The sweet smell of progress April 29, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Fun, Gaming, Instances, Paladin, World of Warcraft , add a commentToday we hit ZA again going for timed on the first, maybe the second boss and aimed to give ago to the other two bosses. We were going to go yesterday but we were lacking the people so a few of us went and had some fun beating up blood elves at Tranquillien. Anyway, today we headed in, we had a new priest with us as well and he got on well.
We got to the first boss fine, unlike the past couple of times I was healing the main tank whilst the other two were on the off tank (sounds a bit weird but our paladin takes a lot of spiky damage during those fights before the bear dude so he needs the healing). We proceeded to down him, despite the bear form tank accidentally getting the mangle debuff, it was very, very close but thanks to some holy light + greater heal + every HoT you like and swiftmend we pulled through it. Phewf. He dropped the plate healing helm I already have which the paladin tank took and then… I’m not sure what the other drop was, nothing interesting for me though.
Trash leading up to the second boss all went fine, despite slight lag from me and from a couple of others. We then proceeded to down the boss with many deaths including the tank right before we took him down. Another timed completed, woot! We got a healing staff and something else I forget. Two bosses in the timed, that’s some pretty good progress right there. Where we currently stand I don’t think we could do the timed any further as we don’t have the DPS but if we farm the first two timed and then the next two for a while we’ll get there eventually I’m sure.
We proceeded to take down the next two bosses, not a lot of trouble on the dragonhawk but it took a couple goes but then we managed to one shot the lynx. No paladin lewts for me but more badges is always good, I’ve got my eye on upgrading one of my two green (/shame) trinkets.
Overall I’m really pleased with Sapphiron’s progress and I hope to stick with them moving forward into twenty five mans before Wrath of the Lich King hits and maybe even carry on for a long time after that…!
Nice Surprises April 27, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Fun, Gaming, Instances, Life, World of Warcraft , add a commentI forgot to actually make the post about it but Sapphiron did actually manage to down the Lynx boss in ZA on Saturday. More than that, we did it in two proper attempts, first attempt was good and we got him to about 35%, then we had a messed up and the tank died straight away because us healers were moving and on the next try we got him. As such I’m very proud of us, looking at Be Imba for the healers that were there only one of the three are even in a position to perform well in ZA according to that and we’re 4/6 in there.
I probably should start to take a meter to see if I’m actually healing as expected although it probably won’t tell me much, the other paladin healer that the guild has is substantially better geared than me (probably has more experience aswell).
In other WoW news, my latencies at home are still unplayable and I seem to be able to do nothing about it. Given that it happens regardless of whether my connection is going via my router or not I don’t think it can be a port forwarding issue. I also don’t think it can be a firewall issue because if it were the game would simply have no connection, I’ve never known my firewall to just heavily block something. This kinda leaves me suspecting my ISP but my friend has the same ISP as me and although I’ve had a few strange disconnects on his computer my latencies are fine.
I’ve also canceled my subscription due to my upcoming exams, although I may have carried on playing if I could play at home as it’s nice to have the game to relax with, without it I can’t really reward myself for having done some good revision as I don’t really want to play any other games. It might be for the best though, given that these are exams are so important.
The Sword at Rock City - 25/03/08 March 26, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Fun, Music , add a commentLast night me and three friends went to see The Sword live at rock city. We grabbed a the nearest bus to all of us and got there at about 7.30pm and waited a few minutes to be let in. There wasn’t a huge gathering of people outside and although I didn’t know before hand this confirmed my suspicion that it would be in the basement. This isn’t hugely surprising but at the same time Freya is on guitar hero 2 so there was always the possibility of a larger turnout.
Anyways, we headed in and into the basement (if you’ve never been there it’s not really a basement but its got a low ceiling and is quite compact and is primarily used for metal so I guess that is how it got it’s name, don’t really know) and the band merchandise was to the right as we went in, something I haven’t seen before. We just hung around for a while waiting for the first band, Black Cobra, to come on. When they did, we were a bit surprised to find out they were only a two man band. Musically, they were OK, not the worst support band I’ve seen but not particularly good either. Essentially we all agreed that they should just leave out vocals and be instrumental because the lyrics are totally inaudible over the screechy vocal style, which is pretty horrible within itself. Maybe those vocals are part of the sludge genre, I don’t really know because it’s not something I listen to generally.
When they went off we took the opportunity to move forward a bit and waited again for Saviours to get ready. Having listening to Saviours a bit more before coming to the gig I was expecting better of them than Black Cobra and aside from a few technical difficulties (which meant we heard the first two riffs of their first song three times) they didn’t dissapoint. Again, after they left the stage we moved forward a bit more to be nearer the action for The Sword.
It didn’t take long for them to set up and they started with a song I didn’t recognize, which was kind of the trend for the night. They played a lot of stuff I hadn’t heard before, which is kinda surprising given that I thought I owned their only album. As it happens, it’s all from their new album, apparently released at the beginning of April (even though it seems to be available for buy and download on iTunes right now) which I intend to buy on CD when I can.
In all honesty, I would have liked to hear more stuff I recognized as I can get into it a lot easier and really feel the groove but they did play a few goodies such as Barael’s Blade and Iron Swan. Freya was saved for the encore, which started with a cover song that neither me nor my friends knew. They got a bit of heckling for that choice which is understandable. I did like how Freya was introduced: “Now for a song by the other greatest band from Texas” which confused me for a few seconds before they started off into the first riff.
