To Sheep or not to Sheep

5 11 2008

I’m faced with a quandry at the moment - I haven’t preordered my Wrath of the Lich King. 

If i’m honest, i’m in no rush because I don’t want to play it until my new PC comes back (if… it comes back) so that gives me some room to breathe. The question is, do I buy the Collectors ed?

I vowed I would never buy another over priced collectors edition based on the pretty packaging becaus Bungie, EA, etc all gouge £10-20-$$$$$$ out of you for something crap + a pretty box.

But Blizzard have a good track record for collectors editions and i’ve always regretted not picking them up for previous games, so just to list it out:

Standard Retail Game: £18

Collectors Edition: £50

  • Art Book
  •  In-game Pet (Baby Frost Wyrm)
  • Behind-the-Scenes DVD (hours of interviews)
  • Music CD with over 20 tracks
  • Northrend Mousepad
  • Two trading card decks

Thats a steep price increase, but a substantial collectors edition package - so advice?

Regards,
JamesR.





Re: 11 Reasons Why Shaman Suck In PvP

3 11 2008

This post is a response to Mark’s post on Laputan Machine.

1,4,6 and 7 are the ones that I certainly agree with. We receive some fairly immense buffs from our totems (20% haste, 80-100 Str and Agi … Errr) on top of that we as Enhancement get our +10% AP and an instant cast spell every 10-15 seconds.

The problem is, that instant cast in PvP is almost always going to be a heal and with our ultra poor mana effeciency coupled with the suddenly shocking amount of mana drain means in any prolonged fight (which by Shaman standards is about 20 seconds) you’re completely fucked.

Shammy Rage is supposed to not only combat this but provide us with a window through which to engage people with ultra burst attacks and CC lock downs.

the problem arises when it’s only a 15 second dispellable (is it still? I forget) buff which is just long enough for Rogue, Mage, Priest, Warlock and Paladin to stunlock you for the duration and in most cases continue to do DPS and drains while you’re locked.

Our burst is reasonable though, when we’re on a target and getting off some DPS we’re pretty hard to match with the exception of Ret pallies (notably missing from your list), Critilate Rogues (see what I did there) and correctly spec’d Mages.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with regards to our weak buffing system and the overzealous application of crowd control - But it’s also the sheer number of “Out” clauses that classes have these days.

There are plenty of things related on this topic to be irked about, from a Rogue’s perspective all feral druids get Shadowstep, but only 1 spec of Rogue does. Shadowstep doesn’t even work if you’re snared anymore (i.e. frost nova) and yet blink breaks not only all movement affects but even stuns. Druids can charge, stun, stealth, heal, root, cyclone, poison, gouge, kidney shot and bleed … All with a single spec. Paladins can crit big (bugged DPS aside), get instant heals when they do (they get instant heal on 1 crit, we get instant heal on ~5 hits…), STILL make themselves invulnerable, STILL use Lay on Hands (with a reduced cooldown) and got even better buffs after 3.0.2.

I know i’m running around with only a tiny bit of Resillience and mediocre gear on my Shaman/Rogue … But on my Rogue I feel like I can go toe-to-toe with a moderately geared resillience character purely on the grounds of interrupts and burst critilates but with my Shaman it’s often over before I even got into range.

If Shaman could stealth, could you imagine? Appearing out of nowhere, stomping down earth bind and beating the living shit out of the guy before he even knew what a Stormstrike Debuff was.

*Sigh*

Regards,
JamesR.

Yes, this is a very lazy post, so shoot me.





2009 Gaming Wishlist

27 10 2008

I was writing a real post then decided that this would be more fun! Below is my wish list for 2009 (in the spirit of the now defunct WSAG):

  • DRM needs to fucking die
    We all know it’s true, so lets just do it.
     
  • Will Wright will die in a freak ATM explosion
    Because I hope he really enjoys having “the sales and metrics of the sims 2″ you corporate sell out bitch.  
     
  • Blizzard/Valve will release games within reasonable time frames
    I shouldn’t have to wait 1 1/2 years for an expansion pack.  
     
  • WAR, LotRO and every other two bit crappy MMO will shut it’s doors.
    Hellgate is closing it’s doors, now it’s free to play - Watch nobody play it anyway.  
     
  • Sony will get what’s coming to them
    With regards to their PR policies … I’m not anti-PS3, i’m anti Sony (and anti PS3-fanboy :P)  
     
  • There will be a scandal surrounding the Wii
    Because they’re far too high and mighty  
     
  • Someoneone will actually complete a Master of Magic clone/remake
    Seriously guys … How hard could is possibly be to make this thing work on XP without DosBox?  
     
  • Blizzard will announce and release Warcraft 4 using the SC2 engine.
    Do it. Do it now you bastards.  
     
