Druids: The epitome of bullshit

I play World of Warcraft. That declaration aside, WoW has a certain degree of bullshit that makes it work. It mainly has to do with the classes. For example, Paladins. Paladins are bullshit. For the last year, Paladins have seen improvements, repeatedly, where other classes have been basically peaten to within an inch of their life with the nerf bat (and believe me, it takes a while to kill someone with a nerf bat) It seems that in the coming months Paladins will FINALLY get nerfed, much to my chagrin (as I was enjoying my own Paladin) but yes. Paladins are merde de vache. Well, that's cow shit. Anyway. Why? They do the most damage, they are nigh indestructible, they can rezz, they get a self heal that crits for more than what priests can heal for...basically, the Light shines out of their asses.

Warriors, it seems, were disputed bullshit. Some people contended that they were hard to level, others said they were totally over-powered. I would say that they definitely were overpowered, although I would never have called them bullshit...basically because my main is a prot warrior. But it boils down to- a prot warrior can basically solo anything that's not in a raid or a heroic. Or used to.

Other classes that are accused of bullshit: mages (overpowered), hunters (overpowered, they start with a pet that serves as a companion tank), shamans (they walk on water, they can resurrect themselves from the dead, and they need on melee stuff for offspec...they're the Jesus class...and yes, they are bullshit), death knights (how can you kill that which is already dead? )

Basically most classes except for priests and warlocks get accused of being bullshit. PVPers accuse rogues of being bullshit, but then, every PVPer should really in fact be rolling rogue. And people who play priests are masochists. Warlocks are ok, I guess. Except for the fact that healers hate their guts.


So that brings us to druids. Druids are the epitome of bullshit in WoW. Admittedly, the first 50 levels are kind of slow, and if you're a healer or a tank, they are kind of perilous. But let's see-

DPS- as DPS, you just need to make sure you are in kitty form and hit the target. Also make sure you're wearing leather. No one really cares how much DPS you're doing, and the party will make concessions when they see the kitty slinking around. If you are a Critchicken, let me tell you, you are more bullshit than I can convey in this rant. Stop taking my aggro. Stupid bird. Im glad you go OOM when you cast ...what's that? Innervate? Oh. Wow. You are Class A bullshit my friend. Fuck you.

Healer- So you go OOM 90% of the time in dungeons until you get to the late 40 levels, but hey, it's ok. No one's dead. No one really cares that you stop for a drink and they just pull, but hey, you have a battle rez, so it's all cool. Right? Don't have a heart attack. Once youre in TBC, I've hardly seen your mana bar budge, so...wow.

Tanks- This is me. As a bear the first..oh, 50 levels were definitely dicey. Giving the healer a heart attack over how much spikey damage you take is great. I can't keep aggro for very long, but hey, people should understand, I'm a bear! I don't go around casting holy light or anything like that, ok ? I have claws and shit. Oh what's that...I got the damage reducing talents...oh boy. Um, so yeah, that's at least 4 elite mobs hitting my big bear butt, and I still have 85% of my health left. Have fun with your shield and block stat! Hahaha!!!!

The clincher is this- you know how happy you are to be able to get your gryphon in the arid sands of Honor Hold? Well...as a druid you turn into a freaking bird. It's pretty fun. But it's pretty much the same, isn't it? You go to the trainer, you spend 200g....wait what? You spend...2g. At the druid trainer. 2....gold. You make 2 g from level 1-15 if you don't do professions. 2 freaking gold. Not 200. Not 300. 2.

And don't forget I can just turn into a mutated sea lion in the water.

Druids are indeed bullshit. I love it.

I love the smell of narcissism in the morning

Over the weekend we finally saw the Social Network, and I am about to bash it.

I do want to point out though, the quantic and philosophical quandary I am in: I am about to bash a movie for being referential to the symptomatic narcissism of our generation embodied in Facebook.....ON A BLOG. Oh, the irony... if the internet bled, it would bleed black ichor and irony.


So we saw the Social Network and we were at a loss. I must point out: it is not a BAD movie. Not at all. It was very...entertaining. I felt the camera and photography was spot on. The soundtrack in my opinion was forgettable: not even having one of the Dead Kennedy's greatest hits made it stand out for me.

The acting was OK...it brings up what basically pisses me off about the movie: that it's about Facebook.

