Sunday, April 24, 2011

I think I'm going insane....


Correction: I'm already there!


I finally crossed the Insane title off of my Cataclysm to-do list (yes, I realize it is months late, real life happened!)

Join me in celebrating this accomplishment, which came as the result of about 50,000 gold and 20-50 hours of dedication.

Go me!



Thursday, April 7, 2011

Help Wanted

I had a discussion with someone the other day, after a trainee who was into LARP'ing impressed me. I joked that maybe we should start posting our help wanted ads in elvish...


So yeah... I made a help wanted ad in elvish... enjoy!



Thursday, March 3, 2011

All quiet on the western front...

Good afternoon everyone!

It has been far too long since I last posted, so I wanted to say "hi" and let the world of blogging know I'm still alive.

Look for new content on Paladin-Bias coming soon!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Original WoW Fiction! The Dread Citadel

Good afternoon internet!

Paladin-Bias is pleased to present some original WoW fan fiction (based very loosely on an actual Naxx run). This is part one, with the conclusion to follow some time in the near future when I get around to writing it.

-----


The Dread Citadel

It was cold, the kind of cold that cut right through fur or cloth, to chill the very essence of you. The walls beside us were wet and streaked with stains of various colors, and it appeared to have some kind of slime or mold growing sporadically across the crumbling stonework.

I shifted in my armor restlessly as I waited in the murky gloom of the dread citadel, Naxxramas.

"Where is that fool?" Snapped the human crouching beside me. He was a short, stout man by human standards- however he was still relatively tall compared to my people. Beneath his helm he wore the same sour scowl I had seen for the past two months, since he had replaced our last warrior.

Beneath his heavy plate armor, I could see he wore a vibrantly colored shirt- possibly in an attempt to convey he was of a noble house or that he had some wealth, although since I'd known him, he had never felt obliged to buy a round for any of us after a well-fought battle.

What he lacked in social grace, he made up with brute force and blind, adrenaline-fueled aggression. I can recount numerous battles where his blood-thirst has been a boon to our plight.

"I'm right here you dog." Snarled a voice from the shadows. From the darkness, a druid crept towards us; shape shifted to resemble a ferocious beast. I watched a tendril of drool dangle precariously from his jaw, before dropping unceremoniously to the damp floor.

The warrior grumbled an inaudible reply, assuming his subservient role to the obvious leader of our group.

"Aye, and what is it? What's at the end 'a the tunnel?" I called out to the druid, cutting through the tension, the priest a few yards away sighed in relief and returned to pouring over a scroll he was attempting to decipher.

"The tunnel is filled with a noxious slime, it stretches a few yards before opening up into a massive room." The druid replied with a low growl, "It's Gluth." He added with a smirk, and a snap of his jaw.

The faces around me went pale, their expressions immediately changed to a mixture of concern and doubt.

After a few moments our hunter, a sly night elf who was as quick with his wit as he was with his bow and quiver, broke the silence, "The foul plague-dog of Naxxramas- his jaw is the infected maw of the scourge war machine." At this he laughed, "HA, nothing Prometheus and I can't handle!" He said as he thoughtfully pat his pet, a harmless looking dog that was sleeping with his head in the hunter's lap.

To this, the usually reserved priest replied, "Yes. The hunter speaks the truth, the Light will aid us in this holy task."

"Ha, that idyllic skirt-wearer wouldn't know the Light if Uther's mace whacked 'im across 'is ruddy head" I thought to myself as I shifted my mace from its resting place on my left shoulder to my right. "The true path to the Light is through glorious battle."

"We need a plan." Said the squat gnome mage bluntly, peering from behind the priest.

The mage was unusually terse for a gnome, and he didn't share the love for engineering and technology beloved by his brethren. Instead he chose to live the life of a nomadic mystic, focusing on always growing his knowledge of the arcane, and caring for nothing else.

Make no mistake, his interest in our companionship was nothing more than an agreement made out of practicality- the best way for him to practice his ever growing repertoire of new, more powerful spells was to get some real battle experience- and we were just useful enough for him to stick around.

Through all of this our resident shaman remained eerily silent. He sat alone, a few yards away meditating. Surrounded by his spiritual totems, he prayed to the elements for guidance.

I spit on the ground, muttering under my breath, "Filthy savage." The shaman, shot a quick glance in my direction, but I didn't care. Praying to dirt, snow and whatever other pagan things they believe was an affront to the Light.

