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Valve talks L4D2 demo and preorders, cross compatibility, PS3

no.spam@gameriot.com (Slapnuts) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:11:01 -0400

A recent press event in London allowed for journalists to hound Valve for some more answers regarding the mysterious of life.

Per usual they are remaining mum on the Half Life 2: Episode 3 front. Talking to Joystiq, Doug Lombardi laughed when questioned about HL2E3 and noted "Stay tuned! No news on that today." Hopefully it isn't too far along to where they can't take some of my advice regarding the sequel. I could be reading in to this or he could have been trying to be dismissive but the "no news on that today" almost makes me think there is news coming eventually.

Other interesting tidbits to digest include the fact that Left 4 Dead 2 preorders are doing much better than the original at this point though E3 2008 wasn't for another couple weeks on last year's calendar. Preordering the game will also get you access to the L4D2's beta before the game's release. I think this is a misstep on their part as with the success of the last game and considering all the complaints so far they should just have an open beta to quell or enrage the naysayers.

On the PS3 front there have been quite a few complaints that Valve is seemingly giving the system the shaft. They left the Orange Box port to EA and while it wasn't terrible it also wasn't quite up to Valve standards. Doug told Joystiq that "We have to get people under our roof who are dedicated, talented PS3 guys and then all bets are off". Basically they don't have the staff yet to really push for PS3 development which is a bit unfortunate for those who can't play their titles on PC or 360.

The also reiterate their goal of having cross compatibility between Left 4 Dead 1 levels and the sequel. They want this ability for those that own both games which would hopefully provide a seamless experience for us gamers. This is one of my few key complaints about the sequel so I hope they focus on addressing the issue until it is worked out.

There is various other chatter regarding the game as well in the Joystiq piece, be sure to check it out.

The continued lack of Episode 3 news is surely disappointing. I *****ed about it last year and I crossed my fingers before E3 but Santa Gabe has yet to deliver. I can't imagine it not being worked on at this point so hopefully one of these days Valve will surprise us and say Episode 3 is nearly done and you can see it in a few months.

Valve talks L4D2 demo and preorders, cross compatibility, PS3

no.spam@gameriot.com (Slapnuts) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:10:01 -0400

Prototype vs InFamous crossdress off

no.spam@gameriot.com (Captain Wales) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:21:05 -0400

After Zero Punctuation reviewed inFamous and Prototype in successive weeks host Yahtzee said he could not decide which game about "super powered ********" was better but would give the honor to the studio that made the best picture of the rivals protagonist in drag.

Well here are the entries:
Radical (makers of Prototype) had this image made up of inFamous' Cole McGrath in a Vegas showgirl style costume.

However I think Sucker Punch (makers of inFamous) have to win for this effort of Alex Mercer riding a unicorn.

(I dont know if it's worth noting but both pictures feature unicorns, just throwing that out there to see what conspiracy theories come back)

Anyway, I thought it just showed what good sports Radical and Sucker Punch are taking part in this and that not all is serious in the worl of game development.

So, discuss good people of the internet....

A Hero's Journal #2: The Hunted Hero

no.spam@gameriot.com (Vir) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:41:54 -0400

When deciding if I should renew my subscription to the digital crack known as world of warcraft, two things influenced my decision:

1. Retribution Paladins were no longer a joke.

and

2. I missed being e-famous.

The problem with e-fame however is there is always someone hunting you. People on the other faction try to gank you, embarrass you, and grief you in any way so they can get a little tiny fraction of your e-fame. Then of course there are those on your own faction, who will try to ninja loot you, swindle you, and just be dicks in general in an attempt to enhance their own e-peens.

The last time I left off, I talked about how the main problem I have when leveling Vir are distractions. It's so easy to get caught up doing something other than the boring, repetitive quests. My guildmate Biglight was skeptical that I'd make level 80 before the end of June:

The quests in Wrath Of The Lich King really don't help matters. It got to the point where I refused to help annoying NPC's.

You want me to rescue your bunny? **** YOU *****, I let your bunny DIE.   Life sucks, get used to it you whiney little *****.

I'm not sure what the deal is with Blizzard and little girls in Wrath of the Lich King. This one thought I was going to "eat" her. I was looking for the molest button on my action bar, when her mother came running up to save her.

What kind of mother leaves her little girl alone in a cave with a Retribution Paladin?

I always make time to reply to the gold farmers as well:

To break up the drudgery of questing I decided to do some instances. Most of them went as well as you can expect with the typical dysfunctional actions of pick up groups. That is, until I ran Halls of Lightning with two people from the guild "Overcharged" on Dethecus.

Our group was made up of a druid tank (harren), a paladin healer from Overcharged (Destinity) as the group leader, a DPS paladin (Monster Pally) from Overcharged, a DPS Deathknight and myself.

Everything ran smoothly for the most part, with all of us rolling and looting honestly up until the last boss. The last boss, Loken drops some DPS plate gloves.   MonsterPally indicated he wants the gloves, the Deathknight says he's going to roll on them.   Then Destinity decides to turn on "Master Looter" and start the encounter quickly before anyone notices. Obviously she wanted to hand the gloves to her guild mate, and probably make a post bragging about how she ninja'ed Vir.

The gloves really weren't important to me, since they weren't that much better for leveling than my season 4 gloves. I just didn't like the idea of them ripping off the Death Knight.

So the Mangina and her guild mate ignore me and start the encounter with the druid tanking for them.    I'm annoyed that the shemale ignored me, so I decide it's my mission to wipe this group.    I throw Blessing of Protection on the tank.

This didn't cut it, mostly because Loken like all other "Normal" instance bosses is retardly easy. I figured I had to step up my sabotage efforts, so I used divine intervention on our tank.

That did the trick. It's too bad for Harren and the Deathknight, but someone had to dish out some justice to those bastard ninja looters in Overcharged.   Not to mention, I'm not letting those ******* run back to the forums and brag about ninja looting me.

After the wipe, hilarity ensued.

The other thing I had to deal with while leveling was constantly being hunted by horde players I had camped before. Holycry was a victim of my "Blood Elf Genocide" policy during The Burning Crusade, and thus he had alliance friends telling him where I was and flying out to every zone I was in just for a chance to gank me.

Fortunately paladins have a built in solution to this. The Bubble-Hearth!   I strongly disagree with this fortune:

Nothing could be more heroic than escaping from embarrasing screenshots!

Another level 80 I had following me as I leveled up was hazerdous.   Hazerdous has less skill than Holycry, but he was certainly more persistent.

In the end, none of the dirty whordlings could stop me from my goal. Reaching level 80!

Upon hitting level 80, I had Biglight make me a Titansteel Destroyer and some blue saronite plate gear.   With that, I decided it was time to get down to business!

Should I go instance and pick up some better gear? No.
Should I grind some battlegrounds for better gear? Nah.

Should I go corpse camp some lowbies in STV? **** YEAH.

As I'm having my fun terrorizing level 30's, a level 80 rogue tries to jump me.   He's fairly horrible, but I decide to run away since I've got crap gear and he might have friends around.

Then I get a message from someone on the alliance who I figured was in vent with him:

So I look up in my combat log, and it was Hazardous, the rogue who had been trying so hard to gank me while I was leveling. No wonder he was so persistent, I had camped him as a lowbie! Haha.

A few days later I'm in Stormwind and I get a message from a level 75 Deathknight asking me to duel. I figured he probably wanted to try something new out, so I road outside and accepted. I beat him pretty easly.   I didn't notice that he had the same name as the guy who was whispering me a few days before in STV for Hazerdous!

So I finally got it, this guy Hazerdous was REALLY stalking me. He messaged me a few days ago on his alt, acted like it wasn't him, then tried to duel me on the same deathknight because he figured he'd beat me but he lost badly.

On one hand, it's pretty cool that I've griefed so many people on my server that they come gunning for me. On the other hand, hazardous is a pathetic failure.

Later that night I decided to grind some Athari Basin with Biglight since it was AB weekend. We were winning all of our matches fairly quickly.    After one of the matches, I told biglight to check out my score. Even though we had won in 9 minutes, I was 0-11!     He cracked up. The whole match I had six guys camping me at the starting gate. When more than one person rezzed they just attacked me. Biglight attributed this to my charm.

After logging out for the night, I checked the Dethecus forums and I came across this thread.

It turns out the guys on the other team figured it was worth losing in 9 minutes because the true objective of AB is to kill Vir as many times as possible and then brag about it on the forums.

I love being e-famous! Until next time!

Resident Evil 4 Movie - Afterlife

no.spam@gameriot.com (Adrian Wesker) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:18:00 -0400

Milla Jovovich confirmed recently that she will be a part of the new, fourth Resident Evil movie and that shooting for the film will start at the end of the year.

This tidbit was gleamed from a paparazzi video, who after "stalking" Milla for a while, listening to her talk about her daughter managed to ask was she was upto next in which she replied that she was shooting at the end of the year. After asking to which project she was referring, Milla replied "number 4". Considerding that she has never done 3 of anything other than Resident Evil, this confirmed that she was to appear in her husbands 4th Resident Evil movie.

The news follows on from the conformation by Paul W.S. Anderson that he is indeed penning a fourth movie tentatively titled Resident Evil: Afterlife. The news came with the information that Capcom will be involved with the process and that a release date of September 17, 2010 has been set for the film next year.

The news seems to imply that Anderson will be following on from Resident Evil: Extinction, so an army of Alices seems very likely. Other specualtions about the setting of the film have leant in the direction of Tokyo, how much this is true however, is currently uncertain.

Below are some sources and other stories regarding the news:

SOURCE: http://io9.com/5307099/only-14-months-until-evil-takes-up-residence-again

Only 14 Months Until Evil Takes Up Residence Again

Start your countdown: the fourth Resident Evil movie (complete with multiple Millas) will arrive in little over a year from now.

Shock Till You Drop has received confirmation that the next movie in the one-time trilogy will be released on September 17, 2010. Called Resident Evil: Afterlife, Paul WS Anderson's fourth movie will - as we revealed last year - feature an army of Milla Jovovich's Alices taking on the Umbrella Corporation. September 2010 seems too far away already.

Confirmed Exclusive: Resident Evil 4 Arriving in Late 2010 [Shock Till You Drop]

Milla Jovovich has confirmed that that she will start shooting on 'number 4' at the end of the year, and we all know what she's already made three of.

SOURCE: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/92896-Milla-Jovovich-Signs-up-for-More-Resident-Evil

Just ignore the first minute or so of this video, unless you're particularly interested in Milla Jovovich's 16-month old daughter's opinions. What's of particular interest is her confirmation that she will start shooting on 'number 4' at the end of the year. A quick check on IMDB confirms what we all already knew, the only movie that Ms. Jovovich has ever been in that had three previous installments was... (drum roll) Resident Evil.

The third movie, Resident Evil: Extinction, defied the law of diminishing returns and actually made more money that its predecessors and after its release, the producers almost immediately started talking about Resident Evil 4. This comment from Ms. Jovovich suggests that we'll see Alice make a return as well.

Why we'd want to is a completely different question however.

SOURCE: http://shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=10972

Jovovich: Resident Evil 4 Shooting By End of '09
Source:HT July 2, 2009

Kudos to reader 'HT' for catching this! In a paparazzi video featuring Milla Jovovich out on the town, the actress says, "We're going to start shooting at the end of the year." When asked what she merely replies, "Number four!" implying the next chapter in the Resident Evil franchise. Sony would need to begin lensing on Resident Evil: Afterlife if they hope to make the September 17, 2010 release date we announced yesterday.

