Since then I’ve retired the mage and replaced it with my Paladin as my main.. I burnt out pretty bad on the mage to a degree that I refused to raid on it anymore. Spamming Frostbolt for four hours  just wasn’t doing it for me (slight exaggeration but that’s how it felt back then)

It took some convincing and a 7 mob pull in heroic Mech, but I was given a shot at tanking Kara for one of our guild runs after a long period of inactivity…

…long story short, alongside another burnt out DPS who had also re-rolled a Prot Paladin, we went back into Kara determined to rock the place and rock it we did!

My last post, we could only drop Attumen, Moroes, and the BBW opera event.. 3 weeks ago, right before I went away to America we cleared the full instance in two nights with the majority of the bosses downed on the first night!

This week will be my first time tanking Kara in 3 weeks, we hope to clear it in one night.. updates to follow

Service to return as normal..

Every month I’ll be looking over the visitors stats and keywords that led to this site and I’ll attempt to answer any questions/queries as well as I can

• It seems I’m getting a lot of hits from “AV Preform Enabler” since I put up the AV post a week or so back.. I assume more from people looking to download the addon than for info. Anyway, patch 2.4 made it so you don’t need that addon anymore, just start a raid group/party and queue as a group the same as the other BG’s.
• Someone was looking for “youtube 2 man Attumen” videos. I cant find anyone two manning it and to be honest, private server aside, I cant see it happening really.
• A few hits for “Tankadin Levelling” this month. I levelled my pally as a tankadin up till level 67 before changing to my current spec, Shockadin.  I used a mix of AoE grinding and questing to level and found it very easy. Questing as prot is great.. you might not do great single target DPS but you rarely die and there is very little downtime. As for AoE grinding, you want to find a spot with a lot of melee mobs around, pull as many as you feel comfortable with, throw BoSanc up, Retri Aura, Judge Light or Wisdom on your targeted mob to keep health/mana levels up, then spam Holy Shield and Consecration till everything dies from the reflective damage. For extra ease, try to find a weapon/shield that procs something on hit to get extra damage going. After you get used to the technique you can throw in a few casters if needed. The Blood Elf racial really helps for this as you can silence them making positioning/pulling much easier.
• Another Tank related one - “Never tanked an instance”
  Despite levelling as prot I never tanked anything till I reached the mid-40’s and got some decent plate gear. After that I ran ZF a ton of times to get the hang of it. It was tough the first few times but it gets easier once you get a feel for it. The biggest problem with tanking as a pally is your mana bar. If the group is overzealous you may need to blow the majority of your mana just to hold aggro at lower levels. This leads to more downtime between pulls and an impatient group which is the last thing you need. Word of advice, if your tanking the instance, you set the pace not the DPS classes. You drink till your ready or you will have problems when you go /oom. On a similar note, even if your mana bar is ready, or your rage bar is running out, if the healer behind you isn’t up to full mana then you wait for them. As a tank, your healer is the most important person in the group so try not to rush them and you’ll do fine. DPS is almost always easier to replace than a tank or healer, bear that in mind.
• “Retadin Gear List” - Well, I haven’t tried Ret yet so the only gear lists I know of come from PvP sets. Firstly, the 2.4 patch added a bunch of PvP sets for all classes that can be bought at Honoured reputation for gold. A full PvP set will cost around 100G or so. The pally sets are ret and holy and can be found at various factions quartermasters.. Thrallmar and Cenarion Expedition for example. A full list of gear sets can be found HERE. I currently have a few pieces of the Holy set and plan on picking my Ret set up by this weekend. The other option you have is to get in the BG’s and Arena and buy the Epic PvP sets via Honour + Marks or Arena points. You can get a full set of Arena Season 1 gear from BG’s alone which doesn’t take long to build up alongside the standard level 70 epic PvP Vindicator gear.
• “Reign of Rathalos” - I initially assumed this was about a Monster Hunter Rathalos quest but a quick Google of that term leads me to the website, http://reign-of-the-rathalos.com/blog/ which I assume is what the keywords refer to. I had never seen this site till today but it looks like there is plenty of MH related content including video footage of hunts, downloadable guides and what appears to be a great Java app for looking up gear sets with certain bonuses on and more. Bookmarked the site for later viewing, thanks to whoever made that keyword pop up on my results as I might not have come across that site otherwise.

