Wait. You mean like deciding to post every day before 10p EST, or streaming Diablo 3 every day between 4p and 9p? What the everloving fuck? This is Roxi the Kleptokatt. She doesn't organize shit like that!
Which is the best part of having a super-amazing girlfriend. She's being understanding and supportive, and has agreed to (a) let me turn the extra bedroom into a workspace and (b) help me organize my content and actually plan things ahead for once. I think she's partly motivated by the fact that moving all of our computer equipment upstairs and moving my old bed and stuff out of the spare room will force me to clean 90% of the house, but I'll pretend it's because she's awesome and loves me and doesn't think I'm wasting my time.
One of the biggest problems I've had in writing this blog is being consistent, and following through on story lead-ins. I'm pretty sure I've NEVER actually written about something I said I was going to when I said I was going to.
Like SWTOR. I had every intention of actually revisiting the game and writing a scathing rant about how one of the most anticipated and hyped games of the last five years was a complete flop. And I was going to relate it to Wildstar's mis-start.
But instead I'm going to write a filler post, watch Noragami on Netflix (it's been ages since I picked up a new anime, but I'm REALLY liking this), and maybe stream a little Diablo. Because Cookies is now fucking like 45 and I'm still in my 20s, because I got locked out of the house last night when I was supposed to be streaming. That'll teach me to surprise her at work, right? Right.
Anyway, keep an eye on the page list at the top, because I've got a few ideas in the works- build guides for Diablo and Champions, my master schedule, a photo gallery of the kitties fucking up my attempts to be leet,
(And just to prove a point: mother of fuck, it takes forever to patch SWTOR. Fuck that shit.)
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Saturday, August 30, 2014
An interruption from our sponsors!
No, this isn't about SWTOR, or Rift, or anything else pixelly and loot-filled. For once. Consider this a features update, rather than a content patch.
Last night, I had an epiphany. Or rather, my girlfriend had an epiphany for me.
See, I just lost my job. It's a long story, but I've got all this grown-up, real-world stuff to do so that my six game-playing, food-stealing cats get to keep their cozy home. Only, I spent all of yesterday working on updating graphics and stuff on my YouTube channel, here on the blog, Twitch, and even Twitter. Rather than making her an awesome dinner and cleaning the apartment so she wouldn't be mad, I greeted her at the door with my laptop in hand. And I made her read my blogs.
And she laughed. I was amazed. She actually enjoyed reading what I've written. And then she told me something that I probably should have thought about a long, long time ago.
"You should write a book. Not like, a book about some dwarves killing some dragons and shit, but like your blog. About YOU killing dragons and shit." Not her exact words, because if my girlfriend swore as much as I do it'd be fucking weird, but you get the picture. She actually encouraged me to keep writing, treat the blog like a brainstorming area for a proper book, and tackle it head-on. (And before you guys start burning incense and lighting candles in her honor, she also made sure to remind me that I have to find income ASAP. She's not a moron.)
I stewed on her suggestion for the rest of the night, while I plodded through Act 1 on my season wizard and fucked around with my OBS settings to get my stream running properly. What would it take, I wondered, for me to actually pull a book off?
Ideal world, I'd need a month or two of uninterrupted writing time, money to start sending out manuscripts and find an agent, and a box of cookies. The cookies are optional, but I find they make the writing process work. (Love, if you're reading this, yes I ate all your cookies, but it was for a good cause.) My problem is that I can't just up and devote my life to producing a hilarious and relateable memoir.
So I figured what the hell. I signed up for a Kickstarter, put in an estimate of expenses related to actually writing the book and making super cool special things for donators, and went through all the paperworky-type things to get my internet panhndling set up. Seriously, I used PayPal back in the day, and I don't remember it being so time-consuming or needing so much information to set up. -.- Anyway, I had a hell of a time figuring out what sorts of perks to offer for donating. It's scary, coming up with things you'll give people that relate to an unfinished project, that you've got to deliver whether you're able to market your manuscript or not. And how do you make the perks tantilizing enough to get people to donate ten dollars instead of five, or whatever?
