Sunny Sunday Screenshot Siesta

Genofeva Soaking up the sun in the Barrachan Isles



Nahkti running towards destiny


Looking back at Khemi



Vailare sits anxiously waiting for the Stygian flower seller


Moody blue sky at the Eiglophean Mountains


Bewitched by the moon after a meeting with Zeleta


Xibaluku is a dark, dangerous place


The Dark One

Three reasons not to play SW:TOR

1) the absense of playable non-human species
2) the presence of Midichlorians...
3) the presence of Gungans other than in a mission where you exterminate them all.

None of these are confirmed and from what I've been able to tell (as someone trying very hard not to follow the game too closely) only item 1 is a real concern for now.

This in lieu of another Wall of Text which I'd feel compelled to fact-check and would essentially still break down to these three points.

Anything you guys are looking forward to or fearing in SW:TOR?

Not much of a post

As soon as the plane landed in Mumbai I realized I had forgotten something. My camera. So not much of a travel post to make. Only a few crappy iPhone pictures taken from the car.



Of course there is a lot more to tell about one crazy week in Pune, but I'll spare you all that till the time we'll meet up again.

The Problem of Too Many Skills

Maybe I'm the only one that has this problem. I'll be playing along, tossin out some heals or whatnot and then it happens. The big whammo. The smack that is layethed down. The big wipe. It's frustrating at times (stupid nub) because of the various reasons (Leeeeeroooooy Jeeeenkins!) that it comes about (just a sec and CHARGE! are not synonymous, contrary to popular opinion).

But then there's the reason that no one really knows about. Or maybe they do and just don't mention it as much. It's the problem of having too many skills. Inevitably, I'll be playing along (and mostly it's by myself) and some kobold protecting his candle will manage stick his knife in my back causing my premature demise. As I'm laying there, eating virtual dirt, I realize my Super-Duper Mega Invincibility skill is sitting happily on my skillbar gathering dust. Why is that, you might ask? I forgot. I forgot I had it. I've only got 5 fingers you know, and only 4 are really useable to activate skills.

So what's realy the problem? Am I just a special case in my mental capacity? Or could it be that having 10 (or more) slots for skills assigned to the 0-9 keys not ideal? Or maybe it's just that we've got way too many skills in games to begin with?

I could probably write a small essay examining all the different points, but right now, I don't want to. So gimme just a sec (that's MMO speak for CHARGE! btw). In other words, Ok Go...

A quickie

This is funny at 06:38 after a long boring night shift:

A mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and a civil engineer are discussing God. They all agree He must be an engineer, but what kind? The mechanical engineer says, look at the human body, its skeleton, joints and musculature, mechanical genius! God must be a mechanical engineer. The electrical engineer says, Nonsense! Look at the brain, the nerves, God is an electrical engineer. The civil engineer says, "Nope. God is a civil engineer, who else would put the sewer outflow in the middle of the entertainment district?

I'll check if it's still funny at any other time after a morning's sleep.

Where the Wild Things were

This review will contain spoilers!

I think it was Tesh who, in a thread where I mentioned my excitement about this reimagination of one of my earliest happy memories, mentioned that he didn't altogether enjoy seeing the movie "Where the Wild Things Are". I've had the movie DVD in house for a few weeks now and finally got around to seeing it last Thursday. I have to say my own experiences of the movie are also ambivalent. I can't quite determine why I can't wholeheartedly like- or dislike it. Probably because I can't tell if the movie's made for children or adults. It probably tries to do both but that's where the shoe starts to rub I guess.

First a note on the Wild Things, the 'monsters'. They're all very well done and their 'acting' is great as well as that of Max who's rock solid throughout the movie. As a blend of both animatronics and CGI it's some very impressive work. As can be expected of Jim Henson's Creature Shop. But that does point to something I kinda missed. It felt like there should have been a Hensonesque music/dance scene in there somewhere. Maybe that's just me showing my age but something along the lines of Sarah meeting those reddish muppets with the loosely attached extremeties in Labyrinth? It might even have mitigated my prime issue with the movie.

ACT 1: Setting the background.
Well, this first part I have absolutely no problems with. Max, his sister and his mother are introduced in a very well directed manner, all from Max's perspective. Not only is the wolf-suit instantly recognizable and gets you into things immediately, but Max's character is set down very well in a series of scenes that give a good insight into the loneliness and disconnectedness that make him the enfant terrible that he is.

The relationship with Big Sister (who gets about 90 seconds of screentime) is done very well and I really wanted to hug Max upon seeing him ready to burst into tears after being buried alive in his snow iglo by his elder sister's friends. The whole snowball fight scene between ambusher Max and Claire's friends is a very succinct method of showing how Max craves attention and will settle even for the negative type while at the same time driving home the problems with a younger kid trying to play with older kids. That Big Sis had a better relationship with Max but outgrew him is nicely portrayed in the following scenes. A lot of this is very recognizable for everyone who's had an imperfect childhood or has taken the time to interact with a lonely child and should be good vieweing for any parent with a troublesome child just to get perspective.

The relationship with Mom is set up equally well and is used to show Max's imagination at the same time. The first hints of the somehwat heavy handed symbolism start to show up here. Still, the first act is by far the most subtle, for example in the way it's obvious Max misses a father figure even though Max's dad is barely referred to in the movie at all. As you can tell I really liked the first act. Script, directing and acting comes together superbly here.

The act ends with Max running away after having bitten his Mom in a fit of anger and jealousy over his Mom's new love interest. He runs of and sails to the island where the Wild Things Are.

ACT2 Cutting loose.
The second act has Max meeting the monsters who are the Wild Things. A group of monsters living on an island, each representing a part of Max or of the people and forces around him, with a lot of Freudian and Jungian elements thrown in. There's Carol, who's an obvious representation of Max's own id or wilder side who wants everything and doesn't get why people don't always agree with them. There's Judith who's always complaining and pointing out the fallacies in any plan like either the SuperEgo or possibly Mom, as Mom's tend to fill that role while a child still "developess" that part of themselves, but Mom really never shows that side in Act 1. But I'm describing what she was probably meant to portray, not how she came across to me. More on that later.
There's also KW who's a more obvious representation of Max's Sister. Slightly more mature than Carol she's at first absent from the group and likes to spend time with other friends outside the monsters, two owls of all things. Yeah that's the kind of symbolic subtlety you can apply with a two by four. We could probably find the Ego amongst some of the other Wild Things and find other representations, like Goat Boy (Alexander) who's a clear representation of the misunderstood, shy sensitive e.t.c. All the Wild Things each have a purpose and depth to them.