Well, that’s it for another entry of ‘Visitor Stats’, I may do another this month but its likely that I will leave it till next month to build up some keywords again

Not so long ago in the hazy past, a little game called Manhunt 2 caused just a tiny bit of controversy - Manhunt Banned

The BBFC banned the game for its depiction of “sustained, casual sadism” deeming it too much for UK gamers. David Cooke, director of the BBFC, said the body had twice rejected the game “for its focus on varied and cumulative killings”.

He said the judgement had to include the “full range of possible harm risks to vulnerable individuals and to any children who may be wrongly exposed to such games.”

How is it then that the (government backed) UK Film Council deems it worthy to award nearly 1 million pounds from National Lottery money to a torture movie in the same vein as Saw and Hostel? A film described as “a nasty, pretentious and sordid little movie”

Now, I have ZERO problems with this movie existing. I don’t care, I’ve seen the Saw movies and enjoyed them to a degree, I watched Hostel and shook my head at the poorly written story.. but not at the violence.

How the HELL can the UK government have the brass balls to claim that video games might be too violent and spend god knows how much of our tax money on a study on violence in games, then help fund a f*cking torture movie is beyond me!

I’m literally boiling with rage at this.. if a game was to come out with the same content as this movie.. torturing people until they either break and kill a loved one, or die.. all the anti-game nuts would be screaming from the rooftops!

Seriously, this sh*t needs to stop. If a game is rated for adults it deserves the same treatment films like this get.

Id like to say I enjoyed it cos’ I kicked some ass, or that my feelings towards the map size and being zerged by 40 people at once have changed for the better.. but they haven’t so I wont, however the main thing I’ll sing praises for is the "AV Preform Enabler" addon.

Going into AV with a local 40 man team, with tic-tacs laid out in chat before even entering the BG, and every group sticking to the orders given to them is a sight to be seen.. (well it is if you haven’t seen it anyway )
I went in multiple’s of these preform groups on Saturday, skipping Bal, taking every tower, not a scratch on Galv due to solid defence, rolling in 500/600 honour every game. One game was taking about 20 min’s or so iirc.. maybe even less at times.

So yeah, grab http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/5418/ and keep an eye out for any premade AV requests and have a go.

I’ll preempt any complaints here and say its a ballache getting an addon just to join a BG (2.4 will let you premade AV without addon though so its not for long), its a ballache waiting for 40 people to actually open the damn thing so the RL can queue everyone up.. but once it gets going and your racking up 500/600 honour a game it seems less of a hassle

EDIT: It seems Tobold has also been experimenting with this addon with success - Alterac Valley premade - Tobold’s MMORPG Blog

Technorati Tags: World of Warcraft, Paladin, PvP, Combat Medic, Alterac Valley, Preform AV Enabler

There was once a time in the history of gaming when save files did not exist, your character had only one life, and continues need not apply for the position. A time when gaming brought as much, if not more, amounts of frustration as it did entertainment.

Take Treasure Island Dizzy. One life, no continue, no saves. Not a short game, not an easy game by any stretch of imagination. Spend 2 hours playing that and lose your one life.. your ready to kick the aging computer out of the window in frustration. Repeat the process a few times, your ready to kick the window out of the wall. Complete that game though and the frustration is replaced with a glorious feeling of achievement. Risk vs Reward. The more times something knocks you down and says “you cannot do this” the more you want to get back up and do it. Of course there’s a fine line between too much risk and getting it just right.

Modern games generally allow you to pause the game and save your progress anywhere. Some feature checkpoints across levels that automatically save progress for you, removing the need to even remember to save it after that especially tricky part of the level that took 4 times to get past. In a sense we are collectively being stripped of the challenge of games and slowly dumbing down the whole experience.

I don’t care if the new game out this week has the best looking graphics on any system to date, if I can clock it without furrowing my brow in frustration a few times along the way then generally I wont rate it too highly.