Overall it was a pretty good night, my only real complaint being that I would have liked to see more of The Sword and less of the other bands (although I did enjoy some of Saviours). There were also some weird issues where the guitars didn’t quite have the oomph that I would expect, the sound just seemed to fall apart at some bits and it sounded a bit odd. I don’t think it was the fault of the band or a lack of skill on their part I think it was a pure technical thing, whatever they used to obtain the sound on the record probably couldn’t be done live for whatever reason. I picked up a t-shirt on the way out which I’m wearing as I type and I’d definitely go and see them live again, hopefully at a point where they don’t have much new material and I’ve managed to soak the new album into my brain.
My All Time Top Games part 1 August 20, 2007
Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Fun, Gaming, Life , add a commentI kinda wanted to make a list of my all time top games, just to think about how much time I have spent playing different games and in that sense how good they are because quite frankly all I really play now is World of Warcraft but it doesn’t make the games I’ve played in the past bad and they still deserve a good mention.
I’m gonna go down in (to my best recollection) amount of time played, starting with the most. It’s going to be a 2 part post, the first part doing 1-5 and the next finishing it off, hopefully with 6-10.
1. Runescape
Ahh, runescape, my first taste of that fickle genre, the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, but I’m sure you already know that). This comes right at the top because I played this game pretty much every day for over 2 years. Runescape was really more of a job than a game because it didn’t matter what you wanted in the game, it was all going to take a lot of work. You want that cool barrows armour? You’re gonna have to work. You want to be level 100? That’s a good 100 hours of grind right there. The only real merit is that some of this work didn’t require much attention, fishing for example was just waiting (quite realistic really…) and occasionally moving spots or going to the bank when you were full. What excitement.
The only really thing that kept it going so long was the pking (that’s player versus player by the way). Really, in itself, it wasn’t that exciting. I mean, most combat on these things does boil down to attacking and then waiting as numbers appear on you and your opponent but with others there’s usually some hardcore mashing of a few keys and running around in circles. With runescape all the real skill came down to timing of when to eat, which also relied on a nice net connection to make sure your timing didn’t go to waste.
The big thing about PKing was the revolutionary idea that when the enemy died you actually got to take the things they were holding and wearing. Unlike most MMORPGs, in runescape PvP was a big gamble, essentially a balance between the best equipment and what you could afford to lose. The possibility of reward and fame from pking was what kept it alive but really I should have quit much sooner. I was never that good at it really and it turns out I’m actually quite reasonable at WoW PvP which, despite having mediocre rewards, is actually a lot of fun.
2. Battlefield 2142
The latest in the battlefield series, it’s a bit of a difficult in terms of placing. I must have played it every day for a good few months before it finally got boring. It’s definitely a game worth playing and as with most of the games on this list it’s the multiplayer that really keeps it going. Gaining ranks and unlocks through the online play was a lot of fun and as with many of the best games it had those difficult to achieve unlocks that really keep you going. Unfortunately now its drifted away and I’m not interested in it any more but I will buy the next battlefield game, providing it is on PC, as BF2142 has provided me with a lot of fun.
Here’s where things get a bit difficult to classify as its really difficult to know how much time I spent playing these games, I’m going to try and put them into the best order I can though.
3.World of Warcraft
Yep, the beast of the MMORPG world. Whilst playing runescape I heavily criticised WoW so to anyone who read some of my forum posts about it back in the day would probably be tempted (and rightly so) to call me a hypocrite for playing it. It just turns out its much more fun than I realised it would be, both the PvP and PvE is a lot of fun. I’m particularly enjoying the concepts of different classes playing different roles in a group which is something that didn’t really exist in Runescape although it of course plays a big part in most MMORPGs.
I imagine I’ll be playing WoW for about another year, or until I get bored. I doubt I will carry on after going to university. I haven’t found it as addictive as runescape once was but its good fun and I have vowed to make sure not to play it beyond the point of having fun because that would be making the runescape mistake again.
4. Age of Empires 1 & 2
The original age of empires was first real experience of PC gaming and one of my early gaming experiences entirely. I’m not sure what it was that made it so great but it was just a brilliant. At first I could only play for very limited periods of time which kept it very fresh and left me longing to play more. When I finally had a computer of my own I quickly got AoE2 and played that for a while, after I finally got online with it that extended the game a bit longer but it eventually just faded away. Even though its not a series I ever play any more it is the sole reason that I grew to love the real time strategy genre, which brings me nicely to the next game.
5. Starcraft
It’s difficult to know where to place this gem, so I used a bit of chronology here. I was first introduced to this game by a friend who had 2 macs in his house both hooked up for LAN games. He, actually owning the game, tended to beat everyone who faced him at it but when the time came I bought my own copy thanks to those versus matches.
Really, the attraction of starcraft wasn’t in the single player game, which I found too hard, what was really great about it and remains so to this day is Blizzard’s Battle.net. What with the Starcraft editor being changed lots of great custom maps appeared and I spent many, many hours playing things like Simpsons massacre and sunken/tower/stargate/whatever defence. That’s what really kept it going as a great game and still keeps people playing today. Unfortunately, I can never seem to get onto battle.net any more, I do go on starcraft occasionally though as it is such a great game
I’m going to continue this post another day, with hopefully the 6-10 of my all time top games.