Anyway, in this Act Max meets all the Wild Things and manages to get them to make him their King. What bothered me here was not so much the kind of blunt subtlety with the Owls, it's supposedly a kid's movie so a bit of obviousness is ok right but that from my perspective this would be the 'happy time' for Max. It is really, but each moment of joy in the movies is 'poisoned' by foreshadowing of things to come in some form or other or not so subtle 'it will not last' signs. The sole exlcusion to this is maybe the 'pile up' where all the Wild Things pile on top of Max in order to go sleep that way. The juxtaposition and contrast with being buried in the pile of snow from Act 1 is obviuous, but in a good way for Max as he manages to connect with KW (Big Sister) who protects him from the worst of the avalanche.

ACT 3: Everything Changes:
ACT 3 has Max organizing the Wild Things into accomplishing Carol's dreams, creating a place where only the things you want happen. It's actually in this Act that Max meets KW's Owl friends who are liked by everybody except Carol and Max who don't understand them while eveyrone else does. Max now tries to mollify Carol into accepting the owls as a price for not losing KW again. We see some growth in max that way. During Act 3 Max has an encounter with most of the Wild Things that teaches him a little something about himself, meanwhile the big dream is starting to unravel with ever increasing foreboding and inevitability.

ACT4: the house of cards comes tumbling down:
ACT 4 has everything breaking down and Max realizing he has no future here amongst the Wild Things. He incurs the jealousy of some by being to close to Carol then begins to lose that conenction when he begins to become aware that some of the things Carol wants just aren't reasonable or feasible even. He has to own up to not being as all powerfull as he claimed (in order to keep them from eating him but make him their King) and he ends up shattering Carol's dreams and desires even while he does manage to reintegrate KW with the group. In the end he sets of in his boat to return home and the Wild Things 'howl him off' including Carol.

ACT5: it was all just a dream.
Probably the Act which satisfied me the least. Max returns home and reunites with his Mom who'd naturally been worried sick and eats his dinner. It's all very sweet without becoming too cloying but I really really missed max saying 'sorry' to his mother just once. Maybe that's implied by him eating his dinner including the frozen corn he doesn't like while Mom watches over him smiling happily but maybe it was actually dinner sans corn. I missed Max saying sorry and Mom not being a wet hen to be honest. Well, if Mom remains a wet hen that's her problem. But with Max effectively abandonning the Wild Things to their lot after he failed to actually lead them the lack of that 'sorry' tells me Max didn't really gain a sense of responsibility for his actions, which is kind of the whole central premise of the book you know. And in Act 3+4 there's some building blocks for that bridge, but he never seems to actually reach the other shore there.
Maybe they were trying to be subtle about it, I'm not sure in retrospect if Max is is or isn't eating the frozen corn he refused to eat in Act1, that bit I will have to check back on the DVD. If he is eating them, he did learn his lesson, but that's maybe a bit too subtle for me.

Overall experience:
A very well directed movie which nonetheless had me feeling vaguely dissatisfied. Mostly I can't tell if this is a kid's movie or a grown ups movie. There's not a single moment of unmitigated joy that isn't spoiled to some extend by some not so subtle foreboding of doom and gloom. This is so strong it really doesn't fit well with a kid's movie. It's more appropriate for an adult movie on a serious subject. Not that a kid's loneliness isn't serious business of course. It's that jarring that spoils an otherwise great movie for me. It's not that I have problems with the concept of each success carrying within the seeds of its destruction. That's Life for you. But that's a bit to adult a concept for this type of movie. Even as a kid's movie for grown ups.
That and the no-sorry ending.

---

There's a couple of jewels in the dialogue:

Judith: Are you good to eat? You better be good to eat! Did you even consider you ought to be good to eat?


Max: Small is good. My powers are able to slip right through the cracks.
Judith: But what if the cracks are closed up?
Max: Then I have a re-cracker, which goes right through that.
Judith: But what if they have some sort of material that re-crackers can't get through?
Max: Then I have a double re-cracker, which can get through anything in this whole universe. And that's the end, and there's nothing more powerful after that, ever. Period.
Alexander: He has a double re-cracker.
Ira: He does sound powerful.


Carol: This is all yours. You're the owner of this world. Everything you see is yours. Oh, except that hole over there, that's Ira's. The tree's yours, but the hole is Ira's. But everything else is yours.

A beautiful Islay

My vacation is over. It was short, but sweet. Together with my brother and his wife the four of us went to visit an island in the Atlantic. Well, maybe it is not really considered the Atlantic yet. It was just a short but lovely ferry ride from the Scottish mainland to the island of Islay.


The island was beautful! Rugged Scottish slopes, misty moors, plenty of sheep, and, to my surprise, loads of sunshine. I actually managed to get some sunburn. The picture below is from north west shore overlooking nearby island Jura.


Although it is worth visiting for its own beauty it is actually known for only one thing. It is home to some of the best Single Malt Whiskeys. Caol Ila, Bruichladdich, Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, Bowmore and Bunnahabhain are all made there. And even a few more I didn't know about yet. I was sort of expecting these distilleries to be big-ish efficient factories. But they are small hidden away gems in the landscape. All of them are very welcoming to visitors, and we sampled quite a bit.


But in Bowmore, the administrative and shopping capital of Islay, is a pub called Duffies. It is not that hard to find. There are only two pubs, and it is not that other one. Duffies has the most impressive collection of Whiskeys. The ones on the picture are all from Islay. Other than two pubs the town had a restaurant, a Spar, and Co-op, and a bank. It was the ultimate in laid back island life. It got only disturbed when a tour bus with 20 clueless tourists came bursting through the bar.


Besides debating which Whiskey was better we had time to explore the island on foot and other random wanderings before heading to the next distillery. The whole vacation got triggered by a bottle of Laphroig we bought a year or two ago. It comes with a certificate of ownership of a square foot of land outside their distillery. The next picture is on the way there. We claimed our square foot, and received a bottle of whiskey as payment for the rent.


Yesterday we drove back home again. It was quite far, but I would love to go back again some day.