Everyone (on Facebook, anyway) says my kitties are adorable, and our pictures of them "helping" us play games are usually well-received. So I figure, why not prostitute their cuteness? Making cat videos and taking cat pictures is pretty fun, and something I can handle pretty easily. Boom, rewards. I like writing to people. More rewards. I love the sound of my own voice. HOLY SHIT I COULD RECORD AN AUDIO BOOK AND BURN IT TO SOME CDRS OR SOMETHING.
Yeah... I'm probably really bad at this fundraising thing, but... We'll see! If you like what you read here, or at On The Rox, please think about clicking the donate button or contributing to my Kickstarter at the top of the page. Thanks for reading, folks, and stay awesome.
OH! And don't forget that I've got a Twitch stream and a Twitter account! Because you can never have enough tactically dysfunctional, kleptomaniacal kattladies in your life.
Last night, I had an epiphany. Or rather, my girlfriend had an epiphany for me.
See, I just lost my job. It's a long story, but I've got all this grown-up, real-world stuff to do so that my six game-playing, food-stealing cats get to keep their cozy home. Only, I spent all of yesterday working on updating graphics and stuff on my YouTube channel, here on the blog, Twitch, and even Twitter. Rather than making her an awesome dinner and cleaning the apartment so she wouldn't be mad, I greeted her at the door with my laptop in hand. And I made her read my blogs.
And she laughed. I was amazed. She actually enjoyed reading what I've written. And then she told me something that I probably should have thought about a long, long time ago.
"You should write a book. Not like, a book about some dwarves killing some dragons and shit, but like your blog. About YOU killing dragons and shit." Not her exact words, because if my girlfriend swore as much as I do it'd be fucking weird, but you get the picture. She actually encouraged me to keep writing, treat the blog like a brainstorming area for a proper book, and tackle it head-on. (And before you guys start burning incense and lighting candles in her honor, she also made sure to remind me that I have to find income ASAP. She's not a moron.)
I stewed on her suggestion for the rest of the night, while I plodded through Act 1 on my season wizard and fucked around with my OBS settings to get my stream running properly. What would it take, I wondered, for me to actually pull a book off?
Ideal world, I'd need a month or two of uninterrupted writing time, money to start sending out manuscripts and find an agent, and a box of cookies. The cookies are optional, but I find they make the writing process work. (Love, if you're reading this, yes I ate all your cookies, but it was for a good cause.) My problem is that I can't just up and devote my life to producing a hilarious and relateable memoir.
So I figured what the hell. I signed up for a Kickstarter, put in an estimate of expenses related to actually writing the book and making super cool special things for donators, and went through all the paperworky-type things to get my internet panhndling set up. Seriously, I used PayPal back in the day, and I don't remember it being so time-consuming or needing so much information to set up. -.- Anyway, I had a hell of a time figuring out what sorts of perks to offer for donating. It's scary, coming up with things you'll give people that relate to an unfinished project, that you've got to deliver whether you're able to market your manuscript or not. And how do you make the perks tantilizing enough to get people to donate ten dollars instead of five, or whatever?
Everyone (on Facebook, anyway) says my kitties are adorable, and our pictures of them "helping" us play games are usually well-received. So I figure, why not prostitute their cuteness? Making cat videos and taking cat pictures is pretty fun, and something I can handle pretty easily. Boom, rewards. I like writing to people. More rewards. I love the sound of my own voice. HOLY SHIT I COULD RECORD AN AUDIO BOOK AND BURN IT TO SOME CDRS OR SOMETHING.
Yeah... I'm probably really bad at this fundraising thing, but... We'll see! If you like what you read here, or at On The Rox, please think about clicking the donate button or contributing to my Kickstarter at the top of the page. Thanks for reading, folks, and stay awesome.
OH! And don't forget that I've got a Twitch stream and a Twitter account! Because you can never have enough tactically dysfunctional, kleptomaniacal kattladies in your life.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Warlords of Draebore, Diablo 2.1, and why I still play Champions
It's ME AGAIN!