SOURCE: http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=10969

Confirmed Exclusive: Resident Evil 4 Arriving in Late 2010
Source:Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor July 2, 2009

Update: We have just received confirmation - the release date is true!

In spite of what any of the talent involved in Resident Evil: Extinction told us during the press tour (mostly, "this is the final chapter"), the film left the door wide - and we mean WIDE open - for a fourth installment.

Late last year, Paul W.S. Anderson revealed he was indeed writing another film. Capcom was getting involved. Everyone, as he said, was "excited." Well, we've just learned from a studio insider that Sony is looking to get Resident Evil: Afterlife into theaters by September 17, 2010. That's according to an internal memo circulating through the offices there.

Will Anderson direct? Unsure. Will Milla Jovovich be back? I think it would be safe to say yes considering the last entry ended on - SPOILER ALERT - Alice clones getting ready to seek revenge on the Umbrella Corporation which was holed up in Tokyo.

-(eVg)- Servers Up!

no.spam@gameriot.com (Sonata) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 12:55:47 -0400

My COUNTERSTRIKE SOURCE servers are UP!

IP: 68.232.163.53:27015

-(eVg)- 24/7 Crackhouse
Join it now *****es!

Tell me anything that should be done and it will be done..

3.2: Retribution Paladin Impressions, Deadly/Envenom The Way To Go? Shadow Dance Hero Reckful Goes Mutilate & BG9

no.spam@gameriot.com (Ming) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 08:05:34 -0400

Hope all the readers had a good July 4th! We stayed local this year for obvious reasons, how was your weekend?

Went on the PTR briefly last night, wasn't expecting much because there wasn't any real rogue changes, and without tier 9 / season 7 gear, the resilience change is absolutely devastating to the beloved rogue class. If you think the last PTR dueling event was difficult for rogues, this one is even worse as it is harder than ever to drop someone before you run out of cooldowns with resilience change slowing down the tempo. RMP will be very vulnerable to DK/lock/druid type of teams, at least earlier in the season, with DOT damage staying as is and RMP taking a flat 12% damage reduction. Rogue/lock synergy is probably not strong enough to beat DK/lock or warrior/lock. Destruction still has the same problem when it comes to getting an opening to nuke away, and your nukes won't hurt as much as it does now to end the fight instantly if left open.

Retribution paladin/warlock synergy superior to rogue/warlock synergy?

Yes, even in 3.2. Seal of vengeance does amazing sustained/burst damage, puts up a ton of trash debuffs to cover warlock DOTs, and comes with its own DOT unaffected by the 3.2 resilience change. Hammer of justice is every bit as effective as kidney shot if there is enough DOTs on the target to prevent dispel. Repentance is a long range blind on a shorter CD that does not share diminishing returns with fear. Blessing of protection/freedom is huge for warlock vs cleave teams, and cleanse coupled with fel hunter actually provides some decent defensive dispels.

A lot of people overreacted on the retribution burst changes, from my experience on PTR it is still one untrinketed hammer of justice and you are out, don't expect rogues to beat retribution paladins any time soon. They can literally stand there with a shield + one hand and flash of light off art of war procs + sacred shield to beat any warrior/rogue, without doing anything else. You should see more healing coming out of retribution paladins in 3.2 arena, and ret/affliction/healer should be one of the top teams. It gives them the damage of a double DPS team and the durability of a double healer team, and you have more flexibility in healer options than warrior/lock or dk/lock as well. The defensive stops ret bring to the table really help priest/shaman.

Affliction with some sort of DOT/envenom build may be interesting however. I tried dropping improved eviscerate (and a few points from lethality) for improved poisons/blood spatter. It is interesting in duels against heavy armor for sure, and some Korean rogues already run a similar build in 3.1. It probably won't work with RMP but should be a lot more effective with warlock comps. Deadly poison provides outstanding wound protection against shaman/druid teams, and with the attack power coefficient change, it is serious damage. I may even drop dual wield spec for 10% attack power (especially when using a fast offhand) like 41/0/30 to max out the DOTs. I saw this build in action against heavy armor in last PTR's rogue duels, it was pretty solid and hopefully, we will see it getting some main stream arena action to offer some variety to 41/5/25.

41/0/30 DOT: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#f0xfojToiroczZZebfbh0dbV:fiT

Shadow Dance Hero Reckful Goes Mutilate, & BG9

With Exodus, Reckful-kun's old guild suspended from the whole Yogg Saron fiasco, the shadow dance hero transferred to BG9 and in just one week his dual-comp (Rogue/Mage/Priest and Rogue/Ret/Priest) team hit the second spot.

Unfortunately, even the man who made shadow dance relevant is no longer playing the spec today, and with the upcoming resilience changes further hurting burst damage across the board, it is hard to imagine ambush/backstab coming back into action any time soon.

"Shadow dance would be a great spec if improved ambush increased ambush damage by 50% instead of 50% crit chance. 25% crit damage reduction makes your crits 50% less effective (+100% damage is now +50% damage), that is why I favor AP by an even bigger margin for 3.2." - Reckful

And it is hard to argue with the player who stayed with the spec for so long. Having said that, I think Reckful has the best blend of PVP/PVE gear of any rogue right now, can anyone beat his stats as 41/5/25 (with engineering + pyro rocket, which accounts for 100 base AP vs someone who doesn't have engineering):

On the other side of the spectrum

Litreocola put together a very interesting 27/0/44 shadowstep spec with full agility gem stacking. The result is pretty fear inspiring, 4236 attack power, 40.74% crit and 33% dodge. That is without any serious Uldular gear.

Subtlety's 10% AP and 15% agility scale amazingly well with late expansion gear, and with T9/S7 around the corner, will we see deep subtlety taking a big step forward? Cheat death and shadow step probably still can't match-up to deadly brew's double wound goodness and mutilate's vastly superior damage per energy, but with stats like Litre's it is getting interesting, probably a hemo buff away from going main stream.

I thought of a lot of ways Blizzard can buff hemo, but the easiest solution is probably making the debuff scale with attack power. 75 damage with glyph is 105 damage, not terrible at the start of S5, a joke at end of S7. Mutilate got its biggest buff with wound poison / deadly brew changes, if hemo added say, 300 damage to all of your white hits, 27/0/44 will definitely be a mainstream spec.

Also, with serrated blade offering armor penetration earlier in the tree, perhaps filthy tricks should provide resilience penetration? Shadow dance on one minute cooldown is great, but ambush still needs to do enough damage against high resilience targets. When a shadow dance kidney shot does similar damage of a mutilate kidney shot (keep in mind mutilate can take improved kidney shot), something is wrong.

ToT)ret( vs. KT.MGW)Grape - VODs now available!

no.spam@gameriot.com (PuertoRican) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 06:38:31 -0400

Just yesterday, one of the top 3 foreigners in the world, ToT)ret(, took on KT.MGW)Grape, a Korean pro gamer from the eSTRO team. The series was a success, as we hit a peak of 863 viewers in our live stream channel at Justin.tv

We’ll be having Ret take on another eSTRO pro gamer later this week, which will most likely be at the same time as this match was, (Saturday). Make sure to follow us on Twitter.com to keep up to date on this and other special events we’ll be doing in the near future at SCForAll.com.

The VODs are now available, so go get some snacks and enjoy the matches.

ToT)ret( (Z) vs. KT.MGW)Grape (P) on Destination
ToT)ret( (Z) vs. KT.MGW)Grape (P) on Neo Medusa
ToT)ret( (Z) vs. KT.MGW)Grape (P) on Colosseum 2

[DOTA] When in Roam: Be Roamin', The Garena CW Migration: Moving Up the Dota Food Chain

no.spam@gameriot.com (Ocedic) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 05:27:28 -0400

Having a hero or two roam is a common strategy in high level play, and with the many advantages it offers it's easy to see why. However, it's so counter intuitive to the traditional lane playstyle that players often resist it or roam improperly. So first, let's cover which heroes are the most popular and effective roamers:

Sand King
Effectiveness: 5/5
Synergy with Role: 5/5

Considered by many to be the best roamer in the game, Sand King works well because Burrowstrike is so strong. It's an AoE 2 second stun spell (including air time) and at rank 1 deals a hefty 100 damage. The best part is that it brings SK into melee range so he can begin immediate DPS on the target. SK is also a very item independant hero, basically requiring only Boots, Bottle and a Blink Dagger to be at maximum effectiveness. Bottle should be bought first when roaming and a Blink Dagger is fairly easy to farm as SK at any stage in the game (rank 1 Caustic Finale is all you need.)

Priestess of the Moon
Effectiveness: 4/5
Synergy with Role: 2/5

It's somewhat rare to see a PotM roam because she is a strong laner as well as a soft carry, so farming is good for her. However, her roaming capabilities are nothing to scoff at thanks to Elune's Arrow. From level 1 it's a potential 5 second stun, and her 600 attack range and great attack animation makes her a very nice early game DPS'er in general. PotM with DD can basically guarantee a first blood. She doesn't even have to be in a lane to have presence, as the fear of incoming arrows can disrupt enemy concentration.

Vengeful Spirit
Effectiveness: 3/5
Synergy with Role: 4/5

VS has an amazing level 1 stun. It deals 100 damage for 95 mana, allowing her to stun twice in the first gank making survival very unlikely for the enemy. She's also an extremely item independant hero, and usually being the ward b**** anyways makes her an ideal candidate for giving up farm to roam.

Earthshaker
Effectiveness: 5/5
Synergy with Role: 4/5

In terms of raw ganking ability, ES is arguably the best there is at low levels. The only issue is that ES requires much more skill compared to other roamers, but in the right hands the perfect Fissure is better than even a 5 second arrow. His ability to strike from a distance and cut off escape routes makes ES a very dangerous roamer. On the other hand, he's also a fairly strong laner and could use a Blink Dagger ASAP, so sometimes having him roam may not be worth giving up the lane presence.

Tiny
Effectiveness: 3/5
Synergy with Role: 3/5

Tiny's tiny mana pool early game and reliance on levels to maximize nuke damage are deterrents to his role as a roamer, but both Avalance and Toss are strong opportunity spells kind of like ES's Fissure. Avalanche in particular is a great stun especially for an AoE.

Chen/Enchantress
Effectiveness: 5/5, 4/5 (respectively)
Synergy with Role: 5/5

I originally was not going to bring up any junglers even though every jungler is loosely a roamer considering they aren't bound to any lane. But Chen/Enchant are unique in that their primary farming spells (charming creeps) are also their strongest ganking abilities. They do require some micro to take advantage of their ganking power.

Nerubian Assassin
Effectiveness: 4/5
Synergy with Role: 5/5

NA is often banned, but in those rare instances when you get him he makes a very solid roamer. His stun lasts .25 sec longer than Lion, which makes all the difference for ganking. His item independance is on par with VS, as he really needs nothing more than a Bottle. And Mana Burn can really put the hurt on the enemy even without kills, cementing lane control where ever this fat beetle decides to pop up.

Why XYZ Heroes Are Not Listed

I only included heroes that could roam effectively from level 1. So yes, Zeus and Tinker should be roaming and ganking but that isn't the type of roamer this article is about, as they gank with powerful nukes that need leveling up. Also, bringing up some roamers such as Lion would just be redundant, as he really doesn't offer anything more in that role that NA doesn't.

Either way, if you feel I left out a level 1 roamer which I probably did, you should share your thoughts in the comments.