Rising to slay a God

I've been playing Age of Conan again for the last two days. Well, part of the time anyway.
You know you're playing a Funcom MMO when they launch an expansion on the 11th followed by a 6 hour maintenance downtime smack in the middle of European Prime Time.
No-one manages to miss the barn like Funcom in matters of well timed actions...

I really wanted to start the Kithan content as low in level as possible so I first tried getting through Tortage again for a day. I'd rolled a new Kithan Ranger, Osprey, to explore the world with.
It was good to walk the streets of Tortage again. Especially with the DirectX 10 Test stuff running at full tilt. It's another gaffe imo that at the time of the first expansion DirectX 10 implementation is still visibly marked as ' Test'. Maybe you forgot, but DirectX 10 features were a selling point on the box during the original game's launch.

Unfortunately it took a whole day and 15 levels for me to realize that Ranger isn't my class. Sorry but the way combo's are applied to the Ranger class doesn't work for me. It might have been different if you fired one arrow at the end of a combo, not one for each step, ensuring you will always end up shooting your foes from point blank range. At the end of it I decided not to continue with Osprey.

DX10 Khemi looking good

So today I was going to give it another shot.
I could reroll, but rerolling would be as either an Assassin or a Herald. The Assassin was a no-go based on the sheer number of overly buxxom killer courtesans I'd ran into the day before. The Herald was a possibility but after a whole day of playing through Tortage I didn't really fancy rerolling as something else and go through all that again. I didn't feel like continuing with my Ranger either. Luckily I have more than one bird in my hand.

Kestrel, my Guardian alt, was only 26 and should be able to Roleplay her way through the low twenties quests of the first Kithai zone, Gateway to Kithai. And so I picked up her spear again and donned the woad warpaint and took her into the far East.

75 coppers to boat across 100 yards of water that doesn't even have crocs???

So far I'm liking what I see. The first pleasant surprise for me was that the Gateway to Kithai means lots and lots of Hyrkanians. I'd been missing these mongol hordes in the original campaign and I'm sure glad they at least maken an appearance here. The Quests and storylines of Gateway are interesting and well worked out. I've noticed they've tried to give some quests a rogueish tint (actually using the Hide skill) which probably makes them boring as heck for the classes that actually have that. But for a clumsy cluttering ... Cimerian in the china cabinet they're quite challenging.

The views are as could've been expected, spectacular!

Some other nice things that have been added over the months that I only now came across are the armor shops. Those were added a long time ago and only sell 80's stuff but it all looks splendid. There's fluff pets you can buy in Old Tarantia and a Veterans reward quartermaster. This one sells a lot of fluff and horses and additional Pathway spells for in excahnge for Veteran Tokens (one per month per character or so I believe). It's mostly convenience gear. The stuff you've gotten used to from many similar carrot programs. The nice thing with Funcom is that you get to choose what you want through means of the token currency.
These Veteran Tokens are but one variant of a series of Tokens you can get inside the game, primarily through Raiding I gathered. I suspect you buy the next treadmill with those tokens, or the gear needed to get into the next treadmill maybe?

Another improvement I spotted is that each nation now sports a gaggle of hairdressers/dyers, face-painters and tattooists who in exchange for sinking your money back into the game will give you a makeover. As the makeover costs 15 Silver per part I haven't experimented yet, but I do believe this is now the way to finally get that Aquilonian red hair on your Cimmerian, or Woad painting on your Stygian.

The only downside is that whoever placed these in each city seems to have gotten instructions to under no circumstances have them more than 5 feet apart and in a spot where they not only don't quite fit in the background of the place but actually stikc out so they can't be missed. I suspect he/she was further refrained from tastefully placing them in/around the available stalls by the threat that management would then insist on neon signs or billboards.

Since I for some reason got the CE edition of 'Godslayer' I also have a huge section of stuff under the /claim command. More veteran reward-like stuff. Some interesting, some not so.
Ok, not much of a review really, just felt like mentioning I'm having fun with AoC at the moment.

Oh, if anyone else feels like returning to the world of Hyborea, because of or more likely in spite of my review, do take the time to download the Stonerune GUI. It's very, very good. Not invasive, not breaking with the established look and feel and just plain essential with al the extra abilities that find their way onto your hotbars thanks to the new AA system...

Just what we needed. An AA system adding even more combo's to our hotbars...

Free Cake!

GW2 - Lofty Ambitions?

Dynamic Events Overview

The latest blog entry over on the official GW2 site

One of my favourite quotes:

.... in a traditional MMO, the character who gives you a quest will tell you ogres are coming to destroy the character's home, and you need to kill them. You then get a quest which says, "Kill 0/10 ogres" and you proceed to kill a bunch of ogres standing around in a field picking daisies. Since every player in the game needs to be able to do this quest, the ogres will never actually threaten the character's home - they will just eternally pick daisies in the field. The ogres aren't actually doing what the quest says they are - the game is lying to you!

My concerns about dynamic scaling put to rest:

Everyone works together towards the common goal of the event and everyone is rewarded for doing so. To help ensure there is always enough for everyone to do, our events dynamically scale, so the more players who show up and participate in the event, the more enemies show up to fight them. If a bunch of players leave the event, it will dynamically scale back down so it can be completed by the people who are still there playing it. This careful balance created by our dynamic scaling system helps ensure you have the best and most rewarding play experience.

Rewarding altaholics and explorers:

As an added bonus, we've also hidden hundreds of events all over the world that require interaction with the game world. This helps give an extra sense of reward and discovery for those who seek to explore the entire world.

It's a good read, It's so far removed from GW1 in everything but lore the excitement of a sequel has long gone, now it's whats being unveiled about this new MMO that's getting me excited, this looks like damn good stuff.

Dark Star: They don't write dialogue like that anymore

Also a cautionairy regarding the sue of SmartBombs....

[Doolittle convinces the bomb not to explode]
Doolittle: Hello, Bomb? Are you with me?
Bomb #20: Of course.
Doolittle: Are you willing to entertain a few concepts?
Bomb #20: I am always receptive to suggestions.
Doolittle: Fine. Think about this then. How do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: Well, of course I exist.
Doolittle: But how do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: It is intuitively obvious.
Doolittle: Intuition is no proof. What concrete evidence do you have that you exist?
Bomb #20: Hmmmm... well... I think, therefore I am.
Doolittle: That's good. That's very good. But how do you know that anything else exists?
Bomb #20: My sensory apparatus reveals it to me. This is fun.

