Unreal Realities

Alterac Valley has, for the longest time, confused the hell out of me. I spent little time in AV in The Burning Crusade, but because I never really understood what the hell was happening I lost interest quickly. Having spent more AV lately – leveling my Rogue, I’ve come to grips with the basics of the Battlegrounds. This is certainly not a be all and end all guide to AV, but hopefully for a few people that really don’t understand AV at all, this might give you a bit of a better idea as to what’s happening. There are also a few things I’m unsure of, so if we get some comments clarifying anything, I’ll add them in.

The basics

Each faction has leaders within the zone. Between the buildings where these leaders hang out are numerous towers and graveyards, two mines and a couple of second in command type people – Galv and Belinda. Each side starts with 600 reinforcements. Reinforcements decrease when Galv (Horde) or Belinda (Alliance) are killed (100 reinforcements) a tower is captured (75 reinforcement) or a player is killed. Capturing mines will (very) slowly see reinforcements increase (one every 45 seconds).

Winning

The game is won in one of two ways – killing the opposing factions leader or getting their reinforcements to zero. Read the rest of this entry »

Heavy Rain is a game I’ve been watching with interest through development and I picked it up yesterday. Calling Heavy Rain a game, though, is not quiet right – an interactive experience is closer to what it truly is.

The basic premise is thus – a killer is on the lose, kidnapping young boys who are turning up dead 3-5 days later. You play a rotation of four different characters through the game, all separate stories that link together. The father; who’s son is missing, the PI; investigating the case, the FBI agent and a young lady who’s motivations are not quiet clear, yet.

The first thing you notice about Heavy Rain is how it looks – it’s amazing. The loading screens are extreme close ups of characters faces and it truly needs to be seen to be believed, detail and focus are astounding, a new bench mark in realism is upon us. The animations are also fantastic, the way characters move and interact with objects seems so real. There are occasional issues, a finger slipping through a door, but on the whole, it’s exceptional. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, so the first video, unfortunately, cannot be embedded, so I can only provide a link. A guildie linked this on our forums and I think it’s sensational, so I thought I’d throw it up here

Second vid today has nothing to go with gaming – it’s footage of Tendulkar being the first man to score 200 in a single ine day international. The man is a freak.

Finally, the Video Review of Heavy Rain. This game is something different and is next on my shopping list.

In my experimental youth I dabbled in the Horde for a month or two, but I’ve been a die-hard Alliance player for most of the game’s lifetime. This has left some pretty big gaps in my mind about what’s going on in the world of Azeroth — it’s like wondering whether people in other countries practice Christmas or something.

We’ve spent the last year shoulder-to-shoulder with the Horde in Northrend while we were taking care of the Lich King, but that’s getting wrapped up as we speak. After some years of being buddies, Blizzard has decided that, come Cataclysm, we’ll all be squarely back on the continents at each others’ throats wondering where all the beaches went, and I’ll still be wondering what’s going on with green guys.

Read the rest of this entry »

We nerds love stats, so here’s a lovely poster with some WoW stats from OnlineSchools.org (click on it to view fullsize):

I’m not sure how old it is, but the stats are definitely interesting.

1 in 5 subscribers are women?  Assuming roughly equal levels of actual participation (which may be an erroneous assumption), that would mean one player in every heroic group would be female.  It’s great to see more participation by women – maybe we’re not as alone as we think we are.

The figures about WoW and TV are interesting too – people often throw out phrases like “oh I couldn’t spend that much time playing a computer game” when they hear about WoW, when on average, they spend close to double that amount watching TV.

So, you’re putting together a raid group. Your DPS and tanks are sorted, need a couple of healers. Well, you’re going to need a Paladin for tank healing right? Maybe a Disc Priest in a pinch. What? This Shaman thinks he can tank heal? What a nub right? Right?

Wrath has been an excellent time to be a Resto Shaman. A fantastic CH buff, mana efficiency improved and single target healing greatly improved. Shaman are now, in this Shamans opinion, now equal to Paladin is tank healing ability. We’re not as mana efficient but then we are a class that has been taught that mana is not endless and play accordingly. Shaman are better at conserving their mana because they need to be. Gee, I’d love to be able to spam heals endlessly but that’s just not how Shaman were created. This is not a slur against Paladins mind, it’s a core difference in mechanics.

