And I'm Back?

Well yes, it is correct. I am back, where I have been is a bit irrelevant. If you must know writing for a website but the owner can't upkeep the website anymore so. I am back! Awesome.

So yes, more information to come on here, so keep checking back if you want! I learned a lot of things from the website I wrote for and the knowledge is invaluable to me, so expect much better writings. Much, much better!

Guild Wars 2 Leaked Document

Now before I even write this (something I did not want to) this is completely speculation. I am just posting this because it is something recently I have seen from a supposed leaked document. I will post all information I have found and try to keep it as easy to understand as possible. Let's begin!

A while ago on May 24th a youtuber I follow posted a video. This video is related to a supposed leaked document with and the youtuber was sharing this because the info was relevant to his channel. He was doing a Sims update for his subscribers and I watched along. In the video (here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Hnqtj5juI&feature=channel_video_title ) at 00:40 seconds you can see the leaked document. Here it shows a bunch of different dates mostly Sims related but the one that of course caught my eye was Guild Wars 2. Now of course I knew for sure this was no verified source and something I couldn't attribute as being legit so I passed it off as a fake.

Now a month and a bit later and another video comes out from the same guy I mentioned above. This is confirming the release date of the Sims 3 Pets expansion pack. Now usually this is irrelevant but in the video I linked above the date it speculated for the Sims 3 pets expansion was October 25th, 2011. Now the thing that caught my attention was the fact that the release date for the Sims 3 expansion is October 27th 2011, two days from the leaked document. This to me gives the leaked document now seems a lot more legit.

Now this is where I come to with Guild Wars 2. On that leaked document (something that could be legit) there is the glorious Guild Wars 2! On the document it states that the Guild Wars 2 release date being September 1st. Now I understand completely that this is virtually impossible. I see no possible way for the beta test to happen and the game ship for September 1st, but this says something to me. That very well could be the date they had planned for, but are missing once again.

All of this is pure speculation I understand but just something that peaked my interest. The document seems a little suspicious so I am just stating what I believe. Other then that I hope at least that will be the beta date. I just hope Guild Wars 2 isn't pushed too far back like everyone else!

Ramble complete, good day!

Minecraft 1.8 Thoughts

With the release of information about the upcoming 1.8 Minecraft update I figured I would go over some do or dies. Things that implemented could strengthen the game and some that could tarnish it. I feel Notch has a big gap to fill here, one that he could hit head on or one that he could greatly miss. Below I will go over a few things for me that have been released, and what I think they should entail. Now before I start I have no knowledge of coding with java so the ideas I throw out could be impossible or they could be simple, I have no idea. I am just tossing these ideas in the air hoping some I will catch. It is all just in theory and my minds ponderings, nothing else. No beg or claim for these features. I just think with these upcoming features some things could help it go a long way. Let's begin!

Some of the features have been released on notch's blog so I will start with one, sprinting. This could work really well if implemented correctly. Now most likely it will be related to either a cooldown or some sort of stamina bar, otherwise it would be too easy to get away from mobs. Now of course, if mobs AI were to be improved upon then maybe unlimited sprinting could work. But for this let's just say it will have some sort of limit. Now some people have claimed Minecraft "too easy." Sure for your first night you are scared out of your mind and digging yourself a protective shell from the onslaught of zombies, spiders and such. After establishing some sort of base the difficulty plummets. With a shelter monsters have nothing they can do. You are "protected," something people are discouraged about. There are mods that give monsters the ability to break blocks, Mo Creatures ogres for example, so it isn't impossible. But I am not sure this is a feature Notch wants implemented in the base game, I have no idea but to me it doesn't fit the game. Now who knows, Notch could be implementing it. But obviously there should be some sort of blocks to protect against mob destruction. But of course this is thinking far, far ahead so I will jump back on track. Sprinting will add more of a realism feel to your character. You have a sort of quick back-up to escape death, a few quick extra seconds of speed to save you from certain death. This feature sounds great to me!

The next feature I will discuss is the NPC villages. There have been other mods showcasing these villages so it isn't something unseen but I assume Notch will not be basing it off of a mod and will be making it from scratch. We have seen a picture of the villages from the game, something that makes me worry. Here we see giant above ground mushrooms around the village and that is something that disgusts me. I do not want every NPC village to have giant ugly mushrooms above ground for you to whack at. I really hope it was just an early prototype and will not be released in 1.8. It would be better suited for underground I think, underground NPC villages if you could find them and such. The NPC villages will give the world more life, more activity. Right now we have a small seldom amount of animals that roam the land and other then that it is pretty barren. Hopefully with the addition of these villages it will add to the immersion, making the game world feel more realistic. Let's hope for the best!

The next feature that Notch is implementing is "Randomly Generated Dungeons." Now for this I am pretty clueless as to what it entails. Something tells me though it could be very similar to Terraria's dungeon system. Where instead of in Minecraft it being a small and tiny room, it could be a large expansive place to explore, with multiple mob spawners, chests and rooms. How this will work? I have no idea. With the dungeons in Minecraft now there is no real challenge. As soon as torches are placed around the spawner and the mobs are killed there is no hazard. I hope that the new dungeons will provide another engrossing experience in the underground!