[Pinback wants the bomb to disarm]
Pinback: All right, bomb. Prepare to receive new orders.
Bomb#20: You are false data.
Pinback: Hmmm?
Bomb #20: Therefore I shall ignore you.
Pinback: Hello... bomb?
Bomb #20: False data can act only as a distraction. Therefore, I shall refuse to perceive.
Pinback: Hey, bomb?
Bomb #20: The only thing that exists is myself.
Pinback: Snap out of it, bomb.

The Bomb's final words:
Bomb#20: In the beginning, there was darkness. And the darkness was without form, and void.
Boiler: What the hell is he talking about?
Bomb#20: And in addition to the darkness there was also me. And I moved upon the face of the darkness. And I saw that I was alone. Let there be light.


The movie's a bit long in the tooth (1974) and there was no special effect budget but especially the bomb bits are brilliant.

Somebody is being daft!

I received this email this morning from FunCom:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your Pre Order of Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer!

We are happy to announce that payments are now beginning to process for this exciting upcoming event. Unfortunately it appears that your account is cancelled. Your payment for your pre-order will not be able to process while your account is cancelled and this may result in your account being frozen during the launch period.

To ensure uninterrupted service and a successful purchase of Rise of the Godslayer expansion please log into your account today at https://register.ageofconan.com and reactivate to allow your payment to be processed.

Thank you for your attention,
Funcom

I don't want to play Age of Conan now. So they expect me to pay $15 just to have the privilage to pay them another $30 for something that is not available yet for some time. That is just ...

Wait, let me check the AOC website. Oh wow, Rise of the Godslayer got released today! Hmm, then the email makes some sense. But I still don't want to play today. I'll just have to wait and see what happens when I eventually activate my account.

It is still Fallen Earth

It has been a while since I have posted anything, so it is time for some more ramblings. But this I am cheering it up a bit with a few choice screenshots. All the screenshots had to come from Fallen Earth since that is still the only game I am seriously playing.

Pilatus is trying to sit relaxed and comfortable in South Burb.

But her short skirt makes her a bit too self conscience.

But I am not playing it a lot. I find myself often dilly-dallying before actually entering the wastelands. Reading up on FE forums posts, browsing through not too relevant websites, and even solving a silly Sudoku puzzle. I haven't really figured out yet why I do that. The most logic thing would be that I don't really feel like playing it anymore. But then I get on and be enthralled by the wide open world, and love running up and down, crafting complex vehicles, and talk to friends and clan members.

While crossing the plains Chennie is trying shoot some fresh lunch.

I had set myself a goal to explore some of the PvP areas a few weeks ago. I would just finish up my crafting work, and a few loose questing ends, and off I should go. That finishing up stuff took me a week. And I finally made it to New Gallows, the PvP area east of Haven. Only to find out it is actually not a PvP area anymore! Silly me. It had turned into a special Human League town quest-ish kind of place. They had new veteran NPCs. They were a fun challanging bunch. I got a request from a nearby Tech camp to kill some for a nice reward. But then Lani mentioned something about a dune buggy. So I rushed back to New Flasgstaff and locked myself up in the science lab (and went to Chicago for work).

It just learned it won't get shot at anymore.

A quiet life at the stables is awaiting.

I managed to build the buggy, and all the components from the raw materials Lani had send me. But diner parties, and whiskey drinking put a stop to further playing. In stead I read up on Tobold's EVE adventures. It really made me want to play EVE. I even blurred that out somewhere. Maybe I actually will do it.

We just stepped out of a Lifenet bunker talking to Graham.

Life in the wastelands can be very good sometimes.

Saturday I made it back home again, after circling north around Iceland. So I had time to pick up where I left of in Fallen Earth. But I didn't. In stead I went to Paragon City and went shopping for enhancements and a new costume slot for Sylva Varescu. She had turned 32 the last Sunday we played City of Heroes, and needed the upgrade before yesterday's session.

But as it turned out half the COH gang was out. And the other half is also playing Fallen Earth like me. So I ended up in the wastelands after all. And as usual we had a great time. We did some tough group missions at Last Stop, and an instanced fort near Devon. There were two bosses our level. On both bosses we got a team wipe (3 of us), but we got them on the rerun. It was epic fighting. And we got a truly stunning sunrise on top! I still love this game. (Or am I trying to convince myself here?)

No idea when I will have time to play this, but Steam had the entire Civilization IV collection on sale for 6.49 GBP. I just couldn't resist. I do know if I start that up I won't be back anywhere any time soon.

Icarus Studios, Inc., Restructures Company

In an announcement made today, Chief Executive Officer of Icarus Studios, Inc., James Hettinger, announced a restructure of the company resources and staffing, effective immediately. The changes come on the heels of the six-month anniversary of Fallen Earth, a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game co-developed with FALLEN EARTH, LLC.

"While this is a challenging step for us," said Hettinger, "the steps were taken to maintain the growth, continued development and profitability of Fallen Earth."

As a result of today's reorganization and in an effort to maintain development, the combined companies will support core members of staff for ongoing customer service and continued development of Fallen Earth and company projects.

Team leads are continuing production and development on Fallen Earth Blood Sports Patch 1.4, scheduled for release on May 7. Community support and scheduled events, such as Slots Night (scheduled for tonight, April 30), will continue as announced.

Source

Forum thread, mostly people talking about how this will affect the game they play in their leisure time. Very few seem to realise this means 80% of Icarus' employee's lost their livelihood today.

The rare wild traffic cone

Thundering Thursday Threenshots

Just reinstating an old traditon....


Apparently +5 Stamina regen in Fallen Earth requires a +5 to cleavage.

The temptation of the Grand Canyon.
Keep wanting to just drive over the edge of that cliff.

The noob finally figured out how chat works,
then made the mistake of responding to the both of us

STFU! I'm crafting

Our blog is old enough to rate traditions....

Better late than never

Happy Birthday Phè

23-04-2010
My Google Calendar reminder has failed me...

GW fifth anniversary brings GW2 news

Guild Wars Two Design Manifesto

…if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2

Anet have started a GW2 blog to celebrate 5 years of GW. The first installment makes for some interesting reading, I've stuck a couple of quotes below to wet your appetite, go read the full blog here

Grouping:

We think of GW2 as the first MMO that actually has a cooperative PvE experience. When I’m out hunting and suddenly there’s a huge explosion over the next hill – the ground is shaking and smoke is pouring into the sky – I’m going to want to investigate, and most other players in the area will too. Or if the sky darkens on a sunny day, and I look up and see a dragon circling overhead preparing to attack, I know I’d better fight or flee, and everyone around me knows that too. With traditional MMOs you can choose to solo or you can find a good guild or party to play with. With GW2 there’s a third option too: you can just naturally play with all the people around you.