General Roaming Tips

-Giving your team lane control is more important than kills. Meaning there's no need to hardcore tower dive and trade kill for kill. Just stick around and make life miserable for the enemy to disrupt their farm.

-The rune is your friend. Gank and roam based on the rune timer.

-Balance lane time and roam time. Obviously laning for an extended period of time defeats the purpose of roaming, but you still don't want to lag behind too much in levels.

-If it's an available option to you (ie no wards) then pull. It's an efficient way to deny exp while making up for your own xp/farm loss from roaming.

-Set priorities to who you lane with more. Lanes with carries, for example, you should sparsely lane but gank often. Lanes with gankers/support you can soak xp a bit longer, and gank less.

There's a lot more to roaming but honestly most of it cannot be explained or learned through text. It takes practice but honestly it's a lot of fun and very powerful when mastered.

THE GARENA CW MIGRATION

I've been wanting to play Dota at a more competitive level for a while now. So a few days ago I joined a league/CW team. To my surprise they were worse than my friends who I TDA'd with. And the people we played against were also quite mediocre. Yet the type of people who inhabit Europe Dota Clan War Room 1 + 2 are those that talk to TDA.

I don't even know what the hell this is.

So I talked to my old TDA team and convinced them that it's time to play at a higher level. We've played two nights (about 10-12 hours worth) of Garena CW and are so far undefeated. We're also signing up for Cevo and Eco League, so if any of you are playing this next season we will see you there!

We look forward to playing against better competition, and maybe random Russian nerds will stop acting elitist (but probably not.)

BERGSON SHORT HIATUS

I got a message from Bergson's girlfriend that his Internet is out until Tuesday or so. I'm currently debating whether to post in lieu of his absence or just let the days go by without content. I'll obviously decide soon, but don't be surprised when Berg doesn't post tomorrow!

Need for Speed Shift Review Request

no.spam@gameriot.com (Weronika) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 05:09:53 -0400

Besides commentary in regards to unrelated **** I actually need confirmation on the car roster for Need for Speed Shift, I don´t care how outdated everyone believes the Need for Speed franchise to be, my allegiance to old school hasn´t been waivered, yeah there were some lame additions but there is a promise of 37 years of sweetness in the vehicular department, so if someone would be mate enough to either confirm the roster or review the game upon it´s release since I´m a million miles away on an island, this being a plea in an effort not to get stoked over some more lameness and spend money on a game I´ll be using as a beer coaster. Audi review would be most appreciated.

2006 Aston Martin DBR9
2009 Audi R8 LMS
2008 Audi R8
2008 Audi RS 4
2007 Audi S3
2007 Audi TT 3.2 quattro
2006 Audi S4
BMW M3 E36
BMW M3 E46
BMW M3 E92
2008 BMW 135i Coupé
2009 BMW M3 GT2
2007 BMW Z4 M Coupé
2008 Bugatti Veyron 16.4
2006 Dodge Challenger Concept
2008 Dodge Viper SRT10
Falken Tire 2010 Ford Mustang GT
2010 Ford Shelby GT500
2007 Ford Focus ST
2006 Ford GT
2006 Need For Speed Shelby Terlingua
1996 Ford Escort RS Cosworth
2009 Chevrolet Camaro SS
2006 Chevrolet Cobalt SS
2006 Chevrolet Corvette Z06
2006 Honda Civic Si
2000 Honda S2000
2006 Koenigsegg CCX
2008 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4
2007 Lamborghini Murciélago LP640
2007 Lamborghini Reventón
2006 Lotus Elise 111R
2007 Lotus Exige S
2005 Maserati MC12 GT1
2008 Mazda MX-5
2006 Mazda RX-8
1995 Mazda RX-7
1994 McLaren F1
2007 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 722 Edition
2007 Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG
2008 Mitsubishi Lancer EVOLUTION
2006 Mitsubishi Lancer EVOLUTION IX MR-edition
2003 Infiniti G35 (V35)
1997 Nissan 200SX (S14)
2009 Nissan 370Z (Z34)
2006 Nissan 350Z (Z33)
2009 Nissan GT-R SpecV (R35)
2008 Nissan GT-R (R35)
2000 Nissan Silvia (S15) spec.R AERO
1999 Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34)
1972 Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R
1992 Nissan 240SX (S13)
2006 Pagani Zonda F
2010 Pagani Zonda R
2008 Porsche 911 GT2
2009 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR
2006 Porsche 911 GT3 RS
2004 Porsche Carrera GT
2007 Porsche Cayman S
2008 Renault Mégane RS
2007 SEAT Leon CUPRA
2006 Subaru Impreza WRX STi
2007 Lexus LF-A Concept
2008 SCION tC
1986 Toyota Corolla GTS (A86)
2008 Volkswagen Scirocco
2006 Volkswagen Golf GTI

Death Knights - The Root of All Evil

no.spam@gameriot.com (Fovea) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:22:24 -0400

Everyone knows that for millenniums, women have been the root of all evil. Equations, logic proofs and the church have all confirmed it.

However, it looks like we're coming to a new era in terms of evil.

Suddenly, when taking a closer look at the Death Knight, we realize that compared to women, women appear as pure as Kintt.

When the new millennium came, some, including Yiska, predicted the end of the world due to a prophecy told by Platon many years ago. Now the real word managed to survive, however, what Yiska didn't know was that Platon wasn't talking about the real world. He was talking about the World... of Warcraft.

On the millenium night, 9,5 years ago from now, a new Blizzard Employee, lets call him CG to protect names, was out grabbing a couple of drinks with Kalgan and Tigole.
He was a shy fellow, but very ambitious, and to him the end always justified the means.

It was on this night the new root to all evil would begin.

Kalgan (K) and Tigole (T) were in the middle of a somewhat trolly balance discussion when...

K: Only a couple of years to release now though Tigole, and imo Warriors are too OP in this alpha
T: Oh i don't know, Frost Mages should be able to own them quite good
K: Yeah thats true, but is that really how we want the game to be? A rock, paper, scissor type of thing?
T: Hmm.. Well, you're right... It has both positive and negative sides... Yo CG bro, why arn't you drinking your beer?
CG: It's a little strong and I don't want to get drunk.
K: Oh come on... How are you supposed to come up with great patchnotes if you can't drink beer?
T: Yeah, Kalgan's right. Are you a ***** or are you a man...? UD or Night Elf male?
CG: Stop being mean, I'm no Night Elf male! I will admit I've had some experiences with other men, but I'm not as gay as a Night Elf male!
K: Wtf dude...?
(CG finishes his beer)
CG: Hey guys, you know what would be really cool? To later, in like some ex-pack, add a super-hero class that can own every other class, and then like... (CG gets interrupted)
K: Hahahaha, yeah right.. Hey intern, maybe you shouldn't drink and come up with ideas after all!
T: Hahaha, yeah I agree...

Unfortunatly for all of us except Serennia, both T and K got a little too drunk this night to remember what they had discussed... But CG had played it cool. And set his plan in motion.

About 9 years later, in a very mysterious way, our CG was promoted and implemented his Super-hero class.

The Death Knight...

So why are they they root of all evil then?
I mean, on paper they look rather balanced these days. Sure, they can push out some 30k damage in 3 globals, but tbh, ret palas can do that aswell so of course that justifies it. AND THEY DON'T HAVE MS. And resilience will fix it. And balance will come at 80.

But lets take a closer look. Death Knights are definatly good in both 2v2 and 3v3... and 5v5. They're not extreme and they can certainly not play with every other class in 2v2, but they're still definatly viable for the top spots. Actually one of the most viable classes. But it has always been like this. One class is always the best, and will hold the top spots at SK-top100.

The problem with Death Knights is that, now that 2v2 gets scrapped, everyone will be forced to play 3v3.

And the problem is that unless you're running an RMP, there is basicly never a viable reason not to bring a Death Knight into your comp.

Slap a Death Knight and a healer together and you can basicly take whatever other player you can find and have a somewhat viable setup.

Here lies he issue.

When you do that, of course you're not gonna start looking for a shaman or a warlock. You don't have MS on the Death Knight so you're gonna start looking for MS, or other classes with extreme burst.

Obviously your first choice is Warrior or Ret, and your second choice is a Rogue or a Hunter.

And herein lies the problem with cleave. It's not that cleave is increadibly strong, and it's not that all melee are super-OP. It's that Death Knights are just too good to not play with, and when you bring a Death Knight you want to bring in another melee.

Thus forming this cleave-situation we have now.

And what is the only class that can stop a cleave?
A mage.
Thus, here lies the strength of RMP.

Now listen trolls, I'm not saying RMP is only strong because of cleave teams, and I'm not saying you can't have a good cleave without a Death Knight.

What I said above is simply that the Death Knights add a lot to the problem of 3v3 arena today.

Apart from a very old team still running WLD and a team trying to mix it up with RLS, what other comps have we seen competing in WoW the last couple of tournaments?

That's right. None.
(Think I saw a hunter a couple of tourneys back actually? Hunter/DK?)

Sure, 3v3 has never been truly balanced, but at least back in the days you could go out and countercomp teams by bringing 2 rogues, switching your healer to a Pala or changing your rogue to ShS.

What I'm saying is that 3v3 has never been really balanced, but now, partly thanks to the Death Knight, it's worse than ever.

There's simply not enough counter-classes to a Death Knight.

If you face a DK-cleave, you're left running one your self or running an RMP. And that's really sad.

Again, I'm not saying DKs are horribly OP, I'm just saying that they are OP enough to wreck the balance of 3v3.

Sure, sure, sure, "Nerfs inc". Right, as if DKs has ever gotten serious nerfs. Seeing as they plan on buffing Blood they'll probably make that OP next patch, and then go "Ok we think Unholy and Frost are on line or a little UP now compared to Blood, and Blood might be a little strong", and then the wheel will keep spinning.

Now I'm not going to suggest balance changes to DKs, and I'm not going to try to pretend I know how to balance 3v3, but what I do know is that as long as DKs get to keep all their utility they have against basically all classes, we'll probably never see 'forgotten comps' shine in 3v3.

I've been slow-leveling a DK myself, and the fact that I one-shot outland-mobs at 58 and actually pull mobs to regain health instead of eating says a lot about the difference between DKs and other classes.

Now this could just be a lot of whining against a class I don't feel belong in WoW, or just a long whine against WotLK in general, considering how DKs are the prime example of everything that's wrong in WotLK, I don't know.

I may be way off here as well, I'm no prophet... But it's hard to miss the connection between DKs and the current Cleave/RMP situation, don't you think?

But you can still get pretty far with pretty much whatever 3s you slap together, as long as it got the basic components of some CC or MS and some heals. However you have to raise your skill-cap a damn bit to do it against the Death Knights running around not even trying to CoI that priest running towards your pala-healer.

So it works. However, you can also still get very far in 2v2 with basically whatever setup you choose to play as long as you learn to play it well against any other comp you face.

Easily 2k with any setup assuming you have the time to learn and gear to survive, whether it be bursting something down or ooming their healer. And that's pretty much the weapons and shoulders right there. With pretty much any setup in 2v2. Is this why they wanted to change it?
No.

My belief, and my interpretation of the blue messages is that they remove the weap and shoulders from 2v2 because of the imbalance.

And who are the most imbalanced at 2v2?

Yep. DKs.

So essentially, DKs are the reason you can no longer get a good weapon in 2v2 in S7, and the reason you have to run some ****ty comp with players you don't want to play with in 3v3.