How is it, exactly, Shaman tank heal? Well, it’s not rocket science but there are a few different ways to go about it. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pirates of Unreal Realities had a really good night Tuesday! And I missed it. We had eleven people. Only two hadn’t sat on the bench. Clocky, who had re-Gnome-afied (after an uncomfortable and brief stint as a human) and Nasigoring, who was only about 190 frost badges behind the rest of the team. Staring at one another with silent determination, they rolled. The dice tumbled across the interwebs for what seemed like an eternity, until, BAM! They came to a halt. And the result was… D’oh! I was sitting out! Clocky was kind enough to let me sit in to get my last two badges for my two-piece bonus before I stepped out and the group continued on to very efficiently clear the following bosses, in three hours; Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper,  Gunship Encounter, Deathbringer Saurfang, Festergut, Rotface, the Blood Princes, Queen Lana’thel and Valithria Dreamwalker! Great work guys! This meant that on Sunday we could progress through Sindragosa, beat down the Professor and maybe, just maybe, have a look at the Lich King! Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve decided to level Blacksmithing and Mining on my Pally so I’ve been gallivanting around lowbie areas a little. While I was in Elwynn Forest, a bit of spam came up – for WoW Radio (wow-radio.net). This is nothing particularly new, streaming music for a community is as old as the internet, but I’ve never really got into it. Eve-Online had a highly successful and popular radio, but Eve players are into the doof-doof that doesn’t really do it for me. I thought I’d pop over to the website and have a look – and a listen.

Two things from the website struck me straight away – they have big plans and not a lot of listeners, yet at least. The site looks solid, although there are a few things that would drive Naz insane (I went to the forums and couldn’t find a link to the main page again).

As for music, you’re looking mostly at top forty stuff by the looks. In the 20 minutes I’ve been listening we’ve had Bon Jovi, Train, Snow Patrol and Coldplay – the curse of the radio station, trying not to make anyone turn off is more important than getting people to turn on.  (Side note, it’s got a lot more varied since then) Read the rest of this entry »

Teamwork in WoW sometimes reminds me of an old military story I heard back when I was an Air Force Cadet.  In a  promotion examination, students (officer candidates) were asked a question:

“You have a 10-person working party, headed by a sergeant, and you need to put up a 75 foot flagpole.  How do you do it?”

As the story goes, some officer candidates immediately start taking about the gear they need and the stress on the flagpole and how to make sure that it’s adequately balanced.  They all fail.

The correct answer is to say to the sergeant in charge of the working party:  ”Sergeant, put up that flagpole.”

The moral of the story as I was taught it is that you don’t need to be responsible for every little detail – as an officer, you’re given a task and the tools to achieve it.  Often, it’s up to you to provide the strategy, and give others the power to carry out their tasks – subordinates should be allowed to carry out the tasks they are capable of, with minimal direction from you.  Indeed, there’s a commonly used word for over-direction of people who don’t need it:  micromanagement.

So how does this relate to WoW?   Read the rest of this entry »

ABOUT WOW
What is your main characters Name, Class and Spec?

Ferazol, SV (currently) Hunter. My main and always will be.

The “second” characters vary from:
- Yalah, Level 80 Feral/Resto Druid.
- Astraeia, Level 80 Prot/Holy Paladin.
- Whynn, Level 74 Death Knight.
- Drahmann, Level 73 Shaman.
- Nishanna, Level 71 Mage.
- Tiltelorll, Level 70 Warlock.

What do you think is the most challenging thing about playing your class and what advice would you offer to new players?

Autoshot timing, the idea that we don’t have a rotation you can spam.

For new players it depends. For DPSing, basically learn the order of your shots and get a casting mod like Quartz. 20% extra dps because you can see when your Steady Shot actually finishes casting is awesome. For general goodness, learn how to trap. Learn how to kite. Learn when to Feign Death.

How long have you been playing World of Warcraft and how did you get started?

Since 2005 I think. Patch 1.06 or 1.07. Naz got me and a fair few workmates hooked. Over time they’ve all dropped away save for me. Read the rest of this entry »