That’s not to say that every game needs an element of confusion to it, wether it be which direction to go or the most complex of puzzles, but if your not at least challenged in some way.. why even play the game at all? Is it becoming the equivalent of no-brainer TV reality shows?

As a result, a lot of games now don’t capture the same feeling I had as a kid clocking games on the C64 and early consoles. These were days when you sat down and played a game over several hours, but you played from start to end in one go or you wouldn’t see the end. No saves, no re-visiting it in a few days unless you leave it turned on, paused and run the risk of the power supply getting so hot it burns through your floor… these were the glory days of risk vs reward. Less flashy graphics to wow gamers, instead the feeling of a challenge met and bested was the payoff.

Technorati Tags: Treasure Island Dizzy,Nostalgia

According to Sony’s internal data, 92% of registered PSN (PlayStation Network) gamers are male! If that figure is indeed correct that is one hell of a large gender bias. I already assumed gaming was primarily favoured by males.. but 92%?

I have to wonder what the figures are like for Xbox Live and Nintendo’s Wii. Are these figures an accurate representation of all platforms/formats?

Read: GDC08: Gamer genders, in graph form

Gaming as always. Somewhat more full on this last few months even by my standards. I picked up a couple of Xbox games cheap in a ‘two for one’ deal finally adding Assassins Creed and Halo 3 to my ever expanding library.

Halo 3 was one of those games I could have lived without.. I left it too long and then Call of Duty 4 released and any incentive to pick up Halo 3 vanished in the face of the sheer greatness of CoD4, but I had to get something and it was the best of the bunch by a long shot so there you go.

Assassins Creed was another title I’d almost decided to let go based on criticism I had heard regarding its repetitive missions before each assassination.

However, I’m a big Hitman fan. Despite the controls, despite the camera, I like it a lot. Odd one that, stealth games usually leave me cold and clammy, knowing full well what looks good on paper doesn’t always translate to being good in practice. Generally I dislike having to tailor my gameplay style to one of patience and deliberation. Metal Gear Solid beat it out of me and has continued to beat it out of me with every release since the first one. Possibly due to the fact that once you realise that while stealthing through a level in 20 minutes is a tense, exhilarating gameplay experience, its just as feasible to run right past everyone to the next area and no matter how many people chase you down, or how many alarms are set off, the next area’s guards will be blissfully unaware of any wrong doings. Its like they all collectively switch their radios off at the first sound of panic and hope for the best. It doesn’t matter how many ‘The End’ boss fight encounters you can pump out if all the areas leading you to it can be cleared by simply leaning one analogue stick in the correct direction.

Back on point, I liked Hitman a lot.. yes it was a port, it didn’t add much graphically, and it had issues with various things. However it featured multiple ways to get the job done. A stealth game that didn’t penalise you if you couldn’t be bothered to get the right suit to infiltrate the right area or if you didn’t want to follow the games hints and various linear methods to off your target. Don’t expect it to be easy to just pull the SMG out and run around like some gun toting psycho, there’s no running into the next area and back to reset the guards.. however its the fact that Hitman put the choice in the players hands that made it stand apart for me.

Similarly with Assassins Creed, its a strange freedom offered to the player. A lot of work has been put into the stealth side of this game you can tell. However, you can also tell that Ubisoft knew its target audience well. While its entirely possible to be nothing but a ‘blade in the crowd’, a hidden unseen enemy stalking his prey on foot and from rooftops.. its also more than possible to run into each city, blade in hand, middle finger raised to the world, and slaughter wave after wave of guards and civilians until you reach your objective.

Ok there are penalties in place for butchering that old woman that asks you for coin for the millionth time, and no-one will look kindly on you for gutting the retards and lepers that mill around each city seemingly waiting to get in your face at any opportunity.. but the fact remains the option has been placed in the players hands and I like that. Ubisoft gave the player a sandbox to play in and it is in that respect the game shines.

