A father and chieftain doing the best for his people, a General and King doing their best to keep their kingdom safe, a Guardian with great secrets and an evil Warlock bent on conquering Azeroth, what do all these things mean? Warcraft!
Continue reading Review: Warcraft: The Beginning
Tag: World of Warcraft
Warcraft: The Beginning…and maybe also the end?
I love the world of Warcraft, the universe. I love the stories, the characters and its rich history—that is not without its retcons and mess-ups. Up until the moment I started country hopping, moving to a new place with frightening frequency (a little adventure I hope has ended), I collected and read every novel written in the universe. I enjoyed reading about the War of the Ancients by Richard A. Knaak, the man responsible for the entire Dragon lore in the Warcraft universe and many more stories. I loved reading Christie Golden’s stories on the Rise of the Horde and The Lich King. Jeff Grubb took me to Karazhan to meet Medivh and his increasingly erratic behaviour and possession by Sargeras. Continue reading Warcraft: The Beginning…and maybe also the end?
We Are WoW Players
All MMO players have their quirks that sometimes separate them from the overall gamer population. We’re a weird bunch no matter how you cut it.
I’ve played a few MMOs over the years, from Ragnarok Online to The Old Republic but by far the strangest and funniest bunch I’ve ever played with have to be the World of Warcraft crowd. Continue reading We Are WoW Players
RPG Triumph…and Defeat – Issue 2
Welcome to another exciting issue of RPG Triumph…and Defeat, where we tell the great stories from RPG campaigns, both the amazing and the downright humiliating. These are the stories, our legends, we tell our RPG friends, and even those that don’t play. Continue reading RPG Triumph…and Defeat – Issue 2
Attic Cleanup – 01-12-2013
I really should’ve written this a few hours ago, but gaming tends to make time go away in a hurry.
So, November’s gone, good riddance, and it’s time for the last weeks of this year.
So, how has the week treated me? So-so. Let’s start with me:
Continuing from last week, I spent most of this week, when I wasn’t working or WoW-ing, playing Black Flag, A Link Between Worlds and Pandora’s Tower, making significant process in each. In fact, I think I’m close to the end of Zelda, but there’s still one heart piece that eludes me and I don’t want to finish it without getting it…I’m kind of a completionist when it comes to Zelda.
The week was stressful, but thankfully I found the pleasures of Celtic Woman, an ensemble of fantastic Irish singers. While Youtube-zapping, I found myself listening to an entire concert, and it was awesome!
This week, Black Friday happened and tomorrow (technically today by the hour I’m writing this) is Cyber Monday, so there’ll be even more chances to ruin my economy with good deals, no that my economy needs more help in being ruined hahaha.
I saw Thor: The Dark World on Thursday and as I tweeted after seeing it, I thought it was “meh”, nothing special, not good but not bad, just average. I have too many issues with the game in terms of plot, characterization and even aesthetics. I’ll probably post a review for it this week, but I can’t promise anything.
This week, I finally finished Phoenix Online Studio’s Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller, a fantastic Point & Click adventure game I tried my best to hold off finishing because then I wouldn’t have more Cognition to play. It happens with good games and good books, you want to get to the end, but you also don’t want it to end.
On Saturday I took advantage of my dear sister’s Credit Card and bought Saint’s Row IV at a high discount on Steam and I’ve been playing it since, and while I’m enjoying myself, I find it lacking a bit, and I question some design choices.
Today, after weeks of trying, I finally got my Garrosh Normal kill on World of Warcraft’s Siege or Orgrimmar raid, so I’ve officially cleared the content, and Ahead of the Curve. It’s a pretty damn good fight, with a level of difficulty comparable to the Lich King, my favourite fight in the entire game.
On the Attic side, I had my review of Almost Human up and I recommend you all watch the series, it’s very good and has a lot of potential.
Kim, from 1001up.com, posted a fantastic Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned review, so if you’re interested in the game, go check it out, and don’t forget to read my rant about the game in the comments. Kim certainly wrote a nicer review than I would have.
Finally, after maybe a couple of months of promises, I finally wrote and published my Xenoblade Chronicles review, giving it the highest rating I can give, which made me think I should post my Rating system, which varies from TV & Film to Gaming, although both share the same lowest score rating of “OH HELL NO!”, which is a reference to Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias’ 6 leve-ls of Fatness. Look it up, it’s fantastically funny.
For this week I’ll have the review for the Cognition season. I think it’s easier than going into each episode separately, as they share many common traits, both good and bad, though mostly good hahaha.
I’m about 50% done on a piece on what makes good horror. It’s already been looked over/beta-read (the writing equivalent of Beta-testing) by my sister and a certain mysterious Dubliner, and neither thought it was garbage, so I think that part is solid.
Today (or yesterday if you’re keeping track) I recorder the 2nd of the reworked Deus Ex Human Revolution Director’s Cut boss fights, and I’ll have it up sometime this week or maybe I’ll hold off until I’ve seen all of them and post them all as a feature. I’m still deciding on that one.
On the stories side, I’ve been working on the characters and plot-lines for Igniters. I “retired” my Star Wars alternate-future diaries and journals. I’m going to do something interesting with that setting in the future, just don’t know exactly what yet.
Roberto’s next story is still in the works, I’ve been doing some mental-writing, building the first few scenes and running the plot in my head, and I’ve identified possible holes and some better ideas, and I’ll start putting it to MS Word either this week or the next.
Attic Cleanup – The Last Month…or so…
With some of my colleagues doing their roundups for the month/week, I decided to give them a shot. As V so kindly put it:
They’re fun and they don’t require too much thought, perfect for a Sunday eve.
So, let’s go over the last few happenings in The Mental Attic Continue reading Attic Cleanup – The Last Month…or so…
What kind of a DM/GM/ST are you?
What kind of a Dungeon Master/Game Master/Storyteller are you?
There are plenty of Pen & Paper RPGs out there and for each there’s probably a different term for the Storyteller, the person behind the plot, the villains, the conspiracies and sometimes the loot (which you’ll find in EVERY SINGLE GAME, be it a +1 Ballbusting Sword of Awesomeness or a Renraku Hyperdeck or a simple meaningless necklace of human fingerbones; so stop lying to yourself when you divide games into “loot-fests” and “real storytelling”). But in the end, what you call this person is meaningless, what is important is what kind of storyteller they are. I for one am quite evil. Well, not exactly evil, just not nice.
I think I should explain that a bit further. Continue reading What kind of a DM/GM/ST are you?
Stuff I like
Aside from Gaming and Writing and complaining about my crappy weeks, I have other things I enjoy, and I wanted to show my support to them by talking to you all about them.
Miracle of Sound: One of my obsessions lately. Miracle of Sound is one of the many and varied and highly entertaining stuff the Escapist Magazine has to offer.
Gavin Dunne aka Miracle of Sound composes and performs (mostly) videogame inspired songs, with cool videos using gameplay, promotional or in-game cinematic footage from the source material.
Gav’s music is fantastic, from a multitude of games and movies to original songs (by which I mean not inspired by anything but his own spark of insanity), and in pretty much every genre and style you can imagine, from the strangely alluring “Khajiit Like to Sneak” from Skyrim (the first song I heard actually) to the classic rock “My Iron Skin” inspired by Iron Man 3. Gavin isn’t afraid to mix things up and take risks, such as mixing native chants in with his Assassin’s Creed 3 songs, or collaborating with other singers on his Bioshock Infinite song, to switching musical styles and tones on the fly on the same piece, the aforementioned Bioshock Infinite song being a perfect example. Continue reading Stuff I like