Back to Global Agenda
Been playing a good deal of Global Agenda again lately. Won't go into a whole long post about it, but they've made a lot of improvements with the Sandstorm expansion. If you're interested there's a 14 day trial I believe, capped at level 12. And should you chose to buy it, use one of these coupon codes for 15% off:
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Go!
My beef with the SC2:WoL ending
Fine. I've accepted the fact that I'll probably be purchasing all of the SC2 expansion packs, even though I said multiple times that I wouldn't. But after completing the first in the series, I'm left wondering just how much Terran content is going to be found in the other two.
Let me break here to say that if you haven't figured it out already, this post is going to contain MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SC2. So if you haven't completed it, I suggest you stop reading here.
Now, after completing the final mission last weekend not only did I find it to be completety anti-climatic, but I'm simply left with more questions than answers. So here are my issues:
- Wasn't the entire point of the whole encounter with Zeratul about not killing Kerrigan? Sure, we didn't kill her, but she sure as hell isn't the Queen of Blades anymore. Seems to me we just completely fucked over the universe by undoing what the Overmind set out to do in creating her. Unless through some ridiculous plot device she still has control over the Zerg.
- Why the fuck does she still have that Zerg hair? Please tell me it's not for the reason mentioned above
- What about Tychus? Who actually "had the gun to his head"? Was it really Mobius? Were they acting outside of Valerian's goals?
- What happened to Arcturus Mengsk? We spent a whole lot of time trying to fuck him over, only to have that entire storyline forgotten the minute we stepped on Char.
- Was Valerian being upfront with us with his goals on Char? Was he using us for some other larger goal, besides one-upping his father?
I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting. But even if it's just those five, the only thing answered by the end of the game was the question "Can Kerrigan be cured?". And even still, it's not entirely certain. After all, she's still got those killer Zerg dreads going on.
So, are they going to dedicate time in the next two games to answering these questions? Seems like a whole lot of time to spend on Terran content in what is supposed to be the Protoss and Zerg expansions.
Cataclysm so far
Now between being busy IRL and taking the time to finish up the SC2 campaign I haven't spent a lot of time playing the Cataclysm beta thus far, but here are my impressions so far:
Warrior: So far I've only had time to play as Fury. I was going to go Prot right away and bang out some instances, but the dungeon finder on the test realms does not work. Bummer, but not surprising.
Anyhow, I went into beta thinking I was going to really be disappointed in the new warrior changes, but oh how wrong I was. Fury is a hell of a lot more fun now than it's ever been. I'm not sure there's ever a time you're not pushing buttons, unlike the current 3 button rotation. The introduction of Raging Blow (I think that's what it's called) and changing Cleave and HS to no longer be on-next-hit attacks makes fury a much more active spec to play.
However, the devs are still holding rage nerfs over the warriors head. Maybe it's deserved, as there have been very few times I haven't been able to HS the shit out of every mob in my way. But it's certainly making me shy away from playing a warrior come release.
Paladin: Paladin is just broken as it stands right now. Half of the spells and abilities I'm supposed to have are nowhere to be found in my spellbook. Even abilities gotten through talents are missing, so it makes it really hard to judge where the paladin is so far. I will say that the holy power mechanic is interesting.
Death Knight: Another instance of missing key abilities, but for another reason. I can see them on the class trainer, but due to a bug I'd have to drop my professions to be able to train them. So I'll just be waiting for the next build to really test out my DK.
Mage: I haven't played a mage since vanilla, so I wasn't really sure what to expect with this class, but I'm really loving the fire spec so far (only one I've tried). The mobility the class has is just incredible. Having scortch cost no mana, and being able to cast it while moving is just insane. Combine that with dragons breath, a targetable blast wave, and insta-cast pyroblasts and you've got some serious kiting ability and firepower.
I'm enjoying playing this character so much that as of right now, I've decided I'm going to roll a mage at cata release to experience all the new zone content.
Shaman: It's really hard to tell where enhancement shaman is without recount. There are just too many numbers flying everywhere to get a good idea. But the synergy between searing totem and lava lash really has potential for some serious numbers. There were 2 things I really didn't like however, fire nova not working with searing totem, and primal strike being on the same cooldown as storm strike.