I personally spend a big chunk of my time in traditional MMOs soloing, but when I play GW2 I always find myself naturally working with everyone around me to accomplish world objectives, and before long we find ourselves saying, “Hey, there’s a bunch of us here; let’s see if we can take down the swamp boss together,” without ever having bothered to form a party.

Of course GW2 has great support for parties, but they just don’t feel as necessary as they do in other MMOs, because your interests are always aligned with all other nearby players anyway. When someone kills a monster, not just that player’s party but everyone who was seriously involved in the fight gets 100% of the XP and loot for the kill. When an event is happening in the world – when the bandits are terrorizing a village – everyone in the area has the same motivation, and when the event ends, everyone gets rewarded.

Combat

If a Stone Elemental throws a boulder at you, pick it up and throw it back. Or as an Elementalist, use that boulder to create a meteor storm. If you’re fighting an Oakheart with an axe and you manage to hack off a branch, pick up the branch and try using it as a weapon. If you meet a beekeeper outside town, buy a jar of bees from him and see what happens when you lob it at nearby enemies.

If the game is as dynamic as they make it sound it's going to be loads of fun.

Some new info appeared regarding the Professions on the official site, so far they have only unveiled the Elementalist on the new professions page.

Here are some skill animation videos for the Elementalist

Meteor Shower

Phoenix

Static Field

Water Trident

Churning Earth

With the exception of Static Field, these are all skill names that carry on from GW1, I'm hoping the voices can be muted..

Note in the Phoenix there seems to be a buff from getting in to the tail end of the skill, nice touch

Observations

1) Upon acquiring the companion dog, Mutt, in Fallen Earth and immediately trying the rename option I quickly learned that dog names, like player names, have to be unique.
Dogmeat (from Fallout fame) was already taken. So is Benji (from Benji fame) but Gaspode (from Terry Pratchett's Discworld fame) wasn't, yay!

2) Level 16 mutants have social aggro. It's best to realize this before taking potshots at a group of 5, or atleast don't try to do so while at level 15 yourself.

3) Gasoline is crafted in batches of 5, not 1. Don't freak out if you decided to start with a modest batch of 5 cans for your first gasoline refining session.

4) There's really nothing wrong with Zip guns and Air rifles. Seriously, the main benefit of the "Magnum Rimfire Rifle" over the "Snipershot Air Rifle" or the "Sportman's Crossbow" is that the Rimfire atleast actually sounds like a gun when it goes off and that's really all the advantage it needs after a week of 'pfft' 'pfft'-ing.

5) When surrounded by Wild Dogs attacking you in the middle of the night, the one sitting on its haunches presenting you with a paw to shake is probably Gaspode. Try not to get confused and don't waste precious ammo/time on him.

6) The recipe book "Refine Fasteners" will allow you to craft "Scrap Fasteners" (yay!) however crafting a single fastener takes about 1.5 times the time it takes you to gather/harvest/scavenge/plunder enough kit to sell for the 35 whit chips a fastener costs. It's also doubtfull you'll ever make enough "Scrap Fasteners" to break even on the cost of purchasing the book. Hopefully higher grade fasteners will make up for this.

7) There's no such thing as too much ammo. However, there are such things as carry weight allowances. Carry a melee weapon as backup.

8) Travel distances/time really aren't the problem in this game, it's the way you can't go anywhere without going "Ooooh, I can probably harvest/scabenge that!" and dismounting. It doesn't matter how fast your ride is, it's the (dis)mount time that counts.

9) Watchtower is the most northernly town with an auction house in Zone 1. This makes trying to win a bidding war from Trailer Park rather inconvenient (see map of Zone 1)

10) Dammit! Someone else realized this game needs an Edith ("E") Johnson. Just hope he/she stayed true to character.

I wanna go home!

the reason for that, beyond general I hate my job and the sun is shining and my couch is comfy excuse is that when I left of Fallen Earth last night I ahd a huge que of new clothing items I was crafting.
At 10 mintues a piece (inside the Clothing lab) I would have had to stay up for another 90 mintues which was just too much.
I do love this feature about Fallen Earth. i get to look different frequently due to the craft every item in order to level up concept. Of course you ahve to wear everything you make at least for a little while.


So how did I end up with such a floodgate of clothing recipes all of a sudden?
Well, because I'm dumb.
Last Sudnay i finished my session with a bit of an unsatisfied feeling. I'd just made my very first "real" rifle. As opposed to copper pellet throwing Zip gun. This was an honest to god hunting rifle, firing HEAVY AMMO. Ok, one little cincher, my Science vendor only sells Light Ammo Recipes. So here iw as, at a enw tier of crafting and the opening Ballistics item is an awesome rifle which was heaven to shoot for the first five complementary rounds but with no means to make more rounds.


So Monday I began a journey Northwards to slightly higher level mobs and quests and in the mean while discovered that I could purchase Heavy ammo rounds by the case load (500 rounds) and that these last you about 2 hours if you hoard the ammo. Glancing forelornely through my Recipes i suddnely noticed that in my Zip Gun category was a manual I could write (some tradeskill items required) for advanced Zip Guns. Putting two and two together I quickly checked my Science recipes and lo! There was a research Medium Ammo manual I could write.
After purchasing some pen and paper from a local vendor I set to writing first a manual for Medium, then Heavy Armor. Bought the Recipe for making pens and cursed the lack of a paper recipe and went on a writing spree.

The result was I now have additional categories in Ballistics, Armorcrafting, Weaponry, Science and soon Nature tradeskills as well. Life in Fallen Earth is looking up. I gots plenty of mobs to kill and nodes to salvage for my new attire and kit. Phè's alt is due for some hand me downs as well I wager :-D
It also happens that i ended my session right next door to a camp of Night Wolf mercenaries, who drop a belt-buckle that counts as a scrap fastener for crafting, the most rare tradeskill resource in the lower tiers as far as I know. The additional vendor trash they drop is actually cost efficient to buying Heavy Ammo by the case load as well.