Another feature would be more farming options. This is something I must say is really long overdue. There are so many plants and other things that could improve on the blatantly boring farming system in place. Right now we only have one plant to grow, and the way of making bread is just stupid. You would bake it in an oven and not in a crafting bench. I really hope they can add at least a couple of new plants and seeds to harvest. A big thing for me is rare seeds, if he added rare like "death plants" or something you could find deep underground or in the nether that would be really awesome. I think adding more rare things to find would increase the difficulty and excitement of exploring for them. Here's to hoping we get some awesome new plants!

Now the final feature I would like to talk about is New Biome Code. I think that this will help even out the biomes as they are a little wonky as of now. I feel that they are way too small and jammed close together. i hope that there are new biomes added which can give us stuff to look for and explore. Take Terraria for example, as soon as you enter a new biome you can tell. They have key distinctive features showing you which biome is which, of course their's are simpler but you get the idea. In Minecraft there are three distinctive sort of biomes, snowy, grassy and desert biomes. The problem is there are a lot of variations of each (except desert I believe) and I would love to have noticeable changes in biomes. The slight change in grass color isn't enough, I want actual different things to happen in certain biomes. Like find specific seeds and mobs in some biomes. I want there to be rare biomes that are terribly hard to find, I want biomes to have more depth other then grass colors. Biomes need more complexity!

Well that is all for my ramble about 1.8, hopefully this patch will not take too long. I am anxiously waiting for it! Also hoping that more core features are brought in and some sillier ones are ignored. Keep up the good work Mojang!

Ramble complete, good day!

Guild Wars 2 Beta Thoughts

Recently I have been doing some deep thinking about the Guild Wars 2 open beta, a little about the closed too. The Guild Wars 2 beta is something ArenaNet isn't taking lightly. They understand that when we, the players, play the game for the first time it should be perfect. They want the game to be extremely polished and with as little bugs so our first experience is one to remember. This totally makes sense and I cannot complain one bit about.

My complaint with others not doing this is that too many times there have been game-breaking bugs in betas that aren't ironed out until after or during the beta. This really is disheartening to the game as I feel like that will be included in the finished product or it provides a bad portrayal of the game. I think ArenaNet understands that we are changing, the players expect more. This isn't some mediocre game being released, it is 2011 we have extremely advanced gaming technology and this is a triple A title. ArenaNet sees that we deserve the best they have to offer, and they are right.

Another thing I have discovered during my pondering and abstract mind tumbling that there is the Paris Games convention from Oct 21-25. And if they are playing demo's there how could open beta be released before this? This completely solidifies my sad and unwanted belief that Guild Wars 2 will not be a 2011 title. As many times as I have denied and wanted it to be untrue, it is true. There is no way humanly possible for ArenaNet's 270+ crew can rush this amazing game out for 2011. However the beta is confirmed for this year so I am assuming it will be sometime after October, unless something happens at PAX, because big news should be there. I don't know what more big news is left really? The Sylvari redesign, guilds, PvP, last profession, one more book and maybe beta. There really isn't a whole lot of information left for ArenaNet that is something we don't already know and is groundbreaking. We have now seen underwater combat, one of the bigger ones on their to-do list, so what is left?

Not a whole lot, and man does that make me happy.

Ramble complete, good day!

1.7 Minecraft Update

Finally the long awaited 1.7 Minecraft Update has arrived. The only thing missing is the adventure, planned for 1.8. It seems like Notch is really going all out for this adventure update. He has trickled small bits of information about the update to keep us all waiting also! Anyways...

The 1.7 update brings the following changelog:

+ Added pistons
+ Fire or redstone is now required to trigger TNT
+ Fences can be stacked
+ Added shears
+ Shears can be used to pick up leaf blocks
+ Shears can be used to shear sheep without hurting them
* Sheep no longer drop wool from being punched
- Removed Herobrine


For each of these I am fine, except the TNT requirements. It was fun punching TnT and blowing up friends. But now you cannot just plop a block down and light it. You need some other mechanisms, I guess this could be helpful for griefing as they will actually need to find iron before blowing things up. Anyways that seems to be all, the shears seem to be nice and the pistons I cannot wait to try. The pistons open up a whole new plethora of options for weird and wacky contraptions, of course some that were present before but now without a mod!


Great work Jens and Notch, finally 1.7 has arrived!


Ramble complete, good day.

Guild Wars 2 Underwater Combat!

Here are my first impressions of the amazing Guild Wars 2 underwater combat system!

To start I applaud ArenaNet and specifically the devs that brought this amazing creation to us. Thanks!

Now let's start!