I guess I should be all kinds of excited about the fact that we have a release date for Blizzard's next WoW expansion, Warlords of Draenor. (It's November 13, 2014, if you've been living in a cave for the last month.) Blizz is finally delivering something approximating player housing, new (versions of older) zones, and new a new raid difficulty system. The level cap is going up, skills are being changed around...
And honestly, I couldn't care less.
Which probably makes me a bad person. Or at least, a bad player.
All WoD is to me is sixty bucks plus a few months' sub time paid to Blizzard for a ten year old game that can really only claim its legacy as a selling feature. Yes, at one time, WoW was the biggest game out there. By some metrics, it still is, mostly because of people like me who play the game out of habit, or because it's the most recognizable title out there. World of Warcraft hasn't brought anything new to MMOs in ages. Ultimately, innovation doesn't matter if a game is good, but let's face it. WoW is getting tired. Sure, the Vol'jin/Horde Civil War storyline was cool, but the Iron Horde shit? It's all recycled characters and storyline, with some time travel shit pasted on.
And Garrisons. WTF. After ten years, Blizz finally coughs up player housing and it's less interesting than Champions Online's hideouts. (And holy fuck, is that a system that's pasted on and unfinished.) The whole thing is just another time and gold sink, to give players a reason to stick around for an extra month or two after release. Everquest 2, Rift, Lord of the Rings Online, Wildstar... Even City of Heroes. They all produced fairly robust, highly customizable, and mechanically USEFUL housing. The biggest developer in the industry gives us an MMO-ified version of Command and Conquer, or one of those stupid phone games where you build your shit so you can make coins to upgrade the same shit and make more coins.
I know like, nobody in anywhere reads this blog, but holy. Fucking. Shit.
DEVELOPERS. THE NEXT EVOLUTION IN MMORPGS IS NOT GOING TO BE FOUND IN A GODDAMN FACEBOOK GAME.
Stop taking design queues from Zynga.
It's all good, though, because Blizz has given us Diablo 3, patch 2.1. The first post-special edition update. Woooooooo. >.< I act unhappy, but really right now Diablo 3 is my favorite offering from Blizz. Hearthstone is a blatant cash and viewer grab. The best cards only come from sinking cash into the game, and the best competition players probably don't even pay for their packs. But hey, it gives Blizz another feature listing on Twitch, so why not? And Heroes of the Storm could have been totally great, if they'd produced it back when MOBAs first started rising in popularity, and not...what is it now, four years? Five? After League of Legends has teabagged the MMO and MMO PvP playerbase. Hell, the first MOBAs started out as fucking MODS of Blizzard games. DOTA should have been their first clue that there was (a) a market and (b) money to be had there.
D3, though... D3 is the forever game for me. It's mindless fun, with no pressure and no real need to have other people around. I can play for twenty minutes or four hours, and feel rewarded from either session. I'm constantly improving my character, and there are enough variations on gear and skills that I can change things up and tweak endlessly. My biggest complaint was that the game was almost too mindless. I'm not a hardcore player, and I mostly run on the lower Torment difficulties, but with my Wizard I was able to mow through pretty much everything (rifts and bosses included) without much regard for mechanics. Fortunately, giant meteors fell from the sky, bringing double Treasure Goblins, extra gold drops, and NEW SHIT!
Yaaay, new shit!
D3's 2.1 update expanded upon Reaper of Souls Rift mechanics by introducing Greater Rifts. They're harder, they've got better loot, and they just. Keep. Getting. Harder. It's awesome. I've got this whole new challenge to tackle, and I love Blizz for it. And as if that weren't enough, they created seasonal play. Basically, you do a complete reroll, and you unlock awesome gear for achieving milestones in your reroll gameplay. It's like if you were able to earn endgame raid gear while you level a monk on Moonguard. Only better, because it doesn't involve internet herpes. It's like a minmaxing, anti-social bitch's wet dream. And I know from that shit, because I am a minmaxing, anti-social bitch.
