After the jump is spoilerland.
Monday, May 24, 2010
The Lost Finale
If you haven't watched the Lost series finale that aired yesterday, stop reading now.
After the jump is spoilerland.
After the jump is spoilerland.
Interesting Link About Girl Gamers
As a bit of supporting evidence for "This is Why Girls Don't Talk To You":
70% of women playing online games choose male avatars and pretend to be male to avoid sexism.
This is all our fault, guys. Stop it.
70% of women playing online games choose male avatars and pretend to be male to avoid sexism.
This is all our fault, guys. Stop it.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Female Worgen Models Revealed
The female worgen models officially previewed at the Escapist (nice name) look pretty good!
But I'm glad these are still a work in progress. I'm actually happy with the general idea, but the hips/waist/pelvis look wrong. Kind of fragile. Like, they need some shatter-proofing. Bulk em up a bit. Their faces also need work. I'd recommend giving them more jaw and just generally making the head a and mouth a bit bigger. We'd have to see them with hair. They look too much like does rather than wolves. I know they need to be feminine, but that doesn' t mean you have to change them to another species!
I love the lanky, languid feel, and the bit of graceful savagery to their apparent animations. I'm glad the devs avoided the temptation to over-feminize their limbs, instead making their arms long and their hands and feet large. They really do look like Worgen, isntead of a furry reskinned Draenei female like I expected. Then, just when I think they've made a step forward, I notice that not even plate armor covers their midriff. Vulnerable underbellies are usually a good place for armor, ladies.
I especially want to point out the apparent ear animations as shown in the stills, which are a nice touch, and really bring the model to life.
And their shoulders are a good size! Some of the WoW models have a lot of wasted potential because the shoulders are too small.
Overall, it' s looking promising.
But I'm glad these are still a work in progress. I'm actually happy with the general idea, but the hips/waist/pelvis look wrong. Kind of fragile. Like, they need some shatter-proofing. Bulk em up a bit. Their faces also need work. I'd recommend giving them more jaw and just generally making the head a and mouth a bit bigger. We'd have to see them with hair. They look too much like does rather than wolves. I know they need to be feminine, but that doesn' t mean you have to change them to another species!
I love the lanky, languid feel, and the bit of graceful savagery to their apparent animations. I'm glad the devs avoided the temptation to over-feminize their limbs, instead making their arms long and their hands and feet large. They really do look like Worgen, isntead of a furry reskinned Draenei female like I expected. Then, just when I think they've made a step forward, I notice that not even plate armor covers their midriff. Vulnerable underbellies are usually a good place for armor, ladies.
I especially want to point out the apparent ear animations as shown in the stills, which are a nice touch, and really bring the model to life.
And their shoulders are a good size! Some of the WoW models have a lot of wasted potential because the shoulders are too small.
Overall, it' s looking promising.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Jewelcrafting Win!
"Jewelcrafters will have some fun new (and potentially lucrative) vanity items, including fist weapons, rhinestone sunglasses, monocles, and stardust (sprinkle on players for entertainment)."-Blizzard
Win.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Battle.net should NOT USE YOUR REAL NAME!
Dear Actiblizz,
The fact that Battle.net's method of cross-game communication forces you to give out your full real life name (the one associated with your credit card,no less!) as part of the "RealID" is a [bleep]ing travesty.
IT NEEDS TO GO.
ActiBlizz, I know you really are banking on leveraging facebook and RL social networking and stuff, but you are purposely crippling the useability of your service for absolutely NO benefit to the user. The ONLY people who benefit from forcing realIDs to use real names are ActiBlizz shareholders and executives.
I do not want to give out my name over the internet. I want to go by my handle. I want to keep my RL and gaming life separate. The excuse that "well don't give our your realID to anyone to whom you don't want to give your real name" is complete buttpoopcrap, because it means you are explicitly saying that no one should be using the cross-game communications with their in-game friends that they only met through their guild.
It essentially locks a ton of people out of the service. A service you want to be successful. It can't be used for its intended goddamn purpose because using it opens up a personal security/privacy breach with no way to opt out except to not use the service at all. When it would be SO EASY to just plug that security hole so users could actually use the service freely.