New starting areas: I won't go into a whole lot of detail, there are videos available for that, but I will say this: While the Goblin area is pretty cool, the Worgen area blows it out of the water. I really want to like the Goblin starting zone, but it's all just a little too silly, and the story just isn't interesting at all compared to the Worgen's.
I'll post more as I play.
A testament to my awesomeness
And geekiness. I'm just so good people think I cheat. Here I am on my new warrior, Fartbox, tanking the Stockades. As you can see, this random hunter is incredulous at the sight of me completely carrying the group.
This is a common occurrence. I'm used to it by now. But I thought since I haven't updated this thing in a while I might as well pat myself on the back a bit.
StarCraft 2 Initial Impression
So last night as I was pooping I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. As I wasn't going anywhere any time soon, I checked it out, and turns out, it was my acceptance email to the SC2 beta. Cool.
Now let me start by saying I was never really a fan of SC multiplayer games. I could never stand the rush mentality, it just was never fun for me. I want to build an army, not build 4 zerglings and slowly scratch away at my helpless opponents base. Boring. I did enjoy the single player campaigns though. They were all very deep, and kept me wanting to get to the next mission.
That said, SC2 so far just seems like more of the same as far as multiplayer games go. The rush mentality is still there, and I still hate it. After playing a couple games against other people, I decided to do a couple private games against the AI just so I could build more than a couple marines before taking out my opponent.
There are a good number of new units. I've always been a Terran guy, and giant robots are awesome, so I was very happy to see the Thor. The new battle battlecruisers are much cooler than the ones in the original, firing multiple lasers at once. And the units that can transform from air to ground are awesome.
But beyond the new units and graphical updates, the game seems to be almost identical to the original. Which really is fine, because the first one was as close to balanced as it could be. But for someone looking for anything really ground breaking, I don't see it here.
Unfortunately the single player campaigns are not included in the beta, which is what I really wanted to see. So I'll probably be putting this on the side until it's released.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
So for the past couple days I've been playing, or attempting to play the newest Battlefield release on the PC. I didn't expect a whole lot going in to BC2 due to it being almost entirely a port from the console game. As far as game play goes I was wrong, the game is one of the best shooters I've played in a long time. But with all of the problems EA is having with their servers, and a fair amount of balance issues, I feel I was right as well.
So to start I'll give you a rundown on what the game is about, in list form. Just because everything is better in list form.
- In a nutshell BC2 is a squad based modern shooter that pits US forces against the Russians. There are no differences between the sides except for a few hilarious sound bytes from the soldiers.
- Players gain points by doing various things in matches. Everything from killing enemies to supplying ammo to teammates
- Players also earn medals and badges during matches for completing various tasks and challenges. These medals and badges translate to more points, each with it's own value
- Points are tallied at the end of each match, and put towards advancing player rank, which helps unlock new general weapons and kits
- Along with player rank, each class has a running score which is used to unlock class specific weapons and kits
- There are 4 classes in the game. Engineer, Assault, Medic and Recon (NOT SNIPER)
- There are several different game types in the game, none of which is particularly innovative, but they're all still fun
That's the basic gist of the game. But the thing I personally like most about the game is the ability to spawn on your squad members, no matter where they are on the map. This, combined with the tools the classes have, really turns the games focus towards squad based combat and teamwork.
Now while I am enjoying the hell out of the game, when I can actually play, it isn't without its issues. So here's a list of what I've noticed so far!
- Choppers and to a lesser extent UAVs are way too strong. A good heli pilot can avoid any rocket attack from stations and engineers simply because of how slow the rockets travel and how slow the stations track speed is
- The ability to destroy MCOMM stations with mortar fire is stupid. There are several maps where a team of recon can sit comfortably in their base and drop MCOMM stations.
- Either pistol damage needs to be dropped, or assault rifle and SMG damage needs to be upped. As it stands now unless you have your best class weapon unlocked, you're better off using the M1911 in just about every situation
- Pistol accuracy at distance needs to be fixed. It's a pistol, not a sniper rifle
- There's something crazy going on with hit detection. There are times where I'll shoot someone, see blood fly, hear him curse, and see no damage done. Other times I'll shoot a grenade directly at someones feet only to watch it explode and deal no damage. This happens all the time.