Now as I've stated in some comments I really don't care whether you can get shoulder, title and weapon or not in 2v2, as long as they still offer the S6 weapons for 2v2 rating, but I still think it's a damn sad situation. After all, 2v2 IS easier than 3v3, even if playing a DK is also easier in 2v2 than 3v3.

Aye, I'll just end this garbage here.
Damn I enjoy blogging when I'm forced to work 7am-14pm on Sundays!

Now flame me! Flame me like you've never flamed before!

O Brave New World - Chapter VI

no.spam@gameriot.com (Agamemnon) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 01:00:16 -0400

Previous chapter

Chapter 6

There were no birds singing. No crickets chirping. There was only but the sun and the cold air. The cold, chilling air. Blow the winter wind did; so unkind it was. I remember it that day. I remember it well. I echoed our plight in life. Lifeless, unrelenting, fleeting. Here in the field we lay, on broken stalks of corn. They too were cold.

I awoke from my slumber. I could taste the grogginess that this morning had brought us. A short sun on the horizon, creeping its way above us all, to mock us in glory. The damned do not shun from its gaze, but rather welcome it, as it allows them to find their prey more easily. I surveyed our great crash before us.

The winged beast was thoroughly grounded. Its nose was dug deep into the ground, and one of its wings had broken off. Even its tail was slightly bent. It would never see the skies again. Here it would remain in its shallow grave. No smoke, no fire, no explosion; it was by the grace of some unknown force that we survived. Survived again.

My companion was but a couple of feet from me. He was lying on the ground, face up. I rushed to his side, nudging him. He stirred awake as well, moaning and holding his head. Coughing, I helped him up and he too looked around to survey what had befallen us. And as I looked for a second time, we both arrived to the same conclusion.

“Where is that damn pilot?”

I too was bemused by our situation. It would seem that Damien had taken our things—at least our weapons and our food rations. Our bags lay strewn out beside the plane, opened. My companion rushed to them and frantically opened them, searching. I could tell he was stifling his anger for fear of attracting attention to us, but how he thought that would help as we stood beside an iron-winged beast grounded nose-first into the dirt was beyond me.

“That bastard cheated us!”

I did not think it was of the appropriate time to mention to my companion that we had not given him much reason to trust us, given his temper, and given more the light of our situation, for I too was without a weapon to defend myself with. We gathered our packs. My companion surmised that Damien the pilot had left in the general direction where the corn stalk was bent in a fine line, and so we followed the broken path.

It did not take long before we were out of the field and onto open ground. Before us was a tree line. To our right were more trees. But to our left, off in the distance, was a road, and beyond that road was a house with a large tree in front of it. My companion surmised that that is where Damien must have gone to and so we began our trek to the house.

We were cautious, however, in our approach. Without weapons, we had no means to defend ourselves, and so we made our way back into the stalk of corn as we came close to the house. We moved back a little before we could see the road mere inches from the field, and, again, the house once more, but this time to our right. Across the street was yet another field of corn, and on mark, we ran across the street and into that field. Eventually, through the creeping of that field, we were at the edge of the field and mere yards from the house.

My companion told me to wait in the field while he made his way to the house. I watched from a distance as my companion crawled across the grass at the back of the house, inching towards a shed. Once there he entered the shed and a moment later exited with a shovel. I watched as he crept to the back screen porch and quietly opened the door and entered the house.

What happened afterwards I am not sure, for my companion never explained to me what had happened exactly, but what I do know is that my companion came out of the porch door holding our weapons and walking with gusto. After fetching and rearming me, he led me back into the home. Inside we found Damien, laying on the floor, with one of the damned toppled over him. Both were dead. Lifeless. There were claw and bite marks on Damien, but there too was a large, red mark across his forehead, like as if he was struck with something.

I pressed my companion at the time, but he did not explain to me in full what had happened. He only repeated that he had found him dead in the state that he was in already and that we should take what we needed. We found our supplies easily, and took Damien’s supplies and his pistol as well. There was little of use in the house. Canned foods, non-perishable, but nothing that we already didn’t have and we couldn’t take as we were full on supplies. We did, however, find a keychain with a pair of keys on it.

Inside the garage we found our rhino, our beast that would traverse the ground at great speeds. It was red and had large husks. Its feet were ridged and caked with mud. Atop it were round eyes, jutting out like as if they were an insect’s eyes. And in the back was its pouch. It truly was a beast to behold.

“Heh, and to think I used to hate Ford.”

I was slow on what my companion was saying, but understood that we both wanted to use the vehicle as transportation. Discreetness be damned; none could stop us in this behemoth of two-hundred-and-fifty. We would ride through the damned as if they were mere obstacles to be knocked down.

My companion inserted the key into the lock and, for a moment, did not open the door in anticipation. A second later he turned the key and the doors unlocked. He punched my shoulder in joy and we both put our sacks in the back seats. I mounted the beast in the passenger seat as my companion slipped into the seat to hold the reigns. Doors closed and locked, my companion turned the key in the ignition. The beast began to roar. It was alive.

“Haha! No zombie is safe from Chicago Ted!”

And with that he threw the gear in reverse and slammed onto the acceleration. Out we flew through the garage door, breaking it like butter upon bread, heading out onto the street before coming to a stop. He threw it into drive and away we went on our speedish adventures. Where we were going we did not know, and what adventures would await us we could not say, but there was yet a feeling within my gut above the elation of joy that something was coming, and it would soon manifest itself before us.

Testing, 1, 2, 3. Today is MOBAs and MMORPGs day.

no.spam@gameriot.com (Pwyff) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:37:44 -0400

Hello.

I'm Pwyff.

You may remember me.

This is a test. A test to see if writing once or twice a week is really as bad as I think it totally will be.

Now, you might be asking "but Pwyff, aren't you, like... busy as a bat?" And this is very true. Bats are very busy.

But first a rewind with a pink text header:

I'm Chris “Pwyff” Tom. World Famous Handsome, former writer of the TBC Arena Blog “The Ooglar,” and owner of Handsome Gladiator Pwyff of the level 70 population of Ner’zhul. Some of you might remember me from the Serennidramabomb that was and others might remember my affectionate relationship with the written word. These days I’m a part-time Associate Editor for a major MMO gaming website, a professional freelance script writer, a Creative Director of a small business, a senior editor for a small web-based essay business and I moonlight as a Ninja when the weather is good. Only when the weather is good.

With that out of the way, I'll let you know that I was going to just do a weekly DotA article for the Ohcee and talk about how to get the most mileage out of... pubbing, but they don't like me, or they think I'm gay (totallynot). On another note, I'll also say that this entry is not a promise of further handsomeness or anything of the sort, rather, it is a test to see just how much I miss writing the word *****. Even though it looks like I have a lot of work, you'd be surprised how little of that work really lets me refer to genitalia (except when writing personal scripts), so this is my little puppy project. Puppy project, in this case, meaning that this is a small project that at the slightest indication of other work stuff, will be sacrificed. If you think that this means I'd sometimes rather play League of Legends than write an article, you are very, very correct.

Anywho, as a quick jumper into of things related to video-gamery, and just so I don't get smashed by some kind of content filter, today is 2010 speculation day for the only two industries that matter to me; MMORPGs and MOBAs.

At this point, while you may not know what MOBA means, I'm fairly certain that you've played the genre. MOBA means Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or in some cases, Museum of Bad Art (personally, I find it awesome that there's a museum that strives to "share the best bad art ever assembled," and they actually have "interpretation challenges" for said awesome art). In other words, MOBA refers to games that involve several players playing against each other in a controlled 'arena' setting. Or, in other other words, MOBA refers to Warcraft III's "Defence of the Ancients" (DotA) map.

Either way, the MOBA genre is going to be doubled (I say doubled here because the genre is currently sitting pretty with DotA and Demigods)in population in the next year (or two?) with two gorgeous looking MOBAs on their way: the fairly well-known "League of Legends," and the lesser known "Heroes of Newerth." While I personally have not played Heroes of Newerth (I may look into getting into the beta), I can say, with confidence, that League of Legends is going to be very fun. I wish I could elaborate more on this, but the game is currently under a fairly strict NDA. The moment they lift the press NDA, or I manage to convince them to let me crack it, I'll write a little bit more on it. I'm also aware that there are other press outlets talking about playing LoL at E3 (Riot Games wasn't actually 'at' E3 - they set up at a bowling alley next door and siphoned everyone away), but I don't believe there are any press, aside from myself and my editor-in-chief, in the closed beta. I could also be very wrong, so we've ultimately established nothing.

What I can talk about, I suppose, is anything that appears in the official trailer.And... now that I'm looking at the trailer, I also realize that there is no real 'gameplay' footage. *****. Graphics are, as you can see, fairly cartoony in nature, but I honestly feel that this is a great way to evolve the game and make it look pretty. I'm a massive sucker for anything remotely related to sprites, so this is probably a lot of bias speaking. League of Legends is currently being developed by some of the big dudes who made DotA into what it is right now; some of you DotA nerdsies may know Guinsoo, Pendragon and Zileas? I don't. All I know is that Guinsoo plays like he just wants to make me rage.

Heroes of Newerth I have not heard much about and, in my eyes, that is definitely not a good thing. On the other hand, I checked out some actual gameplay footage on the Youtoubery and I've got to admit that it does look pretty smooth. Then again... did they just... remake Krob in that clip? Actually, now that I think about it, if they really did just 'remake' DotA with better graphics and some updated mechanics... I think I might actually be interested.

This entire above paragraph was stream of consciousness. *****.

Actually, I really can't seem to find any information on HoN so it could be that they're much more behind the development path than LoL, or they want to surprise ******* the MOBA community by coming out at a random date with an uber polished product. Either way, I know that I'm very much looking forward to some remixes on this lovely 7 year old genre. Oh, and by the way, go ahead and talk about Demigods, but I'm fairly certain they shot themselves in the foot when they released a MOBA style game... without proper multiplayer support. I've also heard that the game is pretty decent - just buggy as all ****, but that just means I don't have to buy another game.

---

In the MMORPG industry, we have a couple big games coming out in the big 2010 - all of which are predicted to be the next WoW killer, and all of which will probably fail to do any lasting damage. For a lot of players, while Aion is probably the biggest hyped game in all of the industry, some of you nerdier dudes might be following games like Final Fantasy XIV (that's not pronounced "ecksive" you retard), Jumpgate Online, Star Trek Online, Champions Online or maybe even The lolAgency for the PS3.

Personally speaking, I will say that I'm enjoying Aion in its closed beta, but it's very much reminding me of Lineage II's grindtastic grindiness. This makes me one very sad puppy. The PvP looks like it's going to be a solid addition to the MMO competitive industry, but, in all honesty, this looks like a grind-game rather than World of Warcraft's 'catering-to-the-kids-with-downs' market. The only reason why Blizzard might feel threatened by this hype-tastic Aion game is potentially because The9 lost those publishing rights to World of Warcraft, and China has really been getting owned with the yet-to-be-released Wrath of the Lich King. Games like Aion, however, are already up and about, so I can see why it's awesomely frustrating for Blizzard to see one of their biggest markets forced to endlessly play Season 4 (lol?) and raid Sunwell for a year straight.

On the other hand, I'm sure we can all remember last year when Age of Conan and Warhammer Online came hurtling out the doors to take advantage of the Summer lull of '08 that saw dick all for WoW updates (OHWAIT, SUNWELL NERF). AoC was pushed out as a 5 month baby fetus and Warhammer Online slashed and burned a ton of its content just so it could stagger out like a drunken pony before WotLK came and anally molested their subscriber numbers.