  • All 3 parts of SC2 will come out
    If I have to wait 3 years for the 3 campaigns I won’t buy them out of principle. Stop sucking my life away!  
     
  • Killzone 2 will be released
    So we can realise that all those clowns who bought a PS3 for it really are stupid. Killzone 1 sucked and so will Killzone 2.

That was definitely more fun, leave me things you’re hoping for in 2009 and enjoy the rest of your day!

Regards,
JamesR.

Oh and Mark, leave me the URL to your new blog in the comments, I’ll update it while i’m at work.





C21st Atheist

23 10 2008

I’ve decided that I will try to move my Atheist blogging to another place since I have a better chance at a real reader base if I focus on something per blog rather than completely random things which have a tendancy to drive off people.

Then again I don’t really care if anyone reads this … It’s my personal blog. Why do I even have a personal blog?

Anyway check out [21st C Atheist], i’m still working on a few things but comments about the layout and extremely rubbish header graphic would be appreciated (although ignored).

Thanks to Dwayne from Probably Sucks for dropping by ;)

Regards,
JamesR.

On the topic of Probably Sucking … 41 Reasons why your Blog Probably Sucks (not from Dwayne :p) 





NRT is Expanding!

22 10 2008

No I’m just kidding - The beauty of NRT is that nobody reads it so I don’t have to worry about writing stuff or what have you. What would I expand to anyway? “Some People Read This”?

Go look at Probably Sucks, you’d swear it was written by Mark.

I encountered a curious religious stance for the first time (personally) recently … Someone who believes in (for lack of a better word) Evolutionism - That there is or were God-like beings but they were created by the same process that all life is.

A stance Dawkins and other staunch Atheists might have some sympathy with considering we believe all organisms exist for the sole purpose of becoming better (America is an anomaly) so by extrapolating that stance you could say that within the confines of science it’s not unreasonable.

Then again this person also had strong beliefs on the “soul” which I don’t personally agree with. When presented with “What makes you you?” you can really only mumble something about personal experiences, social pressures etc etc before admitting that an insurmountable number of things make you you.

A soul isn’t one of them though.

Bleh … I’m so rant starved … I need to have a good discussion with someone … Why doesn’t MSN record multiple person conversations? Piece of shit …

Regards,
JamesR.

The need to bitch is clearly absent from Maslo’s Hierarchy.





Out of Sight

22 10 2008

Out of Mind. That’s currently my policy on the HP piece of shit sat on my desk at home. I’m getting ever closer to the idea of just mounting a different HDD in it rather than sending it off, but tbh I still want to get my money back.

Until that moon turns blue i’ve been doing some shopping on Overclockers UK (a site recommended by a friend) and have come out with the following 2 spec sets:

Set 1

  • Intel 6600 Quadcore £130
  • (Undecided) Quality Mobo £120
  • Cooling £20
  • 4 Gb DDR8500+ Ram £60
  • (Undecided) Graphics Card £120
  • 1Tb HDD £85
  • (Undecided) Case £80
  • DVD-RW £25
  • PSU £70
    Total: £700~

 


Set2
  • Intel 6600 Quadcore £130
  • (Undecided) Quality Mobo £120
  • Cooling £20
  • 2 Gb DDR8500+ Ram £30
  • (Undecided) Graphics Card £45
  • 500Gb HDD £40
  • (Undecided) Case £47
  • DVD-RW £25
  • PSU £43
    Total: £500~ 

 

The point here was, look at what PC I would like to have … Then scale back the interchangeable components and upgrade them one by one. So whilst keeping the solid Intel 6600 & Mainboard there makes up literally half the price of the machine they’re also key components that probably won’t need changing for years (Considering 6600s have been clocked over 3.2Ghz/core on air cool). 

Further cost cutting could include pulling out the Graphics card altogether but generally it becomes a negative economy of scale to go much further down the specs from what you see in Set 2. 
Atm the hunk of junk at home is:

  • Tri-core
  • 4Gb Ram
  • £700~ Gb HDD
  • 8800GT (I think … Evan probably knows :P)
  • Unknown Mobo (probably terrible)
  • DVD-RW + Lightscribe
  • Unknown PSU (probably stock and terrible)

I think my Set 2 with an overclocked Quad-core (Would probably not push it and take a safe clock of about 2.8) would out perform the Non-clocked Tri core with more RAM and a better GFX card. Then in a few months I could always sink £100-£150 into a (some?) graphics cards and up the RAM and you’ve got a winner.

Would probably need a new PSU though because my Set 2 only has a 500w in my price range, although it is a quality 500 and ultra silent.

… Out of sight, out of mind … Out of reach. Sigh.

 

Regards,
JamesR.
P.S. Whatever WordPress did to their WYSIWYG editor - Fucking undo it. I spent more time resizing this post and putting breaks in than I did writing it.