- The master servers. They fucking suck.
Once these issues are ironed out, I really think BC2 will enjoy a good life. I know I can't wait to get home and play again! If you have the game my characters name is Nadric. Add me to your friends list and come kill me. As you can see from the image below, I'm certainly not the best around, yet 
GA Head Start Begins Today
These last 2 days have been painful, with no GA to play. I've actually had to resort to going out in the real world, and hanging out with my friends! Awful, I know. But today we can breathe a sigh of relief! GA servers go live today at 3pm EST!
Even though my team lost, I absolutely dominated this map
I'll be playing with the guys from Unrepentant, and although I went by Oroborus in beta, my name in live will be Doink. Look for me at the top of the charts 
I was wrong
Well, not so much wrong, because I was definitely right, they just fixed what I was bitching about. I'm speaking of Global Agenda, the game I recommended a bunch of people avoid due to various issues making it simply not fun. Turns out all of those issues have been addressed, or removed from the game completely.
I fired up my beta client over the weekend out of boredom, and had a hell of a time playing again. There's a ton of new content in the game now compared to when I last played, to include PvE, AvA, and several new PvP maps and game types.
The PvE starts off relatively simple. In the lowest security level you run through a mine/factory/base killing low level robots until you reach a boss character at the end, who is actually very deadly. In the next security level missions, the missions are much longer, you encounter a ton more low level robots, and also encounter 4 - 5 mobs who were the previous security level missions boss. The boss itself on medium is much more challenging. I hear the trend continues for each higher security level, but I only did low and medium myself.
PvP isn't the grenade spamming melee fest it used to be. There is actual strategy to be deployed, and teams suffer greatly when they don't use it. It is especially evident when stupid ass recon agent think their job is to be Mr. Uber Assassin instead of doing their job, harassing and destroying enemy robos and structures. My teams never have this problem, because I'm the greatest recon to ever sniff a fart.
So yea, I preordered, and am planning on doing the subscription membership for access to AvA.
Star Trek Online – Second Impressions
So now that I've finally been able to play the game for a bit, I can give you all a little better review!
I'll start out by saying that the game still seems to be very rough, even for an open beta. From the moment you start the game up you begin to see bugs, or just unpolished content all around you. Much more so on the Klingon side than the Federation side.
The game itself is a bit like EVE I suppose, but really only so much as it's set in space. The space combat itself is much more engaging than EVE's "set orbit, set weapons to autofire" combat system. You have to manually pilot your ship, position yourself so that you get the maximum number of weapons firing at once, or so that you're taking damage on the strongest part of your shields. And if you're shields start weakening on one side, you can divert power from areas you aren't taking damage on to the weakened area. Just like in the show!
Probably the most important part of combat, and something I've seen very few people other than myself use, is the "Stance" system. I call it that because I have no idea what it's actually called. But basically theres 4 combat settings you can use for your ship. Attack, defense, speed and balanced. Now it seems pretty obvious to me that if you're going on the offensive, you want to be in attack mode, and if you're being fired upon by multiple enemies, you want to be in defensive mode. But like I said, I'm the only person I've seen use these settings so far. I've been trying to spread the word when people ask how I live through so many things targeting me, but word hasn't spread quickly. Oh well.
In addition to space combat you are also sent on ground missions, which are more like traditional MMOs. You beam down to a planet, or onto another ship with your away team, and either kill a bunch of people, or gather information. The missions themselves are pretty mundane, but the combat is fairly original. I personally wish there were more ground missions, but maybe I just haven't gotten to the bulk of them yet.
The number of ships in the game seems to be fairly large. And the customization you can do to each ship is pretty impressive, both in function and visually.
Anyhow, I've forgotten what else I wanted to say. Oh well. So far I'm enjoying the game, even with all the problems it has. I think they should push the release date back to fix a lot of the issues, but what do I know.
If you're bored, and don't mind dropping the cash to get into the beta, I suggest giving it a try. My global in game is @Oekss
