wars 2 blog btw) and decided to make my own post as well. This is the character I will playing in Guild Wars 2

My name is Rhymelark and I was awakened from the dream to the gentle light of dawn filtering through the leaves of the Pale Tree. Our mother gifted me, while I was in the dream, with images of ships with graceful sails navigating the currents of rivers. The images entice my imagination and I know I can not long stay here in the Grove for the river calls me. Quickly I will have to learn what ever I can in the Grove while I can still resist its siren call.

With a last glance at the Grove I will cast off and follow the river and explore its length and follow its hidden the tributaries to the wonders that they may hold. I will cast my lines in its flowing waters and at night feast on its bounty under the setting sun. Who knows what adventures it holds for me and what joyous memories I can add to the dream as thanks to our mother.

On the far horizon a storm is building and I may have to lay anchor and help defend the world from the threat that the dragons pose. When that time comes I shall not shy from the conflict but ride out its tides and resume my journey once they have been delt with.

My fellow sylvari describe me as wistful and slightly absentminded. They are incorrect in thinking so. I pay close attention to everything thing that happens around me. I just do not cast the same importance on things as they do. While they endlessly wish to discuss the Ventari tablet I would rather watch the world around me and learn from it. I sometimes even sympathize with the nightmare court in their view that we rely to much on the tablet. I have even been approached a few times by them to join them. That will never happen though. Their ways are vile and they are blight on our mother.

I am a peaceful person and would rather rely on words to solve conflict. When words fail though be careful that you are not caught in the rapids of my anger for it will wash you away in a wave of steel . Never mistake me for being a lone easy target for I am never alone. Swiftleaf, my constant companion and friend, is always with me. She like me was born from our mother and we mirror each other perfectly. Where my sword strikes from the front a fanged bite is sure to follow from behind.

[For those who have not guessed Swiftleaf is a Fern Mastiff (image below)]

Swamp Thing

I will shamelessly admit that I was first introduced to Swamp Thing by the old animated series. The show was terrible and got cancelled after a few episodes. But till today the character itself as always been something special to me. The character has been brought back into mainstream comics with The DC Blackest Night event (2009-2010)

With the DC reboot end of last year Swamp Thing has been given a new ongoing series with Scott Snyder at the helm. He has taken the world of Swamp Thing and instead of scrapping the old taken it and built it into something much greater and much more far reaching.

The art in this new series is just amazing. Yannic Paquette brings every single panel alive. When he is depicting nature you are astounded by the beauty. Plants look like they are about to grow from each page. Each panel is also beautifully decorated with intricate borders which just add so much to each page. Where he really shines though is where he needs to draw something disturbing and with this being a horror comic it is really needed. You will feel revolted and disturbed when you meet the creatures Swamp Thing will be up against.

This is not a fast comic. It takes it's time to set the scene and build the atmosphere until we Reach the end of issue 6 and then issue 7 where the gears start shifting setting the stage for issue 8 where characters will no longer just react to the horror around them but fight against it.

This is the comic I most look forward to every month and can't wait to get my hands on. If you decide to pick this comic up I recommend you pick up Animal Man as well. They are both dealing with the same enemy and will carry on to a crossover arc later this year. This is not to say you can't read Swamp Thing without reading Animal Man just that it will add so much more to the experience.

Thank You

I have a lot of people to be thankful to in my life. But one person has given me much to be thankful for.

To say I had very little interest in reading when I entered high school is putting it lightly. I was more interested in watching TV to be honest. Yet when I entered high school my English teacher decided to give us the choice of either reading or getting homework. We either had to read 4 books no matter how thick they are or read 400+ pages. To say I started half heatedly is putting it mildly. I remember my first few reading lists consisted of Tintin and Astrix graphic novels with a few choose your own adventure titles thrown in between.

After the first quarter of standard 6 I discovered the Belgariad series and my love for fantasy was born. I quickly started reading more than my target I should read each month. If I heard of a book that was not in the library I asked them to get it. (of course this normally took more than a month or so to come since I lived in a small town) I still read at least 3 books a month these days. I have my favourite authors, Trudi Canavan and Robin Hobb being my top two :)

Because of my love for reading and fantasy I started playing DnD and made some good friends and through them made even more.

And this all started through one simple homework assignment of reading.

So Thank You Mam for introducing me to the wonderful world of books. I am eternally grateful to you for it.

Excluded

I've been feeling pretty good lately and been a tad more positive than I normally am. Yet yesterday I noticed that I am being excluded from groups of friends and their activities. I often can't make it cause of the remoteness of where I live. But as often as I can afford I make the effort to drive out to these so I can join them even if it means I will have very little sleep for the next day of work. I want to hang out with my friends even if I can only do it once every second week. It is something I look forward to and I enjoy.