Ok, let's take a step back. Facebook, it's a social network which saw its beginnings as a sort of network for colleges to do e-meets and greets easier. In the movie, they blatantly point out that Facebook did NOT break any new ground. Does anyone remember MySpace? Friendster? Beta5? There was even one called OkCupid! I remember all of these. Do you know what Facebook did differently? Ask you what school you went to. And then it allowed you to do searches based on those peculiar networks. Apparently in the beginning it was all very Ivy League exclusive etc etc. As Cello pointed out, it wasn't until a few years after Facebook began that they allowed for teens to go on Facebook and not lie about their age.

Now, this movie is being considered Oscar-worthy, in all probability because Zuckerberg has been lauded as man of the year by some entity or another...for what!? Discovering that water could be used as ice to cool things!? And in that sentence, I just insulted the person that first threw an ice cube into a glass. ALL HE DID, was ask "What college do you go to?" ... a question loaded with pretense.

I'm not going to tackle what's wrong with Facebook, as tempted as I am, so, back to the movie.


Now, this movie, its been said, took quite a few liberties from the storytelling point of view... a statement I have to accept with a grain of salt, because in all earnest I've never been interested to cross reference the beginnings of Facebook, nor am I now. We have one character, Mark Zuckerberg, who gets dumped by this girlfriend after stating that 1. You should pay attention to me MORE because YOU go to a crappy college and you don't need to work as hard as I do who 2. Go to a REAL school...ahem, Harvard. So pay attention to me NAO.

Now, I don't know what this trend in Hollywood to have the spectator commiserate with total DOUCHEBAGS just because they are the underdog (case in point, Scott Pilgrim) but this movie just follows suit. To be fair, it's the douchebags and doucheholes that move the world around.

So he gets dumped and starts a website to basically flaunt how over her she is, oddly enough he wasn't listening to the cure or Radiohead (or was he listening to Radiohead?) while doing this. And he does this by creating a "match this pic" kind of website, which to my recollection already existed by 2004, but my memory serves me ill today...except that it was only for chicks in Harvard. He garners notoriety, and the attention of a pair of trust fund baby twins with an idea to do a social network but very exclusive.


Again, it is stated on the movie that this is not new.

He proceeds to take this idea and runs with it and it eventually BECOMES Facebook! Wow. Those twins really hit a home run...except uhh, there's really no argument in the movie that would go to show that Zuckerberg did not blatantly and openly LIED and STOLE from the Winkelvoss twins.


Now, with these characters in place, I can explain what annoyed me about the acting- now, if Zuckerberg was indeed a spastic antisocial toad as depicted in the movie, it is a FUCKING FEAT that no one has EVER taken a chair or a broken bottle to this guy's face. I would guess that staying within the confines of campus, it would have been easier. I mean, Eisenberg did well, I loved him in Zombieland...but if Zuckerberg is at all as depicted... I'm just amazed he even had any friends that would help him getting started on what became Facebook. Maybe he was exagerated? Maybe he plays the crazy down whenever he goes to Starbucks, but god damn....what an unlikeable little shit.


The actor that portrayed the Winkelvoss twins did very well also, although what I've seen him do in the past doesn't really stray far from playing, like I said, a silver-spoon in tongue trust fund baby. He was the son of Satan in TV series Reaper. (Irony?)

The rest of the acting was passable, I guess. Not BAD.


The main plot is annoying though, and I doubt what I took as the main story strayed far if at all from the reality of the matter: At the end of the day you have a movie about rich kids pursuing a less rich kid legally from cheating the first-mentioned rich kids from adding extra billions of dollars to the billions of dollars they already own or will inherit at any given point.

How the fuck am I to commiserate with any of that??? What kind of fucking struggle is this? You're telling me I'm supposed to lump this movie along with other great Oscar nominees as (just a random few from the last decade)

Milk, No Country for Old Men, Letters from Iwo Jima, Llittle Miss Sunshine, GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK?


I could go on and on, but I'm rambling by now. Bottom line: This movie is being touted as end all be all greatness, and being offered the courtesy of Oscar Nominations NOT because of its greatness, but because of the (dubious) greatness of the phenomenon it portrays.

As I told my father-in-law after seeing this movie: Had they made a movie about how Disney got started in the 60s, it would have had the same success as this piece of trash.


BTW- to all of you who haven't seen the movie : NO, this movie does NOT explain how Farmville came to being.