Anywho, I realize at this point that I've written a decent amount, so I'm going to chop this thing in half to extend my mileage. Personally speaking, I'm a big fan of shorter blog entries, but a good amount of time spent on each entry (BUT I WRITE AWESOME PERIOD). I'm willing to bet that Mr. Phuoc is finally learning that real life does cross over into one's writing: you're decent for the first moments, but stamina may not be your strong point. You can still start the SK-Aion division!

P.S. Gameriot did not have these pink textual things before, and so I am now taking full, flamboyant advantage.

P.P.S. *****.

Top Five Do's And Don't's Of Social Gaming

no.spam@gameriot.com (Sol Invictus) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:17:39 -0400

Based on actual stuff that happens (otherwise known as "events"), this list of dos and don'ts is a guide for any gamer interested in participating in LAN parties or competitive events. To avoid committing all sorts of faux pas and the embarrassing humiliation that often follows, simply adhere to these five simple rules and you should be all set to frag your opponents without the cloud raining the twin evils of shame and fear hanging over your head.

Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness

Do: Maintain your personal hygiene.
Don't: Show up at a tournament, LAN party or your friend's house smelling of a yeast infection. No one will accept your excuses about how you didn't shower for three days straight because “it takes time out of practice”. Nor will they buy your superstition about how the thick layer of filth caked over your unwashed body carries with it the “Smell of Victory”. Have a wash, you filthy wretch.

Sharing Is Caring

Do: Pass the controller around and give everyone a chance to play.
Don't: Hog the controller all to yourself. Just because you're on a winning streak in Street Fighter IV doesn't give you any reason to keep the controller all to yourself while the rest of your (soon to be ex-) buddies wait in line for a chance to play. You might think you're a winner, but to everyone else, you're just a douchebag who's taking the game a little too seriously.

Be Sporting

Do: Cheer on your team-mates by congratulating in a jovial manner.
Don't: Call your team-mates a “bunch of ******* scrubs” whenever they miss a shot, or you'll be hitching a ride back, jerk ass. They won't call you to come out in the future, either. So much for your dreams of having a social life, Mr. Pro-Gamer.

Practice Common Sense

Do: Stay with your friends or teammates if you're participating in an event far from home, an unfamiliar place, or a foreign country.
Don't: Go off on your own. Deciding to go off on your own in search of a pub to “get a pint” in some bad part of a city in Germany well past midnight is a great way to get robbed. Proceeding to lodge complaints against the tournament hosts by accusing them of poor hospitality because you didn't think to practice a little common sense is a moot action.

Keep Your Cool

Do: Keep your cool when you're losing a match. You'll live to fight another day.
Don't: Act like a baby by throwing a tantrum. Screaming childishly and threatening to walk away with your keyboard while your team-mate tells you to “calm down” and “stop nerd raging, please!” is something you'll never live down, especially once you discover that it's all been captured on film and viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. This memory will be set to haunt you for the rest of your life.

Updated: Fixed the title because an apostrophe does really mean "Holy ****! Here comes an 'S'!" in this particular case.

Ju-On / The Grudge: The Game Preview

no.spam@gameriot.com (Adrian Wesker) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:18:38 -0400

Kyoufu Taikan: Ju-On, or perhaps Feel Terror: Ju-On or maybe just The Grudge - The Videogame. Either way, it's a combination of hyphons and colons, along with some words, that portrays the idea that a game of Takashi Shimizu's works (with him overseeing the title) is in the pipeline for the Nintendo Wii.

As can be seen from the screenshots, the game is all about the J-Horror of long haired pale scary women that has become a stable of the genre. The setup for the story and game itself isn't exactly original (those who enjoyed Fatal Frame / Project Zero or nearly any other horror game of the last decade, will feel right at home), with a trip around a scary mansion being the order of the day (or night). You as the player, will switch between different members of a family to explore and uncover all manners of mysteries horrors and scares.

So that is the setting, the gameplay that goes along with all this "terror" falls into the category of, you guessed it, the horror flavour of the month, an on rails shooter. Ok with one exception in that you dont actually do any shooting and are instead armed with....a proton pack?....NO.......a camera?....you wish, no instead you wield a mighty torch!

You move around the mansion, going forward with a press of the "B" button, but can go back with a press of the down arrow, shining your torch about with the wii-mote pointer, exploring all nooks and crannies with a click of the "A" button, all the while scary shenanigans jump out from behind doors, running along ceilings and all the other things that you come to assosciate with this sort of thing.

Although this may sound more like an interactive movie than a full blown game, the title is not without some nice touches and novel gameplay Ideas. The audio is a strongpoint and adds bucketloads of tension to the mix. The characteristic sounds of the films cross over well and are as distinct and disturbing as ever. Added to this will be numerous false leads of things crashing around in the dark.

The game also offers a checkpoint system that tries to judge how afraid you were during the previous chapter by seeing how much you were shaking the controller whilst playing. A multiplayer option sees player two watch player one go through on a run, then triggering scares when they choose to try and terrify their co-op partner.

Ultimately, this will be a quite shallow game that tries to imitate the feeling of the films more than trying to carve a deep horror experience. So expect frights rather than fights, with the terror being left to your own devices.

[Above, Some Screenshots from a Japanese Games Mag. (sorry don't know which one)]

The game will be released for the Wii later this month in Japan (30th July) to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the horror series (along with 2 new films), with an expected American release in October

Publisher: AQ Interactive / XSeed
Developer: Feel Plus
Origin Japan

More more information on the title can be found here

[Sources IGN for one of the screenshots, Edge magazine and some Japanese Games mag too]

Making the Game: Script Handlers and Objects

no.spam@gameriot.com (kjado) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:10:20 -0400

This time on Making the Game, I'll be talking about some of the things occurring behind the scenes of our game-in-progress. Script handlers for various frame elements allow us to add behavior to them, and objects provide a conceptual middle-ground for us to describe the entities in our game.

Script Handlers and How To Use Them
I mentioned in one of my previous posts that script handlers were one of the forms of event-driven programming present in WoW addons. Frame elements can have snippets of code set to execute in response to certain events based on what type of frame it is, be it a button, editbox, or a handful of others. The full list of frame types and their supported script handlers can be found at wowwiki. If a frame has a script handler set for a specific event, when that event occurs a portion of code will be called and will have access to a few variables that provide more detail about the event. We'll see an example of this shortly.

So how do we go about setting script handlers for our frames? There are two ways to do it: define the handlers in the Scripts element of the frame's XML, or to call the frame:SetScript() function. I'll give an example of both:

- XML

<Frame name="TestFrame">
  <Scripts>
    <OnLoad>
      message("Hello world!")
    </OnLoad>
  </Scripts>
</Frame>

- Lua

local testFrame = CreateFrame("Frame", "TestFrame", UIParent)
testFrame:SetScript("OnLoad", function() message("Hello world!") end)

Both of these snippets of code will do the same thing, which is pop up a dialog box with the message "Hello world!" when the player first loads into the game (or reloads their interface). In the XML file you can just toss the script handler code (in Lua) into the Scripts section. The Lua function frame:SetScript() takes two arguments: the first is a string with the name of the handler to set, and the second is a function to run in response.

The OnLoad handler doesn't provide any additional information via variables (except for a self variable reference to the frame), so let's have a look at one that does, the OnMouseWheel handler:

<Frame name="TestFrame">
  <Size>
    <AbsDimension x="100" y="100"/>
  </Size>
  <Anchors>
    <Anchor point="CENTER"/>
  </Anchors>
  <Scripts>
    <OnMouseWheel>
      if ( arg1 == 1 ) then
        message("Up")
      else
        message("Down")
      end
    </OnMouseWheel>
  </Scripts>
</Frame>

This looks a bit different from the first bit of XML, but we needed to add some visual elements in order to use the mouse with the frame. (Note that since no backdrop or textures have been added to the frame, nothing will really show up on the screen, though technically there is a 100x100 frame sitting in the middle of the screen now.) When the player has their mouse over the frame and scrolls the mousewheel up or down, the script handler is called and does some branching based off of a variable named arg1. For this script handler, arg1 holds the direction that the mousewheel spun (1 for up, -1 for down). Using this information we can add mousewheel scrolling to list boxes and any number of other things.

For our game, we'll only need to utilize a few of these script handlers, but they will be incredibly useful. To show and hide informative tooltips for the towers, blessings, and actions, we'll add some OnEnter/OnLeave handlers to the appropriate buttons to update the tooltip. The buttons will also have OnClick handlers set to perform whatever task they are intended to, such as preparing a tower to be built or earning a blessing. One interesting thing to note is that I decided to implement the grid of the game map as a group of smaller frames, which can then be used to set OnEnter/OnLeave/OnClick handlers to preview tower placement when the player goes to build a new one. Additionally, each grid frame has its own texture to display the tower that is currently placed on it.

The most important script handler for us, however, is OnUpdate. OnUpdate is called every time the player's screen refreshes, and provides a variable named elapsed which stores the amount of time (in seconds) since the last screen was rendered. This is one half of the all-important game loop, and since we don't really have to do anything for the other half (drawing), this is where everything happens. Inside the code called by OnUpdate we'll have to take care of all of the game logic: updating enemy positions, using tower abilities, firing projectiles, among other things. Since elapsed is available to us, we can use it to accurately update our objects based on time instead of the number of screen refreshes, so gameplay should feel consistent between users who might experience different frames-per-second in game.

Making Something Out Of Nothing
First off, Lua is a scripting language, plain and simple. It's not really meant to be an abstract, high-level development language, and that's fine. But, it would be nice if we had some way to cleanly define and work with the conceptual game objects we'll have in our game, like the towers and enemies.

Thankfully, we have tables. If you have programmed in other languages before, there's a good chance you are familiar with arrays. If not, here's a little bit of an intro. An array is ordered data structure that can hold items that are of the same type. So, for instance, a list of numbers, or names (strings), etc. The items stored in the array are indexed by integers corresponding to their positions in the array. Some languages also support data structures called associative arrays, which are similar to the first type of array, but instead of indexing elements by integers, a key can be used instead (usually a string).

Tables in Lua are a combination of both the types of arrays just mentioned, in that there is an array portion of the table and an associative array portion. Making and using tables is pretty straightforward, so let's take a look at a short example:

local myTable = {}

myTable[1] = 100
myTable[2] = "test"
myTable["zero"] = 0

Empty tables can be created with the {} brackets. Alternatively, new tables populated with data can be created by including the elements within the {} brackets. One thing to keep in mind if you are coming from other languages is that the array part of tables in Lua starts at 1 instead of 0 in languages like C, Java, and many others. Indexing elements in tables is very similar to other languages, though, with the use of the [] brackets following the variable name. The first two lines index the first two elements of the array part of the table and set them to a number and string variables. The elements of tables in Lua can be dissimilar. In the last line of the example, the key "zero" is set to the number 0 in the associate array part of the table. This data can be accessed two ways: the normal way using [] brackets, or with myTable.zero since the key is a string. Either way works, though if you are accessing the associate array part of the table programmatically (and the key varies depending on a variable), you should stick to using the [] brackets so the variable's contents are interpolated.