The druid looked behind him in the shadows, "Go scout the tunnel, make sure there aren't any traps." He snapped to the empty shadows.

"Yeah? Sure, send me to do the work while you scum sit here. Anything you ask my master." A voice replied smugly. A shadowy figure darted by, our resident rogue. He was a dwarf like myself, but that was where our similarities ended. He was rude, sneaky, mischievous, and deceitful- and I was fairly certain he had pilfered from my coin purse on more than one occasion. I often wondered why we kept him around.

To be continued…

Monday, December 27, 2010

Thoughts on Cataclysm

Hello!

So, I'm sure by now pretty much anyone reading this played the newest World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm and drawn your own conclusions about it. Or if you haven't played it then you may have no interest in my opinions of the game.

But regardless whichever category you fall under- read this post anyway, I have a family to feed!



First Impressions-

When I first booted up the game, it was after a long (re:16 hour) workday, and I knew I had maybe an hour tops to play before bed. I threw in the installation disc, grabbed some chow, and sat down expecting to watch a loading bar. Thankfully however the game was ready to play
quickly and I was off to the races.

Prior to the expansion I had done zero research regarding leveling, or strategies for traversing the new content, so I was a little overwhelmed at first. I headed to Mount Hyjal and started questing through the typical "kill 10 boars" or "loot 5 orbs of evil" quests. I was disheartened to see a realm first level 85 achievement pop up on the first night, and was annoyed that people were hitting level cap in less than one day, a drastic change compared to WOTLK.

Overall however, I found myself sucked into the questing, the new zone, and the new achievements and ended the night craving much more.

Hindsight-

I played through Hyjal, Deepholm, Vash'ir, and Uldum over the next few days and got a good idea of the game-play of the expansion. While there were some really awesome quest lines, I think the majority were far too familiar, predictable, and underwhelming. For example, the end of the Hyjal quests involved defeated Ragnaros with some legends from WoW lore, (amazing concept right?) but it ended up being a drawn out fight involving too much repetition (heal the guy, dodge the fire, kill the adds, repeat) to be fun.

In addition, it seems like the developers heard all the positive reaction to their cut sequences (Wrathgate) from the fans and decided that they needed to strike the iron while it was hot. So expect A LOT more cut scenes in Cata. And this is by no means a good thing. The Wrathgate sequence was a triumph of visual and emotional imagery which provided not only entertainment, but emotional appeal. When Bolvar calls out to Arthas, you hear the passion in his tone, and to see him fall to apparent betrayal by the Forsaken really sparks a variety of emotions in the player.

The Cata cut sequences by comparison are boring, unnecessary, and extremely random. It seems kind of like the development team ended up with some extra budget while designing Uldum and decided every other zone needed a cut-scene.

There is one cut scene where you literally ride about 50 yards on a caravan while some guy in a funny hat talks about something irrelevant to anything that matters in the game.

I found myself literally annoyed by these cut scenes at several times, because they took me out of the game, which was Blizzard's argument originally as to why there weren't more cut scenes to begin with!

Closing Thoughts-

Aside from the frustrating an pointless cut scenes, if I had to give my overall opinion of Cata, I would say everything seems too formulaic. Don't mistake me for an elitist when I say that, I realize that they have something that works, so obviously there will be redundancies. But it just seems like everything is just a re-skinned regurgitation from the past. New, expensive crafting pets and mounts to create- check; new, rare drop mounts and pets to farm- check; new factions to farm rep for, check. This may just be me being cynical as a completionist, but it feels too much like I've already beaten this game before...

Anyway, overall I know I'm going to be wasting more time than I should playing the expansion, so i can't hate on it too much. It looks better than ever, some of the quests are downright epic and/or hilarious, they added a ton of new places to explore, they added new things to farm, and the guild achievements and perks are amazing and really add extra unity to guilds. Overall Cataclysm has some brown spots, but this is one piece of fruit still worth eating.

Extra Special Graphically-Challenged

Merry Christmas and happy holidays blogosphere! Hopefully everyone had a great holiday!

Apologies for the lack of posts lately, I have been considerably overwhelmed by work.

However, as a mea culpa (and as a belated Xmas gift) I cooked up this extra special Graphically-Challenged for everyone, on the side of my work mug (the blurred area was formerly the company logo)!


Monday, December 6, 2010

G-C-9



I will never figure out this blogger image upload stuff. It loads a different size every time. :(