It feels like that is being taken away from me. It may not be intentional (or it may be *shrugs*) but it does hurt.

I start wondering what I did. Did I offend them? Am I not good enough?
Some people think they are being nice and that they are not hurting my feelings by not telling me. More often than not this makes me feel worse. Be direct tell me what's wrong and at least give me a chance to work on it if it is something I did. If you decide that you don't want to be friends with me anymore just tell me. I will keep my interaction with you to a minimum with you without being rude to you. I do ask though that you are considerate in the same way by not removing me from the whole groups activities which contain other friends of mine as well.

The Honeymoon Period

This is something that most MMOs experience from launch date to +/- 2 months after release. A flood of people get the game and with glossed over eyes they recommend the game to everyone they know. Queues to log into servers are extremely long; new servers get added to the server list and low level areas are flooded with players.

This I have seen and myself been engulfed in numerous times. (WAR, Aion, AoC, etc)

1-2 Months later though you suddenly see a dramatic decrease in players. Some server become ghost towns. People who proclaimed loudly for the game are now the ones that sneer at people still playing it.

The reason I am bringing this up at the moment is because I am being assaulted with this honeymoon infected players of Rift. People who have just started playing and those that have not played it yet but have become devoted advocates for the game. I get that they like the game or what they hear about the game at the moment but till the honeymoon period is over I am going to take what they say with a bucket load of salt.

Stab from the shadows

You've all seen them before or in this case not seen them until you suddenly see your character stunned and dead in a few seconds. Yes I am talking about those anoying stealth classes in MMOs.

The reason i am brining this up is because Guild Wars 2 has just revealed another class and that class is the Thief. To say I despise this class type is an understatement. Only game so far that I know that has gotten the class in an acceptable way is Lotro with it's burglar class.

These classes are normally high DPS classes that can pounce from total invisibility and kill you in a few seconds with out you being able to do anything to stop them. They also tend to get a bonus to dps with their first attack from invisibility and from the back. This is all supposed to be offset by the fact that they have light armour low hp. The problem is this is not really an offset since they can stay invisible near you for ages until it is the perfect time to kill you.

I do not believe these classes should have total invisibility. Slow them down when they want to move invisibly; make them slightly visible with distortion waves when they move; add a timer for how long they can stay inivisible; make it use up their stamina slowly as they stay invisible. Somehing has to be done to avoid giving them carte blanche.

I am hoping more info on the offsets of being invisible will be come available on how this class works when the class page comes up on the arena.net website.

Worry worry

It's been a while since my last blog. Too say things have been messy the last few weeks is putting it lightly. Things have been rather hectic at work. Coworkers have been laid-off. Some of these people have been working for the company more than 10 years so it came as a surprise when they were let go. This of course has put a lot of pressure on everyone else who now have to cover their work as well. This is also just the start of layoffs as I am hearing things. From rumors at work it also seems that our head office will be moving at some point in the not so distant future to Atlantis. This is not really all that surprising since the company have been for the last 6 or so years been building new factories and warehouse in Atlantis. How do i feel about the move? It would mean I live closer to Cape Town and can take part in more Social events with my friends on the other hand it also means I will also be paying more for rent and will probably not live 5 minutes from work anymore.

Pokening up the Cape

These little critters have been popping up on my radar the last few weeks.
Cute aren't they. But you ask what are they for?

To put it simply these are electronic business cards. But what they offer us as individuals is just so much more. How often have you come to a gathering and met a few awesome people and spent the next 10 minutes collecting their twitter, facebook and other social networking details? If you are me this happens on a regular basis. With a Poken you set up your information you want to share with people online which is linked to the serial key that you will share with the people that you will ^4 with your poken (touch 2 pokens' hands together). When you get back home simply connect the poken to your pc and upload the serials keys you got from ^4ing others and instantly you are connected with them. Easy fast nice.

Now you can spend more time socializing than scrambling about getting each others details.

For more details on the products you can follow the following link: pokencape

Splitting the Second

Oh deary me. So much to do so little time.

Once again I have somehow gotten my hours each day filled up.
I committed to reading 1 book each week of this year. Normally I read more than 52 books a year anyway so this is not that difficult normally. Yet I am struggling currently to make time for it and if I do make time for it I find myself falling asleep.

I am currently playing 3 MMOs namely World Of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online and DC Universe Online. Normally this is not so bad since I put a few hours into each of them. Unfortunately 2 of them have become very active lately and raids happen almost every night. Trying to avoid clashes of times between these raids of different games are becoming very difficult. I don't want to drop either cause I have good friends in both of them. Yet it is getting to that point. Then there are the other MMOs betas that are starting shortly. (Yes I am fully aware these are all self caused problems and that I am an MMO addict) If this was all gaming going on this could still be somehow manageable but besides these MMOs some of my friends have started playing L4D2 and DoW2 again and invite me to join them often enough. Thing is I want to join them and I feel bad when I tell them I can't come because of other demands on my time so I end up pushing these into my schedule.

