Warcraftic

SWTOR Force Poke: E4 – Let’s Talk UI

Todd — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:00:52 +0000

Since the last episode, Bioware released some encouraging footage of UI enhancements and customization options coming soon(TM). In this episode, hear my thoughts on why we all want some type of UI customization, how it’s great (yet controversial) for end game players, and why it’s going to take some time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk29PWGfWEY

Quick thoughts on the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo

Todd — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:33:48 +0000

The Kingdoms of Amalur demo (xbox) left me with mixed feelings. The demo is actually a 3-month old code-base (according to a recent interview), but I couldn’t help but wonder if they should have waited on releasing the demo – or blatantly call it a beta demo. It felt unpolished and navigating the inventory / items menu was a bit more time consuming than it should have been.

NPC conversations were not terribly engaging and choosing conversation options felt slightly unresponsive to me. Several times, I had to hit the “A” button repeatedly to get a choice to “take”.

The initial story and setup was interesting, but not engrossing. I liked the start of the game – made me think back a bit to Planescape: Torment. Of course, commenting on the actual story with only playing the demo for a couple hours isn’t responsible. So, I’ll leave it at that.

Combat was very well done. Magic users were clearly dealt the best hand, with really impressive effects that dwarf anything I’ve seen recently. The general combat mechanics are very responsive for all play-styles. Choosing our “class” as we progress is very cool, based on the gear equipped. I assume this is something that becomes a bigger deal later in the game where tactics become more important. I’m so used to having to choose a class at the start, so this felt a bit foreign to me. Different is good, though. It makes this game stand out from the others, for better or worse.

Overall, I’ll wait on the reviews for Reckoning. Not convinced it will stack up against the other games eating up my (limited) game time: SW:TOR, Skyrim, Minecraft, BF3, Diablo III beta, etc.

Skyrim TESVAL vs SkyBoost

Todd — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:20:50 +0000

Quick comparison of two fps improvement options for Skyrim. The game is a horrible CPU hog. These mods fix that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2LIyjdljDc

TESVAL is an in-memory code patch for TESV, aiming to fix CPU inefficiencies. SkyBoost boosts your Skyrim via replacing most bottleneck code parts in the executable at runtime.

Both great options. Use the one that works best for you. This video shows which worked best for me and the FPS benchmarks.

Download SkyBoost

Download TESVAL

SWTOR Force Poke: E1 – Don’t Feed the Seh-run!?

Todd — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 04:32:52 +0000

In this first episode of Force Poke, my lvl 11 Sith Inquisitor is about to head to the Empire Fleet to meet with his new master. Before that, he has to go feed Seh-run. Not sure what will happen here, but hey, he’s hungry and is short on acolytes to eat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eGgopV6uHg

Epic Skyrim: E1 – Three Must Have Mods

Todd — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:00:59 +0000

New episode of a new series! I’m looking to do a mashup of Skyrim commentary and a review or two of various mods in each episode. Let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcsntBTlTCY

Skyrim Werewolf Transformation Ceremony

Todd — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 05:02:27 +0000

Thought I’d throw together a quick video on the werewolf transformation ceremony.

Please be aware – *spoilers ahead*. After you become part of The Companions guild, you speak to an NPC called Skjor at night, and he takes you to the ceremony. I haven’t yet romped around as a werewolf, but will have more footage on that soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp6oJS7ZkQs

Skyrim iPhone Wallpapers

Todd — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:52:29 +0000

So I was tooling around before the Skyrim release and decided to put together a few simple iPhone wallpapers. The resolution is optimized for retina displays.

Enjoy!

WoW AddOn Spotlight: DockingStation

Todd — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:51:19 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9MNki9G8Ms

DockingStation is a display platform for LibDataBroker (LDB) based plug-ins. The display is provided through panels, each having sections (Left, Center, Right) corresponding with how a plugin is justified within it.

This is an alternative to other “infobar” type addons such as Chocolate Bar, Titan Panel, and FuBar. Head over to Vranx.com to see some other options. He has a really nice list compiled there.

AddOn author: Vrul

Get it on WoWInterface

Enjoy!

New Job. Coming back soon.

Todd — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 22:58:52 +0000

Hi all. I have been severely absent from the WoW community lately. This is something that most everyone probably didn’t notice, but it has been a crazy time IRL.

The past couple months have been fun, busy, and stressful – mostly in my professional life. The company I was working for decided to lay off 90% of the Boston-area office in May. It was a relatively typical acquisition scenario, but the extent of the layoffs caught most by surprise. While I was sacrificed, many of those on my team and extended teams were let go. Gradually those who remain have been (smartly) moving on. For me, a few opportunities arose and I landed a great position at a fast paced, growing enterprise (IT) security company right near where I used to work. Good stuff. Yay me.

So, all is crazy busy and my schedule is completely out of whack. I hope to be back this summer participating in the ever so whacky Twitter conversations and of course back to making UI videos (and more outside of just WoW).

Patch 4.1.0 – Back to Warlockery?

Todd — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:19:16 +0000

If it isn’t obvious enough, my main (and original) WoW toon is a Warlock. After I got him to 85, I started playing my 73 Rogue alt religiously. Mostly because I wanted to push her through the low 70s and finally hit 80, which I did the other day. I have to say, during that time I had a blast. She tears through everything in her path. It was a very nice change from being frustrated by the pet swapping mess that has riddled Demonology Warlocks lately.

The upcoming Warlock patch 4.1.0 changes look reasonable and haven’t morphed too much over the PTR patches in the past few weeks. Here are a few notables that I’m excited about.

Rain of Fire damage has been increased by 25%.
Does this mean I can stand back and cast RoF like the old days? No more rushing in and Hellfire’ing? Hmm.

Soulstone can now be used in combat to resurrect a targeted dead player.
I guess this is the Warlock-branded battle rez. Part of the homogenization of WoW, right? I really don’t want to deal with resurrecting players. This is for the healing classes, not damage dealers.

Mana Feed now restores more mana (four times as much) when the warlock is using a Felguard or Felhunter.
At first glance I got excited. Ever since Felguards became the secondary pet for Demo Warlocks, I stopped playing my Warlock. Felguard needs to be *the* pet that a Warlock uses 100% of the time. Running with a Succubus felt un-natural. Especially having to swap pets to take advantage of the A0E offered by the Felguard. With this Mana Feed buff, I thought we were closer to being able to use the Felguard most of the time, but after a bit of research, I am completely wrong.

Shadow Bite (Felhunter) damage and effect has doubled.
Demo Warlock, meet Felhunter. Felhunter, meet Demo Warlock. End of story.

Enjoy the new patch, everybody. I think I might just be sticking with my Rogue for now.