It may be surprising at first, but frames in the WoW API are actually implemented as tables in Lua. These tables store frame-specific data as well as function references that act as member functions for the frame object. The same can be done for our game objects as well. The following is the global function we'll be using to create tower objects in our game enviromnment:

function PrimalDefense_CreateTower(towerType, level, tileX, tileY)
    local function Update(self, elapsed)
        self.elapsed = self.elapsed + elapsed
        self:primaryAttack()
    end

    local newTower = {}
    
    newTower.type = towerType
    newTower.level = level
    newTower.posX = ( tileY - 1 ) * 32 + 19
    newTower.posY = -( ( tileX - 1 ) * 32 + 19 )
    newTower.elapsed = 0
    newTower.buffs = {}
    newTower.primaryAttack = 
             PrimalDefense_TowerActions["SHOOT_FIRST_TARGET"]
    
    newTower.Update = Update
    
    return newTower
end

Those familiar with programming will recognize this as a form of a factory function. Inside the function, we create a new table and assign some tower-specific values to keys in the table, then return a reference to the newly-crafted object. The first thing we do inside the factory function, however, is define a member function that will be used to update the tower's status. The only data that will really change for a tower is the ability timer, so we update that and then tell the object to try to fire its primary attack.

You'll notice that instead of calling self.primaryAttack() we call self:primaryAttack() instead. The colon ( notation for functions is just a bit of syntactic sugar, and although both ways of calling the function are possible, the argument list changes based on which you choose. For instance:

function myTable.test(self, val)
    message(val)
end

function myTable:test(val)
    message(val)
end

These are both actually the same function, just defined in different ways. The colon implicitly passes the table to the function as the first argument, eliminating the need to specify it in the argument list.

With our factory function in place, we can now create and store tower objects in our main game code, and in our function for the OnUpdate handler we can loop through and execute the member update function for each of the towers. As long as returned tables from the factory function are stored in a persistent data structure (such as another table/array), they will stick around and be available for our use until we don't need them anymore, when we can remove them from the table and let the garbage collection system take care of the rest.

Coming Up
While those two topics served as a bit of a foundation for our game programming techniques, next time I talk about programming I'll go into some more detail regarding the implementation of Primal Defense itself. Hopefully this was informational, and I apologize for not having any new screenshots to share =P

2s/3s/bg5/mouth/mlg/J-dong/narutojitsuass/

no.spam@gameriot.com (Sargaz) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:37:01 -0400

Hi

2s

Alright so I decided to do a few 2v2s once again this week and it made me realize why blizzard implemented the NO GLADIATORS ALLOWED FROM 2V2 OR COOL GEAR rule; because all you mother___ s__ d__ at wow and dont deserve s__. There is so many disgusting players in that bracket it baffles me how some of them can even be allowed to drive. Some people manage to outplay me by being extremely ****ty such as Trucked who had ret aura with aura mastery up and made me blind cuz it didnt cross my mind that someone could be that dumb and use ret aura while playing with a warrior vs priest rogue. He died after my blind interupted a heal but I am sure the retard probably shouted on vent: LOL SARGAZ IS SOOOOOOOO BAD HE JUST BLINDED ME LOL WAIT IM DEAD.

We also fought this RET ROGUE who 1 shotted either me or my priest every game, but managed to be inconsistant at doing it and lost half their games. Not even sure what to do when I die while pain supressioned within the 1st second of the cheap shot. Blind , repentence lol im dead. One game they managed to **** it up and had to gouge a heal, damn. that was some pro ****, he ran across the map to gouge my priest and male-dra ret remembered he had lightning generator and killed me.

Earlier this week some retard DK from Archimonde called me bad for not evasioning Frost Strike. I MEAN SERIOUSLY, THERE SHOULD BE A ******* BRACKET FOR PEOPLE THAT HAVE LOWER THEN 40 IQ.

Anyway, good games to Arlindi,Shin,Audiolol(thx for rofling me that hurt my feelings jerk),spex,veex lol won once yay and .... dat it

3s

Only highlight was playing vs Nadagast Nick and Wildo, good to see they are still scary to fight although they seemed to lack coordination that day. Good thing verty had to dodge and raid because they started winning vs us. Ended up 5-2. Other then that there were alot of joke fail teams that also dont deserve **** and should just stick to 2s.

bg5

So apparently Aesa, Tugget , Brewkz , Reckful and Fuzion are all gone. This BG is dying so rapidly Although Tugbrewkz are gone, Veex and Zilea seem to be worthy successors of cleaver supremes. Being the highest cleavers in the world is a pretty good representation of our bg, although its still lame that all these good folks left. Mayday and Mcguyver you 2 better not leave!

Mouth

I wonder if I can draw Serrennia with only Ds

                  ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
               d                                                            d
         ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
                    d             D dD                      DdD             d
                      d            d                             d            d
                        D                                                     D
                        d                                                     d
                        d                           D                       d
                         d                                                  D
                         D                                               D
                        D                                                 D
                        D                  D DDDD                    D
                        D                  D          D                     D
                         D                 D            D                    D
                           D               D           D                   D
                            D               DDDDDDD                 D
                             D                                             D
                              D                                         D
                                   DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Nice I did it. Look hes wearing a pretty hat too niiiiiiiice. I hope this turns out out ok.

MLG DALLAS

So Pookz is going to fight his biggest challenge yet, MARMA. The Korean crazy mage from the last ESL who dominated everyone is invited for Dallas and Blizzcon. We already established that being cleaved for 5 seaons in a row on bg5 has made pookz a god at controlling cleavers and as you`ve all seen his team roflstomped zilea like it was a joke. But what about PMR mirrors? Pookz have been doing that alot on Rampage, which is a BG that has a ton of that for some reason. Furi from Blood legion, Celex, Vilemodsroze, Complexity, Perplexity the 12 year old korean wannabe and a bunch of others that are not cool enough to make the list. SK has fought Complexity alot in skirms and live games and have trained enough to know alot of sneaky top secret stuff that makes pmr mirrors very interesting. On live realm last season, we also fought modsrozevile a few times and he stomped us, we fought them a few times this season too before Pookz xfered back to Chogal and learned a few things.

BUT IS POOKZ REALLY PREPARED FOR A KOR? -_-;; I don't think so. I think poox will need alot of work. We already saw how he randomly has slanty eyes now, coincidence? I think not, kid looks more asian then me what the f_.

J-DONG

So I think pookz will need a full transformation in order to even have a chance vs Marma.

Heres how this asian wannabe looks like before the transformation.

This is how he should look like when MLG Dallas comes. Fully prepared to face Marma.

For those who are like: wait a min. is dat BiSU? naANnnananANnannnanna DAT IS POOK-ASU, FROM KOR. For those who are like wait a minute what happened to that dude's face why is there a Ziggurat and then Sunken, well I have no answers for dat 1. ****s like abstract art, you gotta find the meaning of it yourself.

hokage

I think we finally figured out what a jitsu and a hokage was, check this out

Yeah I bet we could own u at this **** Ming, I don't think you got the jitsus to use alll these jitsus mother ****a.

yeah thats all **** raiding

f it wont correct my sht bye

NGL CTF Grand Finals: FoJ vs. ETC

no.spam@gameriot.com (QuakeLiveTV) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:14:19 -0400

NGL CTF Finals: FoJ vs. ETC

Happy Independance Day Americans! Tomorrow (Sunday, July 5th) we will be broadcasting The National Gaming League's CTF Finals between Fire of Judaism and ET CETERA, starting at 9 EDT.

The finals is a rematch between the two teams who met already once in the winner's bracket finals (watch the VOD). This is ramping up to be quite the showing, so tell your friends and make sure not to miss it!

See you tomorrow!

Ready Up Radio Episode 7

no.spam@gameriot.com (_nineX) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:01:04 -0400

I'm joined by ESWC Champion and dear friend Shane "rapha" Hendrixson of Team SK. We talk about his recent win in the Alienware tournament, his preparation to for the QuakeCon LAN in August, his continued sponsorship by SK and other stuff going on in his life. We get his thoughts on the progression of QuakeLive and what he thinks needs to be done to make it better. Check out this video of Shane beating SPARTiE to win ESWC Athens.

Head on over to Ready Up Radio to download the podcast.

Happy 4th of July!

no.spam@gameriot.com (Snail) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:35:59 -0400

One Step Closer

no.spam@gameriot.com (Snail) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:20:12 -0400

Alright gang! Looks like GameStop is now taking Final Fantasy XIII pre-orders. To celebrate, here's a list of things you could buy instead, but won't bring you as much joy.

A Slapchop
A Snuggie
A Shamwow
The Magic Bullet
Stock in AIG
60 songs on I-Tunes
A cheap ***** with The Clap
A pretty potent Eight Ball

So, what's it gonna be?

GameStop predicts a ship date of December 21, 2010.

Blizzard Working on two Expansions one rumored " Emerald Dream "

no.spam@gameriot.com (Moretti) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:27:43 -0400

This info comes straight from the mouth of three GM’s, so while I have no “official” statement from a Blizzard rep (I don’t have any sources inside Blizzard, just a few GM’s that work for them, looking after WoW and battle.net) it should still be considered solid information as all three have seen multiple new areas and are just part of a “plethora” of testers that Blizzard has in these new zones.

The first of these expansions has something to do with the Emerald Dream, as there are currently seven “rather large” zones that are related to the Emerald Dream. These are already “fairly fleshed out” with plenty of quest NPC’s and content. The zones themselves are a lot “greener” than anything previously found in WoW, with many “giant” flowers, trees and lakes. My sources said “think Zangarmarsh, but greener, and with much more foliage. The giant mushrooms are replaced with giant flowers, fields of green, and plenty of foliage.” The creatures in these zones are mostly "animal like" at the moment.

Next up there are a few zones that are in “very early” stages of development. The strange part is that they are in no way connected to either the Emerald Dream or the content that Blizzard is working on for the Lich King expansion. These zones are more “Waterworld themed” (Waterworld is an older movie starring Kevin Costner. Look it up.)

There is a zone that contains a “barely floating city, surrounded by a huge body of water”; there are quite a few more “graphics for ships, with big galleons here and there”; and finally there is a new “giant sea creature”. However nothing in these zones is scripted and they are just walked around in for the moment. The sea creature can already be spawned; then again it can be spawned in any zone as long as the command is known, even in good old Azeroth. There are also a few more “Waterworld” based zones out there, but they are not yet populated or finished.

My sources believe that Blizzard is working on the next two expansion packs to the game. One themed on the Emerald Dream, and the other on what looks like “Waterworld”. I have no release dates, however the three commented on how they “have to be done with a few zones by July 2009”. Which puts one expansion pack on track for late 2009, early 2010.

I have no other knowledge on what else comes with the expansion, but one can assume that we will get a higher level cap and more skills.

Armor - what's the damn point?

no.spam@gameriot.com (tautology) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:01:56 -0400

So I was wondering what exactly the point of armor is in this game ever since the expansion. Is it just there so characters look different with different kinds of armor? Because it hasn't done what it's supposed to do since TBC.

The Problem: Armor is utterly useless. 2/5 melee classes/specs, DKs and Ret Paladins do at least 75% magical damage, rogues do about 30% (Poisons/bleeds) damage through armor, enhancement shamans are in about the same boat and it seems only warriors and ferals are the only ones left who are actually somewhat countered by armor.

JK ARMOR PEN. As usual Blizzard pulled the joke on everyone by buffing armor pen to such ridiculous levels that every ******* warrior and feral stacks it like there's no tommorow in both pve and pvp. What makes things even better is the afformentioned classes also often using the Grim Toll trinket, which makes a shaman something like a fully sundered priest for the duration of the proc.