P.S- And I just realized: the reason why so many people are raving about this movie and about it being pitted against more traditionally oscar-worthy nominations such as the King's Speech at this year's Awards is...because it's about Facebook...and because THEY are IN Facebook...and because by some weird fucking extrapolation, they earnestly believe that they MADE this Oscar HAPPEN, and thus they are partly recipients of an Oscar! They truly believe this is the Oscar for the people, all those theoretical 500 Million users.

Same thing happens in sports: " X Team won! We won!"

Uhhh...tell me, how did you guzzling beer from your couch contribute to X team winning the series/championship?

It didn't.

C'est la fin du Monde...de Warcraft

On a given week, there's a good 30% chance that Jill and I will discuss WoW to some extent while taking our shower. That's roughly 1 out of every 3 conversations. Suffice to say, we talk about the World of Warcraft a lot. I'm going to go further and say we simply talk about Warcraft too fucking much. It's what happens with an idée fixe... like talking of puking which in turns makes you gag, which makes you puke, which makes your friend puke, which makes you puke, which makes you discuss the puke just puked, which in turn....ad nauseum...puke.

Now, we got to know each other better over World of Warcraft, so in a lot of ways, the game will always be near and dear to our hearts. Or, at the very least, what WoW was to us. That was around May of 2009. Our gaming habits reached a fever pitch when we decided the next natural step from playing the game would be to create a raiding guild, of which Jill was the guild master and raid master for some time. This was as time consuming as rearing children irresponsibly or heading a shitty charity. It's still somewhat time consuming. It effectively sucked the fun out of the game and this was exacerbated by the fact that we decided our gluttony for punishment could only be sated by playing the shittiest of the three classical MMO roles, namely, the tank (moi) and healer (elle) , otherwise known as : 'stfu and run me through something because I'm too lazy to play something other than dps'. We eventually got burnt out and had to take a break. This happened a few times down the road, but as the latest expack, Cataclysm neared, our enthusiasm waxed...and also the fact that SWTOR is now closer to its release had to do with our enthusiasm...but I digress!

We had planned to play Cataclysm until SWTOR came out, and the events in gameplay leading up to the release had us all bunged up and excited. It was turning out to be an interesting time indeed. And then came out patch 4.0.1. This was the beginning of the end. It basically made my 'job' as a tank even more uphill.

We chalked this up to change and decided to embrace the changes and live with it, because we were convinced that when the expack came out, all would be well... well, the expansion came out and we were simply bored and not having fun. At all. The new areas were dull, boring, uninspiring.... the quests were idiotic, not really adding to anything ... it really fell short in our eyes in adding to the epic scope that WoW had effectively achieved in its Arthas storyline. And then there was the problem with the gameplay itself...in a reversal faux pas, Blizzard attempted as best it could to correct the culture of enabling fake Asperger's syndrome and general douchebaggery by making the game harder and thus creating an environment which punishes lack of communication and teamwork.


As.Fucking.If.


The problem is how they made the game harder. They made the game harder by making it harder for healers to heal. Which made it harder for healers to have fun. Which made it harder for healers to play their healers, instead of, say, their hunters. Which made it harder for tanks to stay alive. Which made it harder for tanks to play their main toons. Which made it harder for tanks and healers to really want to play at all. Which made it harder for DPS to get it through their thick fucking heads that there is a fucking reason you're waiting around 45 minutes for ONE fucking healer and ONE fucking tank, and that is NO ONE LIKES YOU ANYMORE!


Ok, that's a bit much...I mean, I shouldn't say anymore... it's not like they liked you before...

But the fact remains that there was a certain group of the customer base that was underwhelmed at the least, disgusted and distraught at the most. Jill and I, for example, were barely playing Cataclysm. Luckily, we were 'saved' by Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 (as much as one can be saved by a horribly addicting substance) This customer base was initially predominantly healers indicating that their plight was making the game unplayable. This eventually snowballed into a measured backlash of 'the game is boring' and 'I'm letting my sub run out'.

We initially decided we would want to take a break and come back in an undisclosed number of months, in the hopes that the game would be just different.