Once a week is movies night with the Cape Town movie group (gathering of awesome geeks) I enjoy these outings since they seem to be the only thing I leave my PC for these days. On the other hand since I live an hours drive from Cape Town which has turned into a 2 hour trip thanks to road works going on on the N7. So I basically leave work, dress drive through grab something to drink with them watch the movie get back home and try to get 4 hours sleep in before I have to go back into work.

Then there is work. I feel no motivation to do my work at the moment at all. It is boring and frustrating. I'm pretty sure my work at the moment is to sit at my desk and just be there for when fingers need to be pointed. I am a system administrator of a very bad system which the company does not want to move from. The system would probably work for a small business that would be willing to change to fit the system, My company wants to change and manipulate the systems in such ways that it ends up breaking everything. To say I am a little fed up with being the scapegoat is putting it mildly.

Beside all of the above. Next month my Monday and Friday Dungeons and Dragons games are probably going to start again which will destroy what little time I have left for myself.

Roles in Groups

After reading a few articles today about people complaining about the dps of their classes I am once again reminded why I prefer the certain games more than others. Games like WoW limit classes to three roles DPS, Tank and Healer. Even though WoW has a lot of classes with interesting abilities you are shoved into those 3. You are constantly reminded by a DPS meter either one you have installed or someone linking the the DPS stats in chat. You are rated at how good or bad your DPS is. No matter what class you are or spec if you are signed on as DPS you are expected to have close to the same DPS as the others classes specs. The way dungeons and raids are designed in WoW it is rare that it would be expected anything more of you than how high you are on the DPS meter.

This is why I prefer games like LOTRO where dungeons and raids are designed more around roles and abilities. Besides the standard 3 roles mentioned above you have the Crowd Controller and the Group Buffer/Debuffer. It is not just the work of the tank anymore to do all the crowd control and it is suddenly not just about the dps meter but how useful you are to the group. Take for example the captain class it's damage is so so but look what it brings to the party. As it fights it gives buffs or short heal over times which eases the stress on the healer. He also comes handy with those ever useful combat rezzes. You get the Loremaster who is able to Crowd Control large amounts of enemies. Allowing you take on smaller groups at the time which eases the stress on the tank. She is also able to provide some much needed power to classes running out of power like a minstrel. And so the list goes on.

This in my opinion makes a game more fun to me.

Spring Cleaning

Last week week my kin (Guardians of Hope on the Gilrain server) decided that it was time for a change. We had been living in our cluttered hobbit holes for a few years now and it just didn't fit us anymore. We had fun times at Yarrowbank our old neighborhood. We had parties and mystery detective games though the years here.



Our new home away from home is in the Elf neighborhood of Eithel Ivrin. For hours after the initial move you could see hobbits, elves, dwarves and humans scurrying from the escrow person to their houses and back again. I think in the future when we move again I will buy a house closer to the escrow person XD

A toast to Guardians of Hope and our new neighborhood. May we build new fun memories in our new home.

I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night

he's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast and gotta be fresh from the fight... *cough*

Right, now that I have gotten that out of my system... End of last week I procured a copy of DC Universe Online (Damn you steam and the ease of purchase you make games) and after a lengthy download and then update I finally got to try the game. My over all impression is that I love the game so far. I get to fight along side iconic superheroes like superman and it feels like what I do actually matters.


(Dark Ember my heroine in the game)

Firstly those who are looking for a massive dose of customization you won't find it at the start of the game. You have a choice of 3 body types for each gender. the starting costume pieces you can choose from is also a bit limited. This does not mean you can not create a unique character from the get go that looks awesome. As you play the game you collect new costume pieces with stats. You can add these pieces to your costume list. It is good to note at this point that you can have a different appearance to the armour you wear. You can change your appearance as well as colour scheme at any time with out any in-game or out-game cost.



Playing the game it self feels like you are playing an action game rather than an MMO which is pretty awesome imho. You really feel much more involved while fighting than most MMOs I have played. I have been playing the game with my 360 controller which works excellently with the game. You can also play the game with keyboard and mouse but I can't imagine playing it without my controller now.

Now for the bad. The chat box is very basic and league (aka guild) chat is very rarely working. We have been told by the developers that this is being worked on and will soon be improved (see interview on Massively.com)

I have also moved from the EU servers over to the US (game allows you to play on both server groups) mostly because I got tired of going into instances and not understanding a word people are saying cause they refuse or can't speak English.