Just one hour more of this work to go and I can head home. I'll see about adding some outfit pics from Character select as well before publishing.

Edit: So here she is in her resplendant new S.W.A.T. scavenger gear:

Cautionary images from Fallen Earth

After Geekz0r's confession here that my review post on Fallen Earth made him want to hit the resubscribe button on Fallen Earth I thought it best to post a few cautionary pictures as well:

First, these are my settings. Note that every F*-ing slider is at max. Not every videocard will do that. To boot I have an ATI brand card, which the boys and girls at Icarus used to develop Fallen Earth on. Experiences may differ using different (brand) cards.
P.s. this screen supposedly has the Gamma slider. I can't spot it though.
Also interesting, WIndows' own screenshot taker has a much greater quality loss than FRAPS has as evidenced by the decay on the text in that image.

Epic battle for the Trash Bags just passed.

Ok, this I put in purely because I think the shot is funny. I went for the trashbags and discovered 'Thugs" have an above average aggro range. It was quite the pitched battle for two scrap fasteners.

This is how dark the caves can get. Notice the difference between flash-light area and the surroundings. Note: this is as dark as it gets though.

The dark sometimes hides gruesome scenes...

No matter how much the graphics get amped, it's still post apocalyptic downtown Nevada with all its gruesome brownishness. I hear Zones 2 and 4 have more colour though. Phè can confirm / dispute.

Also, they do patches on Monday.
Grrrrrr!

Apocalypse redux

I've been playing Fallen Earth for a week now and so far it's been a solidly fun experience.
Which is not to say the game doesn't have its flaws, but at least the clunky controls are slowly growing on me, especially after mapping the camera toggle key to a more convenient location.

This makes switching between melee and ranged combat a lot easier. Ranged really does need FPS mode for those all important head shots and for melee I at least prefer third party view. A view that's also a lot better at keeping track of where your party members are. I kept losing sight of them when in snipermode. The compass/map thingy usually isn't much help with that. Switching between 1st/3rd person perspective is very improtant, as is rapid switching between Aim and Mouse mode. In fact the game is a lot like Syncaine's favourite PvP game in some respects. Inventory management isn't quite as heinous as in that game though, and experience/levelling works a bit less like Morrowwind than that game.

The first time round when I tried the game during Beta, my L40 clone accidentally ended up outside the tutorial dam in the real game and was instantly lost and that was the end of my interest. (I did report the bug and it's no longer possible now)

The second time around I had real trouble with both the gathering and crafting systems. Mostly that it was anything but transparent for a beginner what he/she should do. I think it was trying fruitlessly to find leather skins for an afternoon, not knowing that the pile of reptile skins I had would work as well which sucked the fun out of it for me the last time. I also felt the game was just a little to drab and brown that time round. It's still drab and brown, but with the graphics updates it looks a lot better, and that's from someone just coming of a Mass Effect 2 gloriousness overdose. Like with CoX stills (screenshots) don't quite doe the graphics engine justice. Things need to move.

But back to crafting.
This time round I'm loving the crafting system with a vengeance. As reported before it's mostly a matter of finding the right ingredients for your recipes then waiting for the crafting countdown has expired and presto! You're done. The good thing about it is you can walk even run around while crafting, though you take a hit in the time it takes you to craft an item while away from proper facilities. This seems to range between 40 and 60% and may differ based upon the complexity of the item. Net result, I've hidden in dark nooks of mines to smelt some more copper bullets for my modified zip-gun because I'd run out. Yesterday afternoon for example, I was trying to find some Alpha DNA in an old mine where a cloning facility had gone haywire, spewing out ugly zombies rather than useful workforce clones like myself. The Mission required me to do several steps inside a room in order to shut down said facility, while under constant attack from the emerging zombies. Needless to say they can be very distracting and while the mission plots of Fallen Earth shine, their system of using inventory items on in-world mission targets needs work. I was there along with some other clone who'd gone in for the same reason and neither of us could find the fusebox to destroy. Eventually my ammo ran out and his blade hat already eaten his last repair kit so we aborted for the night. Actually, the Zombies overwhelmed us and we woke up in the cloning facility down the road.

Something else I noticed, most noticable with armorcrafting, is that the best way to keep your crafting skills at a useful level for your exploring is to essentially make nearly every item in your recipe list once. You get three times more XP for creating the first version of any given item than all consecutive ones. With armor crafting this means you get to look different about twice a day. Gathering the materials for the next, usually slightly better statted hacket, pants or shoes/boots keeps you busy and gaining experience. More or less the exact opposite of the darkening sackcloth till 70 approach of Age of Conan. Even when sometimes it's just a different colour texture thrown over the same dimensional mesh, it looks different and makes you look different from the orther clones, I mean drones, err players around you.

The same goes for melee weapons, ballistics, (both of which come in one-handed/dual wielding and two-handed varieties) and medicine, mutagenics, cosntruction e.t.c. In fact you can just do nothing but gather kit and craft it. Selling it can sometimes be a pain as the auction system is one area that could use more work. But you can play this game and have fun without ever picking up a quest or mission. Some are useful even for the hard-core self-sufficient crafter as some people will help you gain cheap access to recipes which can be quite expensive at times.

It's also quite possible to take the Questing/combat oriented route though. Each place has a sleuth of quest givers ranging from "kill 10 more of the bastards you had to fight through to get into town" which tend to be repeatable and quick pick me ups for a gatherer like me who'll be amongst said basterds to mine veins and search through trash. Each town or city has its own little main story line which you usually can follow as a quest-line and there's a couple of global organisations like the Franklins (the postmen) and the Bankers (vault managers) for whom you can do chores. These also serve as a good means of getting people to move around as inevitably they end up giving you a warning or some ledgers to bring to another town.

In short it's a good mix of pure snad-box and (old skool) quest driven gameplay.
I say old-skool because some of that clunkiness here and there which I mentioned harken back to nostalgic days of EverQuest, Anarchy Online and more recently Vanguard - Saga of Heroes more than the Third Gen games like WOW, WAR, AOC, CHO, STO and other acronymic titles.

Enough talking, there's surviving and dumpsterdiving to do.

Greetings from the Apocalypse

Just thought this had a real Postcard feel to it.

War in Kryta

War in Kryta

Just in case you haven't been following what's been going on with Guild Wars. ArenaNet started by creating a few sparse hints, followed by some cryptic clues and now on to this, a 'blog' by Historian Murro. 