The backlash crescendo however resulted in lead developer Greg 'Ghostcrawler' Street responding to the claiming and the whining in one large monolithic response (ahem...) Seeing a blue font on the forums means pretty much the biblical equivalent of burning bush and reaches Metatronic proportions. I'm certain many a fanboy pants were thoroughly jizzed in the wake of his post. I've included some excerpts which I think are telling of the nature of the 'not a bang but a whimper' reception Cataclysm can claim to have. Basically, Ghostcrawler claims that the qq'ing is just a vocal minority venting. I say, if it's a vocal minority, why the wall of text?



" First, let me state that we do hear you. We understand some of you aren’t having fun and preferred the Lich King paradigm, or at least something closer to the Lich King paradigm. We greatly appreciate the feedback and it always makes us sad when players aren’t having fun. We're not ignoring you. We get it. We may not always agree on every point, but we understand where you’re coming from, and we want to try to help you understand where we're coming from."

Now, I work in customer service, so this is par for the course, and sounds all too familiar. It basically translates to " Ok, now that I let you talk shit for a while, I'm going to take over and make sure this exchange ends how MY employer wants it to end, because shit, they do sign my checks"


" We want players to approach an encounter, especially a Heroic encounter, as a puzzle to be solved. We want groups to communicate and strategize. "

As I said before, as if. I can't fault him for this if it is indeed the goal, because it is a very lofty goal, however, the prospect of strangers working with each other in a positive way more than 50% of the time ON THE INTERNET is akin to telling your girlfriend "we won't go all the way, I promise" or "just the tip?"


" DPS specs often get blamed the most for not knowing what is going on. It should be your business to understand the mechanics of the fights. You’re a member of a team, not a follower who can always rely on someone else to tell them what to do."


Let's see... on WoW, groups are normally made of five people, and dps is 3/5ths of a group. You're asking 60% of all users that they need to learn to play. This is 60% of the group that took the easy road, who are rabidly competitive and not only are they convinced that they are experts at whatever they are doing at the moment, but they are also convinced they are experts at healing and tanking as well.

" Which are the adds that must be burned down (and conversely, when should you ignore the adds and focus on the boss instead)? If you aren’t sure, then ask. Almost every group would rather take the few seconds to explain a fight than to wipe "


The fact that Greg Street could even formulate this sentence leads me to believe that this man has never really played with other gamers that were not developers themselves or who were not aware that he was the lead developer. The World of Warcraft is such, that if you so much as ASK the time, it becomes an invitation to mutiny.



" If you just can’t make progress and you are literally wiping on trash pulls over and over, it may be time to analyze your gear. The Dungeon Finder's Heroic item level requirement should be considered a minimum -- and remember, it doesn’t look at enchants or gems or even if the gear is appropriate for you. We are assuming an entry-level Heroic player has a lot of item level 333 gear from Twilight Highlands, normal dungeons, or any of the reputation vendors. These 333s are probably mixed in with a few 318 quest greens, but offset by a few 346 items. If you finished the Hyjal quests, you are probably Revered with Guardians of Hyjal and have access to their 346 items. Questing might only earn you Honored with some of the other reputations, but that is easily rectified with daily quests or dungeon tabards (and don’t forget the Tol Barad reps). There are some nice crafted items. No, the weapons aren’t purple, but when you look at their stats, they are quite competitive."

Rather large excerpt, but, translation- you're going to have to grind absolutely every single quest, every daily until you go blind. That's not necessarily hard, but is it FUN?


" The item level requirement is intended only to keep out players who have no idea what is appropriate content for them. We know you can game it by getting PvP gear or hiding off-spec gear in your bags. Congrats on being sneaky!"


Congrats on totally missing the point that your system has a horrible loophole!


" We've seen a few threads that suggest that we're too proud to admit mistakes. I find that logic strange, because we do it all the time."


This quote is funny as hell to me, because at this point in his post, which I've butchered so far, to be sure, all he had done was admit they HAD made a big mistake all throughout Wrath of the Lich King in creating an experience which allowed for all these bad habits to flourish, and how NOT WRONG WE ARE NOW OMG STFU I MADE THIS GAME GREAT LEAVE ME ALONE AND JUST PAY US YOUR $15 ALREADY. Basically, up to this point, all he had addressed was WHY the game is harder, not what he was going to do about it other than to expect the customer base to ship up or ship out.


" We do understand that some healers are frustrated and giving up. That is sad and unfortunate. But the degree to which it's happening, at least at this point in time, is vastly overstated on the forums."