The meat of the game sees you travel to one of three major cities at the request of your leader to gather information on various targets before ending the lives of various figures of society. Doing so involves infiltrating the target city and completing a number of side missions to gain information on your assassination target. Its is these sections that are largely to blame for the criticism this game has received. Each assassination target has you complete the same tasks and side missions as the last. Pick pocket someone on the street for information, eavesdrop conversations, beat up some loudmouth, kill a few guards that one of your brethren is having problems with.. its all pretty much rinse and repeat with varying degrees of difficulty or frustration. Thankfully, you do not have to complete every side mission to open the assassination encounter (although I have been doing for the achievements). Just completing two or three of the tasks gathers enough information to get going but obviously the more side missions you do, the more information you have available to plan your next hit.

It goes without saying, the assassinations are the some of the most fun you will have in the game. Not in a sick "I like to stab people" type of way but its just undeniably fun leaping over rooftops, flinging throwing knives into archers and guards. Slowly removing all obstacles in your way before approaching the target and ending him swiftly, and with any luck a bit of style.

Its at this point the game takes a slight dive. Once you’ve successfully eliminated the target, the screen warps into a limbo type area in which you converse… at length… with your targets before warping you back into the real world to escape. Essentially this is the games Moral Code kicking in, showing you the opposite side to your actions and in some cases highlighting the fact that your mission to kill people for the greater good is no better than the activities each of your targets has been carrying out. Unfortunately while I find these scenes to be ok for the most part, and a decent vehicle to move the story along, its very disruptive to go from heart pounding, intense action into a 2/3 minute cut-scene, then just as suddenly warping back out to be faced by 20 guards with sharp swords aimed at your face. Its not a deal breaker its just an odd shift in pace that takes a while to get used to.

Overall I think its a great game but not without its share of flaws.

The travel sections between cities is made unbearably annoying thanks to the fact that guards will be wary of you unless your moving at a snails pace. This seems like a major design flaw to me, why create an outdoor area, give the main character a horse, then ask you to move slower mounted than you would on foot? I think Ubisoft knew full well this would be an area of contention as after the first few times you are subjected to it, the option is available to skip these sections and go straight to the destination.

The beggar women that are littered throughout the cities were fairly novel to me the first few times I encountered them. The animation is very well done and they do a convincing job of getting in your way for a few spare coin… then put two or three of them in the same area as an assassination side mission you need to complete and get ready for an exercise in patience. Right as you approach the target they mob you, resisting your gentle pushes forcing you to stop in your tracks. After 50 odd times of this happening, to say these beggar women are annoying is the understatement of the year. Whenever I wander into one of these cities now I have no issues with shanking each and every one of the beggars that approach me..

The mental, emaciated guys are even worse if that’s possible. Same situation, assassination mission, guards are wary, walk past one of these nutjobs and he will immediately shove you breaking your cover. Cries of "Assassin" quickly ring out and the guards are on you. Mildly annoying the first time, then just plain frustrating every time afterwards. I could accept it more if these guys targeted an NPC every now and again but they only have a problem with you it seems.

The other big problem I noted down whilst playing was some of the pedestrian audio. If you pass a civilian in trouble with guards (side missions that can be completed to increase your standing with civilians in certain areas) and wait around instead of triggering the mission, these peds are stuck repeating the same two or three lines over and over and over and over. Even when your passing overhead on rooftops you can hear the dialogue repeated a few streets away. Yes it draws my attention to the mission but if I was just in the area doing my own thing it gets very annoying to hear the same lines of dialogue 20 times in a minute.

Despite the glaring problems it has I can overlook them purely because the game does so many other things right. The free-running system is intuitive and requires little effort, the combat is reasonable if a little repetitive, and the assassination missions are a lot of fun. If I had to pin down what I like most about this game it would be the ability to load the game up and just spend an hour or two doing nothing more than moving around the map offing guards on rooftops. I look for things like this in a game nowadays.. if there is nothing fun to do outside of the missions/levels laid out for you then I see very little replay factor and as a result, less worth in paying full price for the a game. I can see me playing this game long after the campaign is over and that to me is only a good sign.

I’m not going to mention the ‘future’ aspects of this game because a) I see them as little more than a means to an end. Something to push the story forward and link it together, and b) because I’m still one assassination away from completing the game and I just know the last mission is going to be an ‘escape from the lab’ type affair so I’ll reserve my comments till after I see it to completion.