The drowning downed system is wonderful. They looked at being downed at a whole new angle (get it, z axis! :O) and implemented an extremely smart downed state. If you are downed underwater you will be but into a "drowning" state. Here you can either, kill somebody, get revived by an ally or reach the surface. This mechanism will work extremely well in my opinion. Firstly, the deeper you go the harder it will be to come out of this drowning state. So that means all the epic bosses will be really deep underwater, awesome! One of the developers during a video stated that at some parts of the water you swim down for approx. 45 seconds. That is bloody deep considering the movement speed is fairly quick underwater. Also they have stated that there will be actual underwater events that take place! How many though is undecided yet. But if we take that 1/3 of the world will be underwater and approx 1500 events, I would say probably less then 500. That is awesome, so much underwater immersion for a game is unheard of! Until now!

Ok now, the transfer from land to water is seamless, and I have seen it. There was one part in a video where a dev was getting mauled by a lot of higher level pirates. On the land he went down right next to the shore. In the down state he was knocked backwards into the water and from there he instantly entered the water downed state. The transfer from land to water is fast and easy. You can go from fighting enemies on shore to launching harpoons at them in an instant. ArenaNet has really thought about the annoyance of underwater seen in other games and has completely eliminated it. There is also no breathing! You don't have to find some potion or spend a bunch of money, you are fitted with a breathing apparatus as soon as you enter water. Also on a side note the breathing apparatus looks really nice, it really fits well with the character.

The weapon sets provided underwater seem to give a similar play style to your original character but of course with that extra axis. Which is always great. Each profession (the 7 so far) have two different weapons available underwater except the elementalist. Which technically has 4, for each attunement. The engineer seems to stick with explosives like torpedoes and also with nets. The Necromancer uses a spear but more at a short range, with his main attack throwing spears. The ranger of course has the longer range harpoon gun and spear although I haven't seen much game play. And also with the other professions I have seen limited underwater game play.

Now with that being said there is one not so much of a big deal complaint. Clipping. I completely understand that clipping is inevitable. With 5 different sized races and 8 professions the armor, weapons, environment provide quite a clipping disaster. Normally above ground the clipping is not that bad, mildly noticeable. The problem was underwater. I could see a lot of ground clipping with the players swimming around freely in the open 3D space. The problem only seemed to occur whilst swimming backwards because the character is at a weird angle. Some armor did clip noticeably with the underwater weapons. For me, clipping is not that big of a deal. I can easily ignore it, but for some serious RPer's it might become a huge issue. Not game breaking, just an issue.

TL:DR It is awesome.

After the huge bombardment of information this week it has been amazing. All the fans that were lucky enough to be pulled into the ArenaNet studio had a blast and it seems the staff too. I think that the Fanday was a huge success, and those that didn't attend were blessed with loads of new information.

Victory!

Ramble complete, good day!

Less or More?

Don't let the general title confuse. I am just trying to find a balance within my blogosphere. Here are the scenarios...

If I release say 1 blog a day I find I sometimes end up cramming a lot of jumbled ideas together. I usually do it all really unorganized and sometimes I even forget what I am talking about. For me, this scenario gives a lot of content in a short amount of time, but it is of lesser value. And not to mention I have to release one every day meaning that I get no real break or extra time to work on it with schooling and the rest.

Now with the second scenario, I release say 1-2 blogs a week. This way I can plan out the blog over the week revise it, organize it more. I can look around, do some research and really make sure my facts are correct. This scenario could give me a break every few days. That way every week there could be a powerful blog or two instead of 7 all jumbled up blogs that should really be only 1 or 2 longer blogs.

I have come to the conclusion, after my beginner bloggers mistake, I will not do one blog a day. I realize I end up trying to cram and most blogs turn out, well they turn out like shit.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say here is I will do longer blogs. Where I can throw all the things that interested me in the week into a few blogs. Of course I will separate them so you aren't getting like 4 different games jammed into one boringly long blog post. This way I can think over my blogs. Save them as drafts, edit, revise. It can give me more time to perfect each blog post. This way they aren't shit!

Success!

Ramble complete, good day!

5 Days, and Finally News!

Well after hearing about it on the forums and lurking around twitter it appears there is some sort of "open house" going on at ArenaNet. It appears the contest winners are going to be getting access to the studio and other members in the community. The total number appears to be 15, which was tweeted by Martin Kerstein. This appears to be an exciting event for all involved.

To me it doesn't seem too big. They are not allowing them to film any game play but they are allowed to speak about it freely. This to me seems still to be something exciting, just nothing ground breaking. The ambassador contest winners seem to be showing up there also (mentioned by Rubi in her last flameseeker chronicle article).

There has been a lot of speculation as to new content that may be showed at this open house. I assume so, but you never know. Some speculation has been PvP as 15 people are being brought in so it could be something like that. Although I think the WvWvW would be better tested with either the closed or open beta tests. Just my opinion.

Well to those who are going congratulations! Have fun, can't wait to hear what kind of amazing things go down in that magical place.

Ramble complete, good day!