If it was so overstated, the wall of text he gave the forum would have been also overstating the importance of pointing out where the designers are coming from. If this was a minority just throwing a tantrum, it's something that could have been ignored. But no, you took the time to address it, thus it must have been of some importance.



Now, I just posted some excerpts, but trust me, it was a wall of text, rivaling THIS wall of text, and the post was summarily deleted by Blizzard after a day or so. And it seems that Blizzard has been making it a habit of...well... selectively editing what threads and posts are allowed to remain in the WoW forums.

As a follow up story, there are rumors of a size-able discrepancy in expected revenue with actual revenue received in the last quarter, or something of the sort, and a hefty layoff at Blizz...so....dunno.


I must point out, we won't delete your post or comment for saying RIFT. Ok?

=D

Ghostcrawler, you're a fucking moron

Part of the reason Campy and I created this blog is because we rant. A lot. I started using my regular blog solely for ranting, and that kind of depressed me- the only thing I had to talk about in a general blog were things that pissed me off? WTFITS is born.

Now this rant was spawned when Ghostcrawler, aka Greg Street, the WoW dev, posted a special little note to the WoW playing masses about the state of the game. There is a lot of dissent right now- people are bored, people don't like the changes, and yes, some people are complaining about the dungeon difficulty. But the majority, I feel, were instead complaining about how this current expansion, Cataclysm, seemed phoned in. Bottom line- not fun. GC conveniently skipped over that part in his rant to the masses, instead only addressing the people complaining about difficulty. Ranting ensues.

WoW, Dungeons are hard? The title of your little treatise alone successfully has convinced me to never spend money on a Blizzard product ever again.

GC, way to miss the point. Sure, some people are whining about difficulty, but most of the people I hear are complaining about the FUN factor. Who the hell wants to pay 15/month to get kicked in the face in the LFD?

I'm a healer. As an adult with half a brain, I understand the changes made to healing in this expansion. I am ABLE to heal the content. But you know what, GC? It's not fun.

It's not fun getting yelled at by assholes who blame me for wipes, even though they stand in the fire, don't interrupt, and generally play like idiots. It's not fun not being able to save a tank that is biting it in AOE. It's not fun managing MANA. It's not fun being the class that is nerfed in order to tune the difficulty of an encounter. Seriously, was that your idea? When Wow tanks and you get fired, I really hope you get a job in customer service and can never get your arrogant hands on mmo development again.

It is literally BOGGLING how you've bungled this. You teach your player base to play a certain way. You give them the tools, and it works. People have fun. Complaints are minimal, usually about small scale class buffs/nerfs. You decide, that's not what I WANT anymore, I want to completely change things around! You change it so that your players, and especially the healers, are punished for learning to play a certain way. Then you basically write a post saying 'Gtfo bads' and expect that to be kosher. It's NOT.

I don't play mmos to get my ass kicked. Not saying I want shiny lewts handed to me on a silver platter, but there is a threshold in a game where the payoff fails to make the work worth it. You've just crossed it. I'm having a hard time seeing WoW coming back from that threshold.

As I said, I have no interest in flushing my money down the toilet so developers can talk down to the people with legitimate concerns about the state of things. Before that little post, I was content to just let my time run out and maybe come back in a few months, see how things are going. But now, GC? You and your company will never see another dime of my money again. Any company that allows its developers to alienate an unhappy portion of the player base in such a way (regardless of how big or small that portion is) doesn't deserve its success.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Snow day morning wasted on RAGE!

So I spent a good part of my snow day morning struggling uphill with Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. My rage resulted in a review I've posted on Amazon. It is TOTALLY TL;DR worthy. You may SKIM it then.

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I know I'm going to get ostracized for saying anything bad about this game, so allow me to point out a few things first and foremost: I loved both Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed 2. I'm HOOKED to the series. When this title was announced I was a bit dismayed to find out it continued the adventures of Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I personally felt that his story arc was over and done with, and that UBI should have moved to the next of Miles' assassin's ancestors. I can understand why UBI would be quick to cash in on Ezio Auditore: he is an incredibly sympathetic character (compared to Altaïr Ibn La'Ahad, a mangy dog would come off as more sympathetic) and the Italy of the Medicis proved to be an incredibly fun setting for a game.It just seemed to me that aside from the DLC which I have yet to play, the story of Ezio was over. So this title felt like shameless cashing in, I felt like it would be fluff.