Honestly, what's even the point of having different armor values if it's practically useless versus all the melee when more than a half don't even do that much physical damage, and the remainder stacks armor pen to counter it?

*This is how useful armor is in the game right now, class doesn't even matter*

The only solution I see my self is to make melee actually PHYSICAL again so classes like my shaman can survive for more than 20 seconds versus a warrior of same gear level instead of being a ****ty priest who falls over with something like 10% physical mitigation from armor (Hint, shamans have 50-51% physical mitigation with Furious level gear). Simply make player armor affect magical damage from melee classes only the same way it does to physical. This change wouldn't even hurt PvE as it would only be felt by players. Yes, I realize that Blizzard doesn't like different rules for the same game, but this getting out of control like Ret Paladins and Exorcism. In fact, you could leave Holy damage out of this equation to help Ret Paladins seeing how badly they are nerfed in 3.2 damage wise.

At the same time, nerf armor pen back into the ground, this kind of backwater stat should never be so powerful, especially when it helps destroy the already pointless use of armor in this game.

Making armor useful again would slow down the melee zerg train currently dominating every bracket, perhaps with the exception of RMP in 3s (although I bet combining all the different kinds of cleaves comes close to the same representation). If something isn't done soon, season 7 will be a repetition of season 6 with one step forward with the resil change and two steps back with the new season weapons (258 ilevel ohlol).

Thanks for reading, Izo out.

Windows 7 Keyboard shortcuts

no.spam@gameriot.com (Weeman5872) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:33:18 -0400

Over the amount of time I've used Windows 7, I've discovered quite a few new shortcuts. So I thought I'd make a list of them for people who are new to Windows 7 or haven't discovered them yet.

Win + Up = Maximize
Win + left/right = Snap to left or right
Win + Down = Minimize/restore if maximized
Win + Shift + Left = Move window to left monitor
Win + Shift + Right = Move window to right monitor
Win + Home = Minimize/restore non-active windows
Win + # (where # is a number) = Go to that app (or open a new instance if it's not running)
Win + Ctrl + # = Minimize/Restore that app
Win + Shift + # = Open a new instance of this app
Win + T = Rotate through pinned apps (if several of the same app open, it'll bring up the preview where you can use the arrow keys to select which window to go to)
Alt + Ctrl + Tab = Same as alt + tab but it will stay so you can use arrow keys to select a window
Win + Ctrl + Tab = Same as flip 3d but you can select using arrow key

If anyojne can think of any others I've missed, post them in the comemnts.

GCHitler To Casuals : Nein

no.spam@gameriot.com (Roma Victor) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:23:35 -0400

It appears that GCHitler may have gotten a strongly worded letter from the freshman intern that is running Blizzard's Sales, Marketing and Finance departments. GCHitler, while not rescinding the elimination of the 2v2 arena bracket, has decided to throw the casuals he despises so much a bone: they can still earn current season gear, just not weapons and shoulders. Oh, and they can't get titles. GCHitler sent his lackey, Joseph "Bornakk" Goebbels to make the recent announcement:

After further consideration, and after hearing from many players, we are going to change how we approach the 2 vs. 2 arena bracket in Arena Season 7. We still think the 3 vs. 3 and 5 vs. 5 brackets will ultimately offer the best play experience, especially for very competitive gamers for whom game class balance issues are most noticeable. However, we recognize that many players just prefer to play in the 2 vs. 2 bracket and will miss the chance to earn the current season's gear. Therefore, we are going to still allow the 2 vs. 2 bracket to grant access to the current season of gear with three important exceptions: the current season's weapons will not be available for purchase, the current season’s shoulder armor will not be available for purchase, and players will not qualify for the Gladiator title/rewards unless you earn the appropriate rating in the 3 vs. 3 or 5 vs. 5 bracket. We look forward to the changes in the next major content patch and hope to have a great next Arena Season.

Emphasis mine. GCHilter was forthright in his own public statement which was refreshing:

I truly detest you filthy, worthless Jud--, er, casuals. If it were up to me, you'd be wearing yellow armbands like the pariahs that you are. Nevertheless, Brad our Santa Cruz State intern pointed out that 2v2 participation in season 5 was 3:1 over 3v3 and 14:1 over 5v5. In my generous mercy I have relented and allowed you pitiful kaffir plebes to still get your four pieces of PVP set gear and the offset PVP pieces from the current season.

Let no one mistake my intent here. This decision reflects marketing reality, not my deepest desires, which are to ship you casuals off in cattle cars to the nearest death camp. But no, sorry, I'm forgetting myself. We at Blizzard truly respect our playerbase, even the stupid, foolish majority that pay our salaries, and will refrain from completely eliminating the 2v2 arena bracket. Instead we have chosen a middle ground, namely to neuter it to the point of futility. I think we can all agree that a terrible bracket, like 5v5, is better than no bracket at all.

In conclusion, I want to reassure our RMP and cleave teams that 3v3 will remain the focus of arena PVP for the foreseeable future. If you take away nothing else from this missive, please understand that we want to focus on skill. And that means the 3v3 bracket. Seig Heil!

Why 2's Is So Unpopular
Despite GCHitler's unrelenting hatred for the casual playerbase, it's worth reminding him how bad of a decision this is. He really should listen to Brad the SCSU intern when it comes to marketing decisions:

US-Nightfall
Bracket	~Active Teams
2v2	14031
3v3	5278
5v5	986

The numbers above are for Nightfail participation at the end of Season 5. It's difficult to imagine a stupider marketing decision, but then again this is Blizzard we're talking about. Fortunately we can all relax and concentrate on 3v3, that most balanced of brackets:

I wonder if 3's is dominated by FOTM comps? Nah!

Nothing To See Here - Suck It, Hunters!

Finally, Some Balanced PVP
The bottom line is that PVP in WoW was not, is not and will never be balanced due to the complexities of so many variables between classes. But that shouldn't be a license for laziness and not even trying. Ultimately a smart businessman seeks to serve as many customers as possible, not drive them away or attempt casualcide in GCHitler's many murderous fantasies.

So where do you stand? Are you excited that finally you'll be forced to run RMP/Cleave in 3's or some random 4 (5?) dps zerg team in 5's to compete? Do you believe GCHitler that they can't balance 2's?

Questions Demand Answers.

P.S. Happy Independence Day!

USB Extender: Extend USB peripherals from the host computer

no.spam@gameriot.com (luecjennifer) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:56:59 -0400

One to four USB peripheral devices can be placed away from the host computer using the USB Extender. Basic extenders allow users the benefits of USB technology beyond the desktop, extending the computer keyboard, mouse and any USB device up to 150 feet away from the location of the PC. Connections between the remote unit and the local unit are secured via Cat5/Cat5e cables. Another milestone in this USB technology is the extension of these peripherals over distances up to 10kms over fiber optic cables. Investment in existing hardware can be maintained and the same peripherals can be placed away from the host computer thereby providing economical means of long range transmission.

Also known as USB extender, this is purely a hardware device with no requirement for additional software for either the host computer or for the peripheral devices. These extenders are fully compatible with most USB devices and they support typical plug and play specifications. Cross platform flexibility which is a benefit of using USB, is also available in these units. Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Mac-OS, Linux and Sun are also supported by them. These extenders are compliant with USB 1.1 specifications.

50 Cent Forever King, Game apologizes, Mj Tributes.

no.spam@gameriot.com (Nobbeh) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:44:56 -0400

In a recent MTV interview, Game mentions Michael Jackson urging 50 Cent and Game to settle their differences and that Jackson wished to make music with both of them once they had settled their beef, however due to his death it never came to fruition. Nevertheless, Game has recently not only apologised to G-unit but the whole of Interscope. Personally the idea of Michael Jackson wanting to collaberate with both of them seems a bit strange, I would've thought Mj would have better things to do than get involved in their petty squabble.

50 Cent has recently stated that he believes he's still number one, and far better than lil wayne, also stating that even though Tha Carter III outsold his Curtis album, it's nothing on his previous album sales of The Massacre and Get Rich Or Die Trying. Now personally, I think 50 fell out quite awhile ago however I just downloaded his new mixtape 'Forever King' and it's pretty hot to say the least. Here's two of my favourites from the mixtape, first one has a fail 40 second intro though. The mixtape overall is pretty solid.

Game has released a track as a tribute to Michael Jackson with Boys II Men, Diddy, Usher, Mario Winans and Chris Brown. Personally I find the track to be alright, but nothing special.

Another tribute song to Michael Jackson that was released was done by Sway, a UK grime/ Hip Hop artist. This one's called 'The King Full Stop'. Personally I prefer it out of the two.

Which one do you prefer, Sway's 'The King Full Stop' or Game's 'Better On The Other Side'?

- Nobbeh

Cursed Mountain: GamePro Preview

no.spam@gameriot.com (DaMa) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:09:58 -0400

German magazine GamePro recently previewed the upcoming Horror title for Nintendo Wii: "Cursed Mountain".

The experienced mountain climbers Frank Simmons and Paul Ward once hear about an old artefact which is hidden somewhere up in the mountains of Himalaya. They take the risky journey to climb the Chomo Lonzo mountain.
Their search remains unsucessfull though and only Paul is able to make his way down from the mountain again. According to Paul, Frank died durin the journey. However the native ones in Tibet believe its the old curse and his ghost is still existing in a shadow world up in the Himalaya mountains.

Frank's brother Eric is now trying to find the missing family member. He slips deeper into a supernatural world full of weird creatures which are believed to be caught in a world between real life and the next life. Eric visits eerie places like the Chomo Lonzo, ice caves, old Sherpa villages and monumental monasteries.

Eric fights the mysterious creatures with a multi-function axe which also acts like a gun. Early in the game Eric finds out how to see and defeat the creatures with an energy beam.
The always present creatures give you a permanent feel of uncertainty and strain. Additionally, Eric is haluzinating thanks to the oxygen deficiency of the mountain air.

Finally, GamePro mentions the impressive soundtrack which contributes considerably to the exciting play process

Source of the article: GamePro issue 08/09: GamePro.de

Be sure to check out the impressive website of the developer team to get a better feel for the game.

[DOTA] He's Big, Blue And Doesnt Give A ****! Why So Serious?!

no.spam@gameriot.com (Bergson) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:32:37 -0400

Over the last 2 days we have done a lot of experimentation with very gank heavy line ups and its working great for the team. We have an expert warder with our team and using a gank heavy lane up fits him perfectly and makes our team much stronger. I can't believe that Ogre went unnoticed for so long by myself.

Before 6.60 it was a commonly shared view that the unpredictability of Ogre's multi casts was what kept him out of competitive play.

It seems this was completly wrong as his unpredictability is exactly what makes him so powerfull in competitive play. Being able to take an enemy supporter from 100% to 20% in one multi cast before a team fight starts can change a whole battle in your favour. Playing against a Krob with Abba support I blew him up so many times before Abba could even get his heals off it was rediculus. Multicast followed by lina ulti was their main pusher/carry gone. Wiping the rest is easy.

Coming equipped with a low cost stun with a great range at level 1. A slow and DoT and in later levels a Bloodlust that also improves move speed really boosting your team's late game. Suffers badly from mana issues later on but I find getting items for him is pretty low cost and he isn't item dependant. Also a great roamer and I personally put him before a Sandking pick in ganking lineups.