On Facebook you can choose your side, being a double agent it was only natural for me to join both.

Some great fan art: 

Meanwhile in the game a new Shining Blade camp has appeared and most recently many aggressive White Mantle have been spotted throughout Kryta.

There's a big story unfolding here, it's a 200 year gap from GW to GW2, some of that story we can start to live, most we will have to observe from the sidelines. 

A very thin line

The difference between an MMO, an FPS map, and a single player game is really disappearing in this upcoming game. I think this game will be a bit too console-y for my taste, but it is getting very close. I can see the majority of the PvP fans in Fallen Earth will move here. I think I will try it too as my sit-on-the-coach-and-use-my-xbox-for-a-change game. Now thinking that principle a bit further, I doubt I will make friends in the game. So it will mostly be PUGs? Basically 7 human controlled side kicks I never talk to since I will still refuse to use my voice in a game. Or will it just be a single player affair for me because of that?

Contrast

Last night I completed a play through of Mass Effect. I've been avidly playing Mass Effect 2 and decided to do a play through of the original because the choices your character makes in that game carry through into #2 and will ultimately affect the conclusion to the trilogy as well.

The first game feels really clunky during combat compared to the much smoother experience of ME2, but the storytelling and emotional investment in the characters are still top notch and overall still a very enjoyable experience.


And the ending is just plain awesome. You know how most (RPG) games will have this big boss fight at the end where every skill and ability you learned throughout the game is useless and your get frustrated by having to adopt completely different playstyle/strategy just to finish the bloody thing? Well Bioware tends to do things a little different.

First of all, you have the option of getting the Big Bad Baddy to put a pistol against his head and pull the trigger. Unprecedented awesomeness right there. After that some Awgner worthy cutscenes of a spacebattle that have George Lucas crying into his pillow wondering when he lost it (around the time you cooked up Phantom Menace George) and then they play with you a bit.

It gets better when your main character tells your party members to confirm Saren,(the Big Bad Baddy) is really dead. The following cutscene sets you up to expect the classic bending over the corpse to see if he's dead only to have the 'corpse' put your neck in a vice-like grip dramatic effect. Instead your team members show uncommon sense by stopping at three yards to put another round through his brains to make sure he's dead.
The fact that this enables the Even Bigger Bad Influence directing Saren to take over his body and transform into to be destroyed mutant boss takes nothing away from the whole awesomeness. The battle itself isn't easy (certainly not as easy as Mine-blind Marek in KoToR) but not too hard either. You end up with a very satisfied ending feeling.

I finished at 22:05 sharp. So what to do then? Switch on the TV. *Click* End battle for Naboo opening scene commences and Starwars theme music plays over the surround set *click* Hmmm, I haven't finished reading Shadow of the Apt yet.

Contrast...



I fully expect Mass Effect 3 to be a fitting end to the trilogy. Where your protagonist will have to bring together several factions currently in various states of cold to hot wars in order to fight the ultimate evil known as The Reapers. For some reason I kinda expect you find a new race of furry fuzzballs to help fight the final battle

Spellborn Free to Play

From the site...

Spellborn Goes Free to Play While in Redevelopment

It happens sometimes; a really good game will slip through the cracks. There are a lot of reasons why this happens and I know you will have opinions, but I�m not here to talk about that.

I feel like Spellborn was one of those games. A solid MMORPG with a twitch combat interface that meant that player skill actually mattered in PvP. Most of those who played it enjoyed it. And it did pretty well in the reviews online. It was originally a subscription based game with servers in EU and North America, and is now in redevelopment to be converted to a F2P. Acclaim still has servers running the original version and that is why I�m writing this.

We felt like people missed out. They didn�t get to see what Spellborn was really like. And we are going to fix that.

Today, as you read this, Spellborn as it currently exists is now free to play. Keep in mind that there will be no upgrades and no patches. It has become in effect, an Action RPG with superior Multiplayer. The only thing it will cost you to play is the time it takes to download.

So play it.

Now because it is frozen in time, we will be creating events for the players and we will help support any players that want to make their own events.
And if you have thoughts on how we might make this version more enjoyable as we wait for the New free to play version, we are glad to listen.

David Historian DeWald
Community Manager
Acclaim Games Inc.
community@acclaim.com

I was a part of the closed beta for this game for quite a while and when I could play it, it was rather enjoyable (if you could get past some of the bugs, but heck, it was still in beta then). When I quit, it was in an enjoyable state (I think it was open beta at that point), and will be checking it out again...when I once again have internet access at the house.

The joys of a good clan

This post is going to have very little purpose. No great insights. I just wanted to share some of my Fallen Earth stories. About a week and a half ago our entire clan, Saints Incorparated, got thrown into a big and brilliant thought up role playing adventure. The whole purpose was just to have fun, and to create some reasons for us to team up a bit more. All events related to our mishaps had to be share by at least two or three clan mates. As a result I did quite some running up and down including a one hour ride into insta-kill territory. If you are really interested you can find the whole log here. But I'll just copy my own scriblings.

27 March 2157:

It was promising to be a great day. Two months after Mikayla had asked me to sign up with the Saints I finally got to meet several of them face to face. Of course I have been keeping contact via our radio system, but that is different. Since I was excited about the meeting I had not noticed the radio had stopped working. But that got cleared up rather quickly when I stepped into the Beauville's Tavern. About ten grim looking faces were discussing radio towers, lack of communication, and static noice. Only then I quietly tried out the radio and realized it was indeed dead. I am glad I am so observative.

It was clearly not the day for cheerful introductions. I greeted Ivan and Irina since I recognized their voices, but kept quiet for the rest. Marcus and a couple of the other Saints went off checking on the nearby tower, while the rest of us stood around in the bar a bit lost. I tried to make some smalltalk with the people around, but quickly decided to not make a fool of myself. So beer it was. But even the beer tasted more stale than usual.

After what felt like an eternity they returned, and a lively discussion broke out on what happened and what to do next. A lot of crazy ideas where thrown around, but in the end everybody knew what to do. I volunteered to try to find the spare parts that had gone missing during transport between Chemtown and New Flagstaff. So I left the tavern and went looking for the transport agency in town.

