It’s New Again

I just started leveling a second warrior in World of Warcraft. It was neat leveling a (feral) druid, but if I’m going to melee–and tank–warrior is where it’s at for me. My first warrior was leveled as Arms then Fury once he got to 30. I did a little Protection leveling stint in The Burning Crusade expansion when they launched the changes, but I went back to Fury and leveled to 70, then to 80.

This new warrior, a Draenei female, will be going full Prot leveling. So far it’s been insane. The combination of heirloom gear, Armored to the Teeth talent and Gift of the Naaru racial ability makes my second warrior a juggernaut. Oh and that’s not what is OP. Victory Rush is OP. Give me a pack of mobs within 15 seconds of each other and I’m making rivers of blood. RIVERS OF BLOOD. Now, I’m not saying it’s OP for nerfs, I’m just shocked at how much more fun warrior leveling is nowadays. Back in ’04 – ’05 it was hell. Maybe not the lowest level of hell, but at least second or third. Heirloom gear has a big effect, of course, but having an instant attack before level 40 (Concussion Blow doesn’t count!) is a godsend.

Around the early parts of TBC I tried to level a Draenei paladin as Retribution. I could not solo the quest Ending Their World. Maybe if I tried as Protection and/or had heirloom gear I could have. Being able to do so with this warrior was simply awesome. I don’t think I even bothered to do the quest on my shaman (who’s 45 right now).

Once I hit 30, I’m moving the three points I have in Armored to the Teeth to the Protection tree so I can snag the level -0 abilities, Concussion Blow at 30, Vigilance at 40, Devastate at 50 and (omg) Shockwave at 60. I’m going to miss the Attack Power boost, but I think in terms of damage, the talents I’ll be taking throughout the Prot tree should make up for the loss. Besides, the main reason for having Armored to the Teeth so early is to help soloing. Once I get to 34, I’ll be running with at least a priest (healer). Hopefully, we’ll have another priest (shadow) running with us for most of our leveling.

Let’s rewind a bit, I initially started leveling a druid. It’s neat and definitely different to the plate wearers I’m used to. The versatility is incredible. Bear tanking is somewhat similar to Protection paladin tanking, with one exception. It takes a wee bit to start the rage flow (unless I gather up 5+ mobs), whereas paladins have their mana pool. Obviously at later levels it’s a non-issue, but I’ve been very frustrated because I remembered rage flow not being so immensely hard to start as a warrior. Now, the only difference between my druid and warrior lowbies is the heirloom weapon. They both have heirloom shoulders and chestpiece. So, it’s definitely the different playstyles. I need to be a little patient to get my rawr on with the druid. However, yesterday I was bored of doing dailies and very depressed that the day before, my power went out before I could roll on an upgrade piece for my level 80 hunter. So, I got it in my head to start with a new warrior. I ended up deleting my second hunter (level 49) who wasn’t getting any playtime and sent off my heirloom shoulders and one-handed dps mace heirloom (that my shaman was using, poor guy is weaponless now). Then, I got through one daily on my first warrior to buy the heirloom chestpiece. Voilà! New warrior has gear.

When I started her up, I chose a name from the generator because I was not expecting her to be awesome and only wanted to see how the rage gain would be compared to druid bear and didn’t think I would be all wowed. Thankfully, the name wasn’t Gorgoth or something else hideous because… well, look above. All things combined, I spent the night getting her to 21. I can only imagine how far I would have gotten her if I started earlier in the day. I never thought I’d level another warrior, but there you go. Never say never.

Posted on May 3, 2010 at 11:02 am / Filed in Gaming / 0 Comments

Yeehaw! With Ugh

After seeing the remake of 3:10 to Yuma, I thought of playing a Wild West style video game but didn’t really see anything interesting (if any existed at all in the past 3 years). Red Dead Redemption had advertising but it didn’t really latch onto me until this week (laughably, the week it’s released).

It is instantly a favorite/hate game. The graphics are wonderful, the interactions pretty neat. While combat is kinda fun, the stuff that bugs me are the controls and the reaction of Marston, the protagonist. I haven’t looked at the settings, but I’m sure I can rearrange the controls. The default PS3 controls have aim and fire on the second left trigger and second right trigger respectively. To “enter cover” you press the first right trigger. To enter bullet time mode, or Dead-Eye as its called, you have to be aiming (2nd left trigger) and click down on the right analog stick. It’s all a little cumbersome. With fire being on the second right trigger, it’s easy to fire but also easy to accidentally fire. While bullets seem plentiful enough, I hate wasting them nonetheless.

Dead-Eye is neat even if I haven’t reached the ability to paint targets yet. When you paint targets, you plot in a succession of shots to be executed once you leave Dead-Eye state. This enables a punishment of shots to one target or the awesome show of taking down multiple targets in seconds. What I hate about this mechanic is the Dead-Eye gauge does not retain its state in saves. When you die and reload it’s empty, which is good. But say I make a mistake on some task and want to reload, I lose what amount I accrued. This pisses me off because it’s very easy to make a mistake in this game.

Mistakes I’ve made in the game that resulted in frustration:

• Riding off the edge of a cliff because in order to stop the horse, you have to hold down the first right trigger rather than pulling back on the left analog stick.
• Assaulting the poor stagecoach driver (a fast travel option in towns and settlements) because the infinitesimal gap between hopping in as a rider or mugging the driver and stealing the coach.
• Wanting to wound and incapacitate an enemy by shooting him in the arm but end up registering as killing him.
• Killing livestock or even people who are too stupid to get out of the way of a galloping horse (even the first Assassin’s Creed didn’t have this problem).

All of that with only a few hours into the game. Much of that time restarting from old saves. If it weren’t for the retarded “general” AI (which I shouldn’t be surprised, this is Rockstar Games, their GTA series also has horrible AI), clunky control scheme, laggy/idiotic character reaction (when I push the left analog stick to move Marston to the left, I mean for him to move left, not run a few steps forward then left or spin around to his right then run left; same thing goes for horse riding), I’d be in Western heaven. When I’m not fumbling with the controls, gun combat is fun. Duels, the poker mini-game, herding cattle and wrangling horses have been fun. There should be a single button press to view the world map, but it’s minor. I don’t like the way outfits are obtained in this game as I’d rather be able to buy at least some bits and put them on. In safe houses, I’d like to be able to save without moving the time forward six hours (yes, I don’t trust the auto-save checkpoints).

With more time clocked in to it, I hope Red Dead Redemption elevates higher to favorite than sink down to hate.

Posted on May 20, 2010 at 12:13 pm / Filed in Gaming / 0 Comments