I then read that the greater story arc set in present day, detailing the struggle between the Assassin's and the Templars is somewhat progressed in this game,and there seems to be a twist at the end, so, begrudgingly, I bit and bought this game. So far, I am incredibly let down.

Now, this game is the most polished of all Assassin's Creed. The gameplay has finally hit its stride. The swordfighting, I feel, has finally answered the various claims that it was dull and repetitious. By including a variety of enemies as well as new weapons, and the ability to call upon your underlings, not to mention that enemies now will not (always) wait around until you dispatch one of their own to take a hack at you, UBI has effectively replicated swashbuckling in all its glory, I feel. There's a lot less of the old "jump exactly the opposite direction I intended Altaïr/Ezio to jump" that plagued the first two titles. UBI also added a feature to allow you to hotkey any four weapons/actions to the dpad, which I thought added more guesswork to your preference, but it also adds the element of 'on-the-fly' that Assassin's Creed 2 sometimes lacked. I do take issue with the horses in this game though. They kinda gallop at a lumbering pace. It could be said that it's because you're within Roma...well, what about on the outskirts? I dunno. One of my favorite things to do in the first two games was ride around, and get a sense of speed. Small issue, to be sure.

The graphics are as lush as Assassin's Creed II. I can't fault it for being exactly the same as before, seeing as how Assassin's Creed II was a very beautiful game, and still quite recent.


The soundtrack of the game is essentially the same, although I will say: there's a feature in the game that allows you to burn down watch towers to reclaim control of Roma in sections; whenever this happen, a dark, sinister theme would play. First few times it played, it was pretty cool. After the 5th or 6th time, it got old. Don't know why. The voice acting in this game is pretty uneven, in comparison to Assassin's Creed II. In ACII, the voice acting within the Animus was I would say top notch, if a bit comical at first. Outside the animus it was horrifyingly bad. This time around, the voice acting within the animus is some of the worst I've seen this gen, whereas the voice acting for the present day Assassin's was better, I feel.


As I've mentioned, this game introduces some new features, which I feel add to the gameplay in very refreshing ways. For one thing, you embark on rebuilding Roma, and reclaim it from the Borgia. You do this by capturing towers (sort of like the view points in the first two games), which normally entails killing a squad commander and then setting the tower on fire. Aside from the dark theme issue I already mentioned, this was probably my favorite addition to the gameplay. As you recapture more and more sections of Roma, you are able to renovate quite a number of things in the city: You can renovate shops, such as blacksmiths, art vendors and tailors, just like in ACII. You can also renovate doctor stands this time around, as well as well as stables, where you would be able to pick up a horse, and banks, where you can pick up your future deposits. You are also able to renovate entrances to the underground catacombs, which are then used as 'fast-travel' hubs in the city, derelict buildings which you can use as headquarters for either of your three allied factions (courtesans, thieves and mercenaries), and historical points of interest, such as the acueduct and the Colosseum. All these renovations of course bolster your money-generating capacity; the more you renovate, the more you earn. This was done to bolster what was considered as a flimsy economy in ACII. All it really does in my opinion is prolong the inevitable: that given enough grind, Ezio will have enough florins to fund a crusade or cure the bubonic plague. I've yet to renovate absolutely everything, but I have not found myself in need of picking pockets.

Another addition is the introduction of your assassin brethren. This is a great addition, but it gets old fast, and it actually becomes a crutch that the game, I feel, abuses. You rescue rebellious romans from the clutches of Borgia's men, and induct them as acolytes of the Assassin's. These newbs you can level up two ways: by either calling them into battle, where they will aid you with their great, or lacking, prowess. You can also simply grind assassin contracts. This is the safest way to level your assassins, and it's a great way to come by loads of cash, and special items. You simply select a mission, select up to five assassini to send, and voila, just wait until they report back to you (sort of like jobs in Final Fantasy Tactics) The more assassins you send on an assignment, the less exp each one gets. After some exp, they will go up a rank, up to the 10th rank, where they go through the rituals of becoming actual assassins. When you have enough assassins, at least six, you can call an 'arrow storm': your assassins will dispatch every enemy in the vicinity with unseen crossbows. This is pretty cool, although it feels cheap, but the cooldown is a lengthy one, so that offsets the 'awesome cheapness' effect. Otherwise, you can call upon your assassins three times consecutively, in groups of two. Your assassins level pretty fast and once they reach the level cap, they're pretty much indestructable, as long as you make sure you don't send them on suicide missions (and the mission will tell you the probability of success before starting, so it's a sure thing). You can recruit as many as 12 assassins, so once you get closer to that maximum, the whole recruiting new assassins is another grind. And, again, it's a great source of money and special items. These special items you can use to either sell them or as requirements for 'shop quests'- the vendors will often require special items to unlock certain special items, armor and weapons. This was also a welcome and refreshing addition, albeit, a bit difficult to complete thus far.