2 April 2157:

First a quick update of the past week. After we broke up at the Beauville Tavern last week I started asking around about the lost convoy. But didn't get much useful information. I went back to the tavern the next day where I found Marcus stressed out behind a table. He was somehow communicating with several people using old style one-way communication units. I told him I have found nothing yet, but that I will continue on. Near the bank I found a few more Saints but they were so purposefully busy they didn't even notice me. And that was the last time I saw anybody. My search for information let to nothing much. I tried a few more towns, but no luck. I felt pretty lost.

But then all of a sudden I heard a new voice over radio! It took me a few seconds to realize what that meant. The radio is working again! While I was idling around the others had managed to fix the radio. The strange voice turned out to be Jenny, a new recruit that didn't even know the radio had been down. She couldn't really explain to me what had happened the past days. I probably made a weird impression on her with all my questions and excitement.

A little bit later Ivy's voice came through as well. She asked me to help her fixing the radio tower near Sunshine. Of course I was a bit confused as to why since the signal seemed to work loud and clear. She explain that it is only a temporary fix, and that we need to get the dish down for a complete repair. Having finally something concrete to do I dropped what I was doing, and rushed towards the tower.

I had never actually been close to any of these towers. I had only seen them from a long distance. But here I was standing at its feet, and it is freaking huge! Ivy started pulling parts and pieces of a winch from the trunk. I grabbed the ropes and pulley. With all equipment in hand we got over the fence, and I started to get ready to scale one of the legs of the tower. Fortunately Ivy saw what I was up to and pointed out the ladder the steps to the left. Yep, being observent is not my strong suit.

To avoid making more daft mistakes I quickly grabbed hold of the ladder and started my ascent. It was a bit wobbly, and carrying ropes and pullies along doesn't make it easier, but I persevered and reached the landing where the dish was located. After shouting into the wind and make some gestures Ivy understood I had removed the dish from its fixture and tied it up with the rope. A couple of minutes later the dish and me were both down. We tied the dish securely on top of Ivy's car. We packed up the winch as well, but left the rope and pullies till we return.

I would have loved to see Ivy Labs and learned some more about communication technology, but I was worn out. Fortunately the radio is somewhat working again, so hopefully I can be there when we try to put the repaired dish back up again.

3 April 2157:

My plan for the day was to head over to Post 23 and learn a bit about the mutation skills the enforcers have specialized in. But just about every word that comes out of their mouths makes me want to punch them in the face. I managed to talk to a few people there, but after that I just had to run out of that place. That kind of messed up my day, so on a wimp I decided to head over to Kiabab Forest, and visit Ivy's lab. She had given me sort of the directions yesterday, so I had a good idea where to go.

Apart from a few raiders, road side camps and hungry wild life the trip was uneventful. It was further than I thought, but there was a nice breeze, and lots of trees, so it was a perfect day out. When I finally reached Ivy's lab I didn't find what I expected. Actually not sure what I expected, but not a completely bored looking Andrea at the doorstep.

Apparently Ivy had taken Andrea up to the lab yesterday to help with repairing the dish. Ivy had left at some point, and she was stuck there with a pile of books she was supposed to study. A beer at the bar in Banker's Hole sounded like a much better plan though. Andrea warned me not to, but I went inside the lab to leave a note for Ivy. On a nearby desk I found some papers and started to write Chennie here. We m, and then I saw some gnastly animal rushing my way. I jumped out of the lab, and smashed the door behind me. It was high time to get that beer.

At the bunker bar we got our beers. (Did you know Andrea hates beer? So strange.) And we started to talk what we should do next. I told Andrea about my failed attempts to find the missing caravan with Sarah's spare relays. She suggested we should follow the route and see if we can find out what happened. We pulled out a map and at least till Blaine the caravan from Chemtown could have only taken one route. And their first stop must have been right where we were now. So we had a plan.

I went to talk to Nick, who seems to be the guy charge in town, and asked him if a caravan had passed through. He said a caravan had passed through two weeks ago. Happy with that information I walked back to Andrea and told her what I had learned. But then I started to wonder if two weeks would have been the right time. Sarah didn't really say when she had ordered the transfer. So we went back to Nick. He was in no mood at all anymore to talk to me, and literally kicked me off his porch. Andrea went up next to set him straight, and a few seconds later we had to run out of town.

The next stop was Diesel Town. There is a convinient Franklin Riders outpost annex petrol station right off the main road. Anybody passing through stops there. The lady behind the counter confirmed a caravan passed through two weeks ago. In fact several pased through. That was bad news, because how the hell do we know which one is which. Then I noticed the ledger on her desk and ask if I could see it. Quietly I managed to rip the page with the most recent caravans out of the ledger while Andrea made some small talk to keep them distracted.

Next stop would be Kristo's Rest. But somewhere along the way we got ambushed by some White Crow thugs. We managed to get away, but I got a bullit in my shoulder. Andrea fortunately had some vodka, painkillers and bandages and managed to patch me up. But it hurt like hell! At Kristo's I waited outside while Andrea went in for a talk. A minute later she comes running out waving a ledger. It was time to run again.

What happened after that is a bit fussy to me. The endless horse back riding, vodka and painkillers started all doing there work. I think we made it to Flagstaff, but not sure actually.

Travel times

One of the most heated debates at the moment on the Fallen Earth forums is need for instant travel options. The world as it is now is split in 3 sectors, each having content for their respective level range. Sector 1 for level 1 to 17. Sector 2 for level 18 to 32. Sector 3 for level 33 to 46 (soon 50). Crossing S1 on horseback takes about 15 minutes. Going from S1 to S3 takes more than an hour. I think it is great. It really helps to the sense of the enormous wasteland I live in. If I want to be cross sector I really have to plan for it, and I really enjoy the fact it greatly inconveniences me.

Now there are other folks who argue that travel is just boring and stupid. We need instant hubs from one town to the other. There are already lifenet regeneration pods everywhere, so we should be able to use that. According to them it is now impossible to have social interactions with your clan mates. If it takes half an hour to get to a mission it is not worth it. Also any kind of social gathering are impossible to do.

But I think that as soon as something like that is implemented the world collapses. If everything is instantly available there is no world anymore, just quest hubs. Now an S1 player can be sure he will run into only players his level. Those players are just as stuck in that location. Real common sense human contact is the result. Our clan has a weekly meeting in central S2. I have been there a few times now, and just love the idea we all took the effort to ride/drive that 10 to 30 minutes to get there and meet the others. It only adds to the whole feel of wastelands. I know it is just a bit of a ramble, but I just wanted to get it off my chest.