So yeah. When Season 1 starts, I'll be rerolling my wizard, and seeing how well I can handle leveling in story mode on Master. I'm too much of a chickenshit to level on anything higher. (And also, I suck.) Depending on loot drops, I'll probably level either frost or fire. I'd go lightning, but I really don't think that build will be any good without a Thunderfury. Please, for the love of Freya...don't join my games randomly. I know Blizz says they fixed the Do Not Disturb setting, but they also said they fixed Windwalker monks, and my DPS sure as shit didn't reflect that, so.. Yeah. You show up, I cut you. That whole anti-social bitch thing again.
And then there was Champions Online. The shitty little game that couldn't. I've ranted time and again about the potential that Cryptic, Atari, and Perfect World squandered with Champions. It's a testing ground for the testing ground of PWE's cash grab games. And yet... I have a lifetime subscription, and I have gotten more than my money's worth out of it. With City of Heroes out of the picture, Champions offers the richest character customization in the market, and if you're willing to take the time to learn the system, some of the coolest buildcraft as well. The main problem Champions has is that once you've designed your awesome hero, written her epic backstory, and perfected her powers... there's nothing to do. They've made some headway in the last year or so with their Rampage (ten man open raids) system, higher tier gear sets, and comic series/task forces. There's still a lot the game needs, though, and from the sounds of things...
We're gonna get it. Finally. Maybe? Do I even want to get my hopes up? I mean... I've been let down so many times before.
...fuck it. EEEEEE! Stuff! >.< Freezing Freya on a Stick, I'm fucking a fangirl of a game the rest of the world thinks is a steaming pile of shit. I have issues.
Anyway, according to reports at Massively, the new story arc is going to involve Mechanon- that weird guy with all the robot cowboy cultists in the desert. And world raids. And an anniversary event. But not the Foundry, which honestly I'm pretty okay about. It's a feature they've used with success in Star Trek Online and Neverwinter, but... meh. I can't get excited over custom dungeons. Been there, done that in EQ2, and I just never got into the system. But... I guess that's what people like, so... whatever.
But content! In Champions! It's like Christmas in September!
Next time, I go in search of the former prom queen turned crack whore that is Star Wars: The Old Republic, and try to decide if Wildstar is doomed to follow in her footsteps.
I guess I should be all kinds of excited about the fact that we have a release date for Blizzard's next WoW expansion, Warlords of Draenor. (It's November 13, 2014, if you've been living in a cave for the last month.) Blizz is finally delivering something approximating player housing, new (versions of older) zones, and new a new raid difficulty system. The level cap is going up, skills are being changed around...
And honestly, I couldn't care less.
Which probably makes me a bad person. Or at least, a bad player.
All WoD is to me is sixty bucks plus a few months' sub time paid to Blizzard for a ten year old game that can really only claim its legacy as a selling feature. Yes, at one time, WoW was the biggest game out there. By some metrics, it still is, mostly because of people like me who play the game out of habit, or because it's the most recognizable title out there. World of Warcraft hasn't brought anything new to MMOs in ages. Ultimately, innovation doesn't matter if a game is good, but let's face it. WoW is getting tired. Sure, the Vol'jin/Horde Civil War storyline was cool, but the Iron Horde shit? It's all recycled characters and storyline, with some time travel shit pasted on.
And Garrisons. WTF. After ten years, Blizz finally coughs up player housing and it's less interesting than Champions Online's hideouts. (And holy fuck, is that a system that's pasted on and unfinished.) The whole thing is just another time and gold sink, to give players a reason to stick around for an extra month or two after release. Everquest 2, Rift, Lord of the Rings Online, Wildstar... Even City of Heroes. They all produced fairly robust, highly customizable, and mechanically USEFUL housing. The biggest developer in the industry gives us an MMO-ified version of Command and Conquer, or one of those stupid phone games where you build your shit so you can make coins to upgrade the same shit and make more coins.
I know like, nobody in anywhere reads this blog, but holy. Fucking. Shit.
DEVELOPERS. THE NEXT EVOLUTION IN MMORPGS IS NOT GOING TO BE FOUND IN A GODDAMN FACEBOOK GAME.
Stop taking design queues from Zynga.