The biggest draw I would say is the multiplayer. There are no words to describe how FUN the MP is. I would say the experience is comparable to when Modern Warfare came out. It just blows you out of the water. I played one mode so far, Wanted. You basically have to find and execute your target, and you rack up points for the finesse with which you accomplish this. Of course, the twist is, you are also the hunted. I had my concerns of how a game where everyone is trying to stab everyone else in the back would work. The answer is, beautifully. You basically have to become an expert in subterfuge, and learn how to blend in, and not act erratically so as not to stand out. This is harder than it sounds. It's incredibly addicting, and nerve wracking. I would say the MP is the games shiniest prospect.


Which brings me to why I'm not giving this game full marks. First off, the story, so far, is INCREDIBLY weak. Aside fromt he political intrigue and tidbits of what seems like true speculative Renaissance history, the story itself lacks SO MUCH of what the first two games had, that I feel I'm basically plodding through to the end, so I can call it good and wait for ACIII. You attempt to retake Roma from the Borgia and his demented children. Ok. Um. And what does this mean for the greater arc of the game? With such a huge revelation at the end of ACII, why is this even relevant? Well, the game takes the time to explain why they are revisiting Ezio's past, but the reasons are so flimsy, it just screams ka-ching. So you go around eliminating personages of some importance to the Pope, and you uncover yet another plot of intrigue. It just doesn't feel cohesive though. Another set of missions have you working for Leonardo DaVinci, who asks you to destroy his inventions, comissioned by the Pope under pain of death; these missions, I feel, made at least some sense of WHY you were doing what you were doing. There was also a subplot of a secret sect, the Followers of Romulus, who don wolf-skins and live as wolves ( a far cry of the Cynics? I don't think UBI would have made that allusion intentionally) which feels, in all earnest, a bit disjointed from the rest of the storyline.


Finally, my biggest issue with the game is the mission mechanics. First off, this game is a direct continuation of ACII, and I would dare say it would be extremely difficult for a newcomer to simply pick up and play ACBR without any issues. The gameplay, and controls, are largely the same, and that's good, I feel. They did however set to make more varied missions, as this was one of the bigger complaints of AC and in a lesser way, of ACII. The result however, is a string of escort missions, of missions with obscure directives (Such as, kill the guards up ahead, but don't stray too far, but don't let the guards get too close, but don't let anyone see you kill the guards...in fact, just use your assassins, but again, don't get too close....) or missions with exacting auto-fails (you were seen? Fail. You stumbled? Fail. You fought? Fail) In the beginning, the game gives you a bonus (full synchronization) if you fulfill the mission within certain parameters, but later in the game, you fail a mission for reasons which oftentimes remained a mistery: I've had to fail missions repeatedly to find out WHY I was failing in the first place. Basically, the game does a lousy job of telling you what to do. And this is a departure, for the worse in my opinion, of the formula of the first two games. The first two games would allow you to accomplish missions in whichever way, some of which were incredibly graceless and brutish. This time around, you are left to divinate the ONE way to complete a mission.

I really hope that ACIII, whenever it comes out, does not take the exact same approach.

Dumping on a classic- Final Fantasy 8

I normally go out of my way to take a piss on certain games. One of those games is Final Fantasy 8. I decided one day to finally give free rein to my contempt for this piece of crap game, and explore WHY this game makes me want to kick ducklings. This following rant is posted originally in another blog, but that doesn't matter now.

Here ya go-

Ahh, Final Fantasy 7 (bear with me)...it basically redefined RPGs, put them on the map, made them cool, made the cinematic experience cool, made them accessible, made them...well, you get the idea. So when Squeenix, back then Squaresoft, made the move to make FF8, expectations were running high.