Why didn't you instead just announce "there will be no cross-game communication available in battle.net for people you meet online".
Again, this ONLY hurts the end user and the success of the product's widespread use. So why is the real name being forced in there? Is it really just for facebook integration? Is that really so profitable that it's worth hamstringing the entire service until it's almost pointless? Why would you EVER do it this way??!??!
Yours in INCANDESCENT RAGE,
Hatch
(not my real name, which means that I can't use it as my battle.net handle without giving out my real name to everyone that my blogging persona wants to keep in touch with, thus destroying the purpose of the pseudonym entirely!)
PS: and I quote:
Yep. If you friend someone with your Real IDs, anyone that other person EVER adds will be able to see YOUR personal information without any way for you to block it except drop that friend.
Why would you force real names on there when the system would be so much more useable and less [bleep]ing dangerous if you just let us opt out of displaying our real names?
The fact that Battle.net's method of cross-game communication forces you to give out your full real life name (the one associated with your credit card,no less!) as part of the "RealID" is a [bleep]ing travesty.
IT NEEDS TO GO.
ActiBlizz, I know you really are banking on leveraging facebook and RL social networking and stuff, but you are purposely crippling the useability of your service for absolutely NO benefit to the user. The ONLY people who benefit from forcing realIDs to use real names are ActiBlizz shareholders and executives.
I do not want to give out my name over the internet. I want to go by my handle. I want to keep my RL and gaming life separate. The excuse that "well don't give our your realID to anyone to whom you don't want to give your real name" is complete buttpoopcrap, because it means you are explicitly saying that no one should be using the cross-game communications with their in-game friends that they only met through their guild.
It essentially locks a ton of people out of the service. A service you want to be successful. It can't be used for its intended goddamn purpose because using it opens up a personal security/privacy breach with no way to opt out except to not use the service at all. When it would be SO EASY to just plug that security hole so users could actually use the service freely.
Why didn't you instead just announce "there will be no cross-game communication available in battle.net for people you meet online".
Again, this ONLY hurts the end user and the success of the product's widespread use. So why is the real name being forced in there? Is it really just for facebook integration? Is that really so profitable that it's worth hamstringing the entire service until it's almost pointless? Why would you EVER do it this way??!??!
Yours in INCANDESCENT RAGE,
Hatch
(not my real name, which means that I can't use it as my battle.net handle without giving out my real name to everyone that my blogging persona wants to keep in touch with, thus destroying the purpose of the pseudonym entirely!)
PS: and I quote:
"You will also be able to see the first and last name of your Real ID friends and their Real ID friends."
Yep. If you friend someone with your Real IDs, anyone that other person EVER adds will be able to see YOUR personal information without any way for you to block it except drop that friend.
Why would you force real names on there when the system would be so much more useable and less [bleep]ing dangerous if you just let us opt out of displaying our real names?
Monday, May 3, 2010
Premium Articles at VTW Productions
Hello faithful readers,
Today I posted my first Premium Article over at Versus the World Productions, home of Octale & Hordak, Casually Hardcore, and other great podcasts.
It's (inevitably) about the Cataclysm raid changes, and goes into depth about why the old system is bad, and the new one good.
I AM IN NO WAY STOPPING OR EVEN SLOWING DOWN UPDATES TO MY BLOG. My articles over at VTW will be in addition to my normal blogging over here.
So go check it out, enjoy their podcasts, and tell your friends!
Today I posted my first Premium Article over at Versus the World Productions, home of Octale & Hordak, Casually Hardcore, and other great podcasts.
It's (inevitably) about the Cataclysm raid changes, and goes into depth about why the old system is bad, and the new one good.
I AM IN NO WAY STOPPING OR EVEN SLOWING DOWN UPDATES TO MY BLOG. My articles over at VTW will be in addition to my normal blogging over here.
So go check it out, enjoy their podcasts, and tell your friends!
A Brief History of Gear
Click this link and read a great guest post on Blessing of Kings, which gives a decent history of how gear was obtained throughout the past 5 years of WoW. It highlights the fact that players always flock to the best effort/reward ratio activity in the game, regardless of whether it is the most "fun" activity for them.
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