It's all good, though, because Blizz has given us Diablo 3, patch 2.1. The first post-special edition update. Woooooooo. >.< I act unhappy, but really right now Diablo 3 is my favorite offering from Blizz. Hearthstone is a blatant cash and viewer grab. The best cards only come from sinking cash into the game, and the best competition players probably don't even pay for their packs. But hey, it gives Blizz another feature listing on Twitch, so why not? And Heroes of the Storm could have been totally great, if they'd produced it back when MOBAs first started rising in popularity, and not...what is it now, four years? Five? After League of Legends has teabagged the MMO and MMO PvP playerbase. Hell, the first MOBAs started out as fucking MODS of Blizzard games. DOTA should have been their first clue that there was (a) a market and (b) money to be had there.
D3, though... D3 is the forever game for me. It's mindless fun, with no pressure and no real need to have other people around. I can play for twenty minutes or four hours, and feel rewarded from either session. I'm constantly improving my character, and there are enough variations on gear and skills that I can change things up and tweak endlessly. My biggest complaint was that the game was almost too mindless. I'm not a hardcore player, and I mostly run on the lower Torment difficulties, but with my Wizard I was able to mow through pretty much everything (rifts and bosses included) without much regard for mechanics. Fortunately, giant meteors fell from the sky, bringing double Treasure Goblins, extra gold drops, and NEW SHIT!
Yaaay, new shit!
D3's 2.1 update expanded upon Reaper of Souls Rift mechanics by introducing Greater Rifts. They're harder, they've got better loot, and they just. Keep. Getting. Harder. It's awesome. I've got this whole new challenge to tackle, and I love Blizz for it. And as if that weren't enough, they created seasonal play. Basically, you do a complete reroll, and you unlock awesome gear for achieving milestones in your reroll gameplay. It's like if you were able to earn endgame raid gear while you level a monk on Moonguard. Only better, because it doesn't involve internet herpes. It's like a minmaxing, anti-social bitch's wet dream. And I know from that shit, because I am a minmaxing, anti-social bitch.
So yeah. When Season 1 starts, I'll be rerolling my wizard, and seeing how well I can handle leveling in story mode on Master. I'm too much of a chickenshit to level on anything higher. (And also, I suck.) Depending on loot drops, I'll probably level either frost or fire. I'd go lightning, but I really don't think that build will be any good without a Thunderfury. Please, for the love of Freya...don't join my games randomly. I know Blizz says they fixed the Do Not Disturb setting, but they also said they fixed Windwalker monks, and my DPS sure as shit didn't reflect that, so.. Yeah. You show up, I cut you. That whole anti-social bitch thing again.
And then there was Champions Online. The shitty little game that couldn't. I've ranted time and again about the potential that Cryptic, Atari, and Perfect World squandered with Champions. It's a testing ground for the testing ground of PWE's cash grab games. And yet... I have a lifetime subscription, and I have gotten more than my money's worth out of it. With City of Heroes out of the picture, Champions offers the richest character customization in the market, and if you're willing to take the time to learn the system, some of the coolest buildcraft as well. The main problem Champions has is that once you've designed your awesome hero, written her epic backstory, and perfected her powers... there's nothing to do. They've made some headway in the last year or so with their Rampage (ten man open raids) system, higher tier gear sets, and comic series/task forces. There's still a lot the game needs, though, and from the sounds of things...
We're gonna get it. Finally. Maybe? Do I even want to get my hopes up? I mean... I've been let down so many times before.
...fuck it. EEEEEE! Stuff! >.< Freezing Freya on a Stick, I'm fucking a fangirl of a game the rest of the world thinks is a steaming pile of shit. I have issues.
Anyway, according to reports at Massively, the new story arc is going to involve Mechanon- that weird guy with all the robot cowboy cultists in the desert. And world raids. And an anniversary event. But not the Foundry, which honestly I'm pretty okay about. It's a feature they've used with success in Star Trek Online and Neverwinter, but... meh. I can't get excited over custom dungeons. Been there, done that in EQ2, and I just never got into the system. But... I guess that's what people like, so... whatever.
But content! In Champions! It's like Christmas in September!
Next time, I go in search of the former prom queen turned crack whore that is Star Wars: The Old Republic, and try to decide if Wildstar is doomed to follow in her footsteps.
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