The game was absolutely beautiful. Simply beautiful. Gone were the super deformed little models. These characters looked absolutely real! And the cinematics! OMG! So pretty! And the music!


The presentation was absolutely beautiful, although the hero was modeled in accordance to a then-incipient trend of making the heroes delicate, pretty boys. Or, not incipient, but returning, in any case. The presentation was a delight, it simply pushed the envelope for video games all around.

The gameplay, to this day, is much debated. It implemented a draw system that made you weigh the drawbacks of using magic, because magic would be used to bolster your character stats. I think this was innovative, although I don't care that it was never implemented again. I favored the sphere grid used in FFX and then emulated in FF12 far more.

So why am I taking a p*ss on this game?


The story. And the characters. They piss me off to no end. The story is an amalgam of coincidences organized in such a way so as to try and impress us with incredible "plot twist" prowess. It's basically the game that M. Nigh Shyamalan never produced. The biggest plot twist is that all the characters were orphans at the same orphanage at a point, and their caretaker, the matron, was actually the game's antagonist. She has been possessed by a time witch, and they forgot about their childhood connections because of an overuse of fantastic beings called Guardians, which causes memory loss.

...in retrospect, the plot is not that weak, but what irks me about it is how it was presented. Namely, as a plot twist in some fucking second rate middle of the afternoon, right after Mattlock soap opera reject episode. The organ-driven dramatic sting was all that was missing, seriously. That and the french maid/butler.


Another thing that really ruined this game for me was the characters. Some of the characters were very compelling, but some were, for the lack of a better term, fucking retarded. What's more, the supporting characters were fine! They were well written, funny, and sympathetic. My issue is with the protagonist.

Squall. Squall Lionheart, to be exact. Guh. Squall walked around in tight jeans, a bomber's jacket, and gloves, being moody, and aloof, using a gunblade. Apparently in the game's universe, this was a hard weapon to master. He walked around sporting a face deforming scar, given to him by his rival, Siefer.

And this bothers me greatly. Siefer, a character more believable than fucking Squall, was made the initial antagonist. FINE. That's all fine. It's not the first time that the antagonist is cooler and better written than the protagonist.

What bothers me is that Squall is the proto-emo hero. He can't decide whether he's brooding, whether he's a lover, whether he's just awkward socially...he's all these things. He's a pretty boy who walks around, having girls fawn over him, who is a fucking JERK to his best friend (Zell is a MUCH better character, honestly) and he just blames it on being a loner. It's as if Squeenix did a study on Asperger Syndrome with Squall, to see if the character would be likeable to the masses. And indeed, Squall apparently paved the way for unlikeable, unrelatable characters...who the fudge likes the guy who is SO awkward that he can't muster the courage to take a girl out dancing!? Chances are if you were playing this game when it came out, YOU were that guy! BUT WE ALL KNOW THAT YOU HATED YOURSELF FOR BEING SUCH A CHICKENSHIT....so...why is THIS butthole the HERO!?

And that's what bothers me. That Squall never really overcomes his social ineptitudes, he is confronted with being a social inept, and he says "I'm right, you're wrong, because I'm on the cover." and we're supposed to say "Yes, I wish I was like Squall." And it's not that being socially inept is bad either. It's not! It's just who you are! BUT DON'T TRY TO SELL ME THAT THE GEEK IS ALSO THE JOCK IS ALSO THE GOTH KID! IT JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN!

And that's my two cents on this game. There's also a love story, but it's so awkward and badly written that it makes Twilight look like Othello.

Warning! and Introductions

This blog is for ranting. Campy and I will spew some pretty offensive shit, so if your skin is thin, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

We're a pretty cranky pair. In the world of cute, adorable couples shooting lovey nonsense into eachother's faces, Campy and I are the old, disillusioned couple that sits on the porch and yells at the happy kids. Peppy little fuckers. Things annoy us and we like to complain. So in this day and age, where there is literally a platform for unadulterated narcissism every where you turn, this seemed like the best option.

We plan on covering a lot of ground, but mostly, our posts are going to center on nerddom. In addition to being sparkling personalities, we're unabashedly nerds. We like to rant about mmos, video game culture, fanfiction, nerdy fandoms in general.

So prepare to be blistered by the rants of Campy and Cello. If you're cranky like us, you might enjoy yourself.