Final Verdict: Don’t believe the critics without at least giving it a rent. Well worth a purchase if you like the Hitman games or just enjoy a little free-roaming carnage.

Technorati Tags: Assassins Creed,Xbox 360

 

Latest to take a swing at the game is FOX News, spewing more false claims and citing ‘experts’ that have never even played the game.

Circulating blogs today is a copy of a letter sent from EA to FOX asking for corrections to be made.. The part I find most interesting is EA’s implication that as games take more viewers away from the TV and ratings take a hit, mainstream media is more likely to attempt to paint gaming in a negative light in some vain attempt to pull ratings back..

As video games continue to take audiences away from television, we expect to see more TV news stories warning parents about the corrupting influence of interactive entertainment. But this represents a new level of recklessness.

Do you watch the Fox Network? Do you watch Family Guy? Have you ever seen The OC? Do you think the sexual situations in Mass Effect are any more graphic than scenes routinely aired on those shows? Do you honestly believe that young people have more exposure to Mass Effect than to those prime time shows?

This is very interesting to me as its a theory I have entertained for some time now.. The OC inclusion is genius. That show has more sexual content that Mass Effect and is widely available to people under 17. Pot/Kettle/Black

Really hope EA get somewhere with this…

Technorati Tags: Mass Effect FOX News Lies EA Bioware

I had originally intended to fully clear Azeroth before moving on but as usual the lure of Outlands, new gear, rep, and big XP got the better of me.

I threw my mage out there as soon as she turned 58 but was planning on that. I’d all but given up questing on that toon as I was having more fun AoE grinding and instance running at the time. My shammy got to 58 in Winterspring (same as the Tankadin) and I took him through the Dark Portal right away to gear him up and ready for the switch to resto to instance run his way to 70.

It was tough to give up Azeroth as I had set a few goals for myself. I wanted to hit Exalted across the board with all major factions and to clear every zone (or at least quest in every zone) before moving on. I had ventured into Plaguelands on my main but never to quest, and my time in Silithus was limited to grinding essences to craft an Epic robe I wanted (and got). I’m assured I’m not missing much but that’s not really the point. I’ve paid for the content, seems a waste to bypass it.

I’m not too worried however as I have a druid sitting in the sidelines at level 36 I plan on maxing out to PvP with. My main aim with the Tankadin was to level him as fast, efficient, and as profitable as I could, which I have done I think… plus it makes sense to move into BC content ASAP as I can level faster out there than I can in the old 50 to 60 content and get some great gear to go with it. I’ve already replaced my epic shield, dungeon set gloves, Sapphiron’s boots, and random blue chestpiece with some sweet BC gear in just 3 quests and 2 AH purchases.

The druid will be levelled nice and casual I think. I’m in no rush to plough through all that content again. Much as I enjoyed it, I’ve been up and down Azeroth three times now.. I’ve been ganked more times in STV than I care to mention. Enough is enough I think.

The problem I have now is my mining never hit 300 in old world areas. Now I’m faced with the dilemma of going back to grind out the last 60 nodes I need to hit, or dropping the profession altogether for a crafting profession like Smithing. I make a nice wedge on the AH (see future post on Auction Flipping), certainly enough to power-level any profession I see fit to do so that’s not an issue. I’m more thinking of things to do at 70..

I originally had a plan all worked out for level cap… I planned to still play the AH heavily, to do the daily quests as much as possible, fly around farming mining nodes, and I have my fishing and cooking skills ready to be maxxed out soon which gives me more daily quest options to do the cooking stuff. I hear high level fishing can be fairly profitable in the right areas and cooking just makes sense for the great food buffs available. I have JC as a second profession that I hope to make some good money with by cutting gems. All this combined should make me some big coin but the mining is going to hold me back I think.

Everything else I can do as I’m levelling, gaining XP and loot at the same time. Mining is going to see me back in Azeroth doing laps around Burning Steppes or somewhere like that which takes me away from my goals for set amounts of time. I guess the alternative isn’t much better though as another crafting profession is going to eat into my pile of gold whereas mining costs me nothing but my time. Decisions decisions… For the time being I’ll stick to my original plan I think.

Anyway, that’s all for now.. check back soon for more Tales of a Tankadin.