The best lane I've used him in was for sure with lina. You have ogre's long range stun, lina then can aoe stun and dragon slave and then ogre uses his slow/dot. We have yet to miss a level 2 kill - the double nuke is just so powerfull. In lane you pretty much have a 10/10 chance to hit with your fireblast. You can't blink it, Sandstorm it (reliably, its just too fast) leap, phase - Anything! it is going to hit!

Item wise my inventory looks like this
With an optional /

This pretty much lasts you however long the game goes on. I tend to help out the ward ***** a lot. Our current games when doing ganker line-ups revolve around wards so much. I also dont really know what else to get on Ogre. Bottle and wand solve mana and hp problems really. So after that is just luxury, I rather have our lina get his blink up then Ogre struggle and fail to farm up a shiva/hex.

If you have any good suggestions for an Ogre build - make them. Im not too sure what to make at the moment so any input is great.

Expect Ogre to be a firstpick/ban in 6.60 - He really is that powerfull at the moment.

Team YSS

After missing the sign ups for gosu-gamers tournament by about 30 minutes I decided that I needed to find someone who was a lot more uptodate on the DotA tournament scene. Being the leader of a DotA team is suprisingly time consuming and comes with a lot more responsibilities than I thought it would. I managed to get my team a manager now that takes a lot of pressure off my back and is one less thing to worry about. I would reccommend it at all levels. We are not a division 1 team and our manager doesnt have the huge amount of responsibility that you would have managing one of those teams, but the relief to me is huge and is a step in the right direction for the team anyway.

Having a manager also comes with the added bonus that a sponsership could be on its way for the team. We wouldnt be paid to play full time, or even get much to any free stuff. The motivation it would give the team to train and produce the results will be priceless to us and I am hoping the deal will go through.

We are also recruiting +1 player who is from division 1 and although not famous, is a great player and hoping he will join us to make the team much stronger and make us a real contender for the top 2 spots in dota-league division.

Turns out our division is harder than division2 minus OS|one and 1 other clan, div 3a really looks to be the hardest excluding div1. Turns out I had missed the best Spanish team which have been playing together a long time and were another no-losses team last season.

Will have some more replays up soon showing ganker strat play, I tend to forget to save replays when i'm not in blogging mind set.

Nab Healing Guide - Setting up a good Grid enviorment

no.spam@gameriot.com (Fovea) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:24:54 -0400

So it's about time I posted something somewhat half useful here, and I figured, why not share something that literally made me win the healing-meters by 20% in every single 25-pug, and carried me to 2,2k+ rating in hateful gear. (Some may say the class helped here aswell, but w/e).

So if you're an addon-newb, have a new healing-alt or just want to opt your healing even more, this might be worth a read and a tryout.

This caters mainly to Druids and Priests, but could also be useful for Paladins.

I recently read a thread on the declining site Arenajunkies names "How do you target your team-mates", with replies ranging all from f1-f5 to mouse-scroll to clicking.

Noone seemed to mention a nice grid-enviorment, so I really don't know how many actually knows about this.

Considering Serennias revealing blog about how every fan of him is a scrub, I guess there's at least someone who can pick up something useful from this.

So lets start... What addons do we need?
I used to run aroun with standard grid and dot-timers. It was horrible, especially in PvE. I could never keep track of my lifeblooms or reju's except on some MTs, and that kind of sucked.

So my homeboy Profila hooked me up with some info on how to only use Grid and Clique to control my hots on everyone.

Grid is a simple frame that keeps track of your team-mates health, seen below, and basicly offers one small frame for every team-mate, sorted in a nice way.

Clique allows you to change the way your mouse-click works on different frames. One the standard UI, a left-click on a frame targets that targets, and a right-click opens up the target-menu for other options. No modifiers available.

So what do we want to accomplish?
In the end we want to reach a frame-windows looking somewhat like the one above, with some minor changes/pesonal tweaks.

When we now click in this frame, we will cast different spells.
Ex:
Left-click: Target (We always want this)
Right-click: Nourish
Shift+Left-click: Lifebloom
Shift+Right-click: Rejavunation

Now I have no doubt I'll get some comments from people calling me a clicker. After writing that I will probably get even more of them.
But the truth is that, in my opinion, there's no reason at all to keybind your partymembers. First of all, if you play like me and don't click a single spell (Except Teleport: Moonglade), you just don't have enough keys for a quick and good target, and that also means you actually have to swap targets when casting your spells. Another negative effect of keybinding your partymembers is that, at least as a druid, you're always on the move. Always finding that perfect position and always running from a priest-fear / Kiting a rogue.

My mouse is constantly either over grid or just to the left of grid to turn. It's also always close to the center of my screen so that if someone I need to target s out of tab-range, I can easily target that one with my mouse aswell (Although I hate doing it).

So with grid we can easily always be on the move, without having to leave our (ad/qe) fingers to any other button to target someone, and we always have full movement while casting our most important spells.

While helping our friends to DPS with some moonfire, insect swarms, wraths, or timing perfect cyclones, we never have to switch from our target while hotting them.

Ok, so lets get started...
If you take another look at the picture about, you will see that in some corners of the frames there are small squares.

You can also see a sheep-icon on the rogue and another icon on the priest in the lower-right corner.

For some reason the dude I stole the screen from intends to heal in some sort of 25+vs25+ enviorment.. CRAAZY :S

Or his mage got MCd and sheeped the rogue, who knows. Anyways...

So these small squares and the bigger icons basicly provide us with information about that character. With that icon we know the rogue is in sheep. What we want to do is increasing the size of that icon, making it show wheter we have a lifebloom up, and also show dration left and current stack of the lifebloom.

The squares also provide us with information. It might be an aggro-alert, a low-mana alert, an indication that this target has a poison on him or an indication wheter this person has a renew on him. The sky is the limit. Every corner can hold a small square, and every square can mean something different. So we have 4 squares + the icon. Not however that only the main icon can show duration and stacks, and every one of our 5 indications has a priority (Basicly a layered system to determine what to show first. So I can have 2 things on the big icons. Lets say i have Lifebloom and Poisons. Poisons has priority 100 and Lifebloom has priority 90. This means that whenever a poison is up on the target I will see an icon for which poison it is, and when there is no poison I will see Lifebloom information.)

So here's 2 examples on how we can set up our frames:
Druid (PvP-enviorment):
Icon: Poisons with priority 100, Lifebloom with stack and duration, priority 90, Curses with priority 70 (I don't consider curses too dangerous, and I will notice Hex in other ways).
Top-left corner: Square that indicates wheter Rejavunation is on the target
Top-right corner: Square that indicates wheter Regrowth is on the target
Bottom-left corner: Square that indicates wheter Abolish Poison is on the target
Bottom-right corner: Whatever. I have an aggro-alert here. Having WG feels unneccessary. You could perhaps have an indication on wheter a curse is up on the target (Since its low-priority), or an indication that your partner is movement-impaired or sheeped/feared)

Prest (PvP-enviorment) (Just winging it here, it's jus examples):
Icon: Magics priority 100, Diseases Priority 90.
Top-left corner: Renew active
Top-right corner: Abolish disease active
Bottom-left corner: Power word: Shield up
Bottom-right corner: Power word: Shield debuff active

Having the information mentioned above available 24/7 on our main healing-tool is crucial to effectivize your healing.

Keeping your hots up all the time or renewing your shield on cooldown has never been easier.

Reapplying every important spell with some single mouse-clicks while taking a good position or kiting around a pillar will be trivial. (As long as you havn't unbinded a and d or q and e that is)

Settings
So unfortunatly I don't have WoW available to me, as you all know I only blog when I'm bored at work (It's a tough life)

But lets start with Clique. After installing it you'll have an extra tab in your spellbook.

Hit that and then hit 'Frames' (I think). You should be able to see a list of addons having checkboxes in front of them. Uncheck everyone except the ones named something with Grid.

(Notice that I might be wrong in the names of some of the options I'm asking you to click, but it shouldn't be hard figuring out where to go as I'm describing what you should do once there)

Then hit 'Custom', and you should have some options to set mouseclicks. Explore that a little and add a couple of clicks. Make sure your left-click is still target (So we can target for example NS, Swiftmend, etc), and bind you right-click and some modified clicks aswell.

Now if you try hitting your Grid that should look awful, you can see how your character performs actions on the target without even switching from your main-target.

So that's all we need to do with click.

No we go /grid config

Set up a nice size (Mine is pretty small) by using your own extensive intelligence, and then find the option to make health-bars horizontal.

Now we come to the little troublesome part, setting up our Icon and Squares. As I was saying, I don't remember all names, and I'm not gonna save this and post when I come home, so bare with me...

Open the Frames menu. Under here you should be able to find menus called "Top-left, Top-right", etc.

Under those you should once again find some checkboxes. Go in there and check what you want that position to indicate. "Center" is the name of what I'm calling "Icon".

Now you should've set top-left to only show reja, top-right to only show abolish, etc, etc.

So now we head to the main-menu under frames, I think it's called "Spells" or "Events" something similar.

Here we do all the settings. If you didn't find the spell you wanted to add to a corner or the icon earlier, you can also add it here. Just type the spell-name and add it. Grid will handle the rest.

So now you can go to ex Lifebloom. (If I'm not mistaken you have to add either that one or Abolish Poison yourself)

You'll see the priority bar (It might not be called Priority but somethign similar). Set it to your desired value.

You also have color options. The way I've set it up, my Lifebloom-icon covers my health-bars, so I have gone colors, and then on the right side I've toned down the Alpha so it's semi-invisible. That way i see both the buffa and the health.

You'll probably figure out all other options you need to add. I think there some 'Show stacks' etc etc. It's not rocket science.

Play around some with these options and try some other things out for yourself, what suits me might not suit you.

And then we're done.
Now go play some skirmishes, try it out, get used to it, and WHAM.. You'll soon have another 200 rating.

Last: I might go home and check this up, there's probably some option I've forgotten, in which case I'll add here later. Also feel free to ask questions in the comments if something is unclear.

Recent 2v2 announcements
Everyone knows I can't write an entry without some comments on stuff I either hate or like. In this case it's actually like (First?).
The recent 2v2 change that you can purchase everything from 2v2 rating except shoulders and weap, and that you won't get a title, is actually damn nice, assuming Blizzard allows people to buy the S6 weaps.

With full Relentless and Furious weaps you are definatly ready to take the desired rating in 3v3, and as I've explained earlier, shoulders mean ****.

The title-loss simply means that 4 out of the classes that got an easy ride to Glad now doesn't and I approve of that. Facerolling a DK shouldn't be a free Glad-title, and anyone able to get it in 2v2 should be able to get it in 3v3 aswell assuming he actually is better than all enhance-shamans as he claims.

And if you don't have the time to find a 3v3 and put some time in to that I don't really know if you deserve the weapon. It should be about practice and skill, and not about playing lucky setups in 2v2.

2v2 should be about fun and learning, and I definatly think the current changes promote that. You still get gear, you still get points, you can still compete and learn, but in order to really compete you need to become a little better.

One thing I dislike though is that Blizzard doesn't just increase the PR gain for 2v2, or even set a rule that after 10 wins your PR matches your TR. Seeing as the 2v2 will matter less now, it's excellent for teamjumping and trying out some new partners/setups, however, it still sucks to have 200 games up to your TR even though you only play 2k+ rating no matter what mate you play with.

In my case my mate in 2v2 and one of my other mates in 3v3 is on vacation for 10 days which means I can't play seriously and improve at all during this time. Forget skirmishes and BGs, every decent player knows arena-play on a higher level is way different than the lower levels.