I think I was off WoW for about 2 years. I sold my old accounts (two of them 0_O) back in the burning crusade days.

At the time I didn’t have the time to play WoW and didn’t really see that changing anytime soon. I didn’t miss WoW at all until a few months later and from then on I would have “urges” to play it. Like I’d miss playing my Feral Cat Druid or I’d miss healing on my paladin.

These urges weren’t really enough on their own to push to back into WoW. Then a friend told me about some upcoming additions in the new expansion such as old zones changing, new race/class combos,two new races and heroic deadmines. That’s that finally pushed me over the edge and I ran out and brought a World of Warcraft Battlechest and Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

So now I have a level 45 Druid (Feral Cat spec) called Ashbrooke.

For me WoW is so much more enjoyable now as leveling in azeroth is a lot faster due to exp increases and using the dungeon finder tool. The new dungeon finder tool lets you queue to do a random or selected dungeon with players from your battlegroup. So there’s no more standing around in Stormwind on the LFG channel spamming for a healer or tank. If you choose a random dungeon you are rewarded with a bag that will contain a nice class/spec appropriate blue on completion of the random dungeon.

All the “classic” dungeons seem like a push over now. You can steam through dungeons like Uldaman in 30-40 depending on how good your group is and from my experience most of the are great. Pugs are so much better now most people seem to know how to play their roles and with stuff like the dungeon finder group buff and heirlooms you just breeze through dungeons that were harder before.

Another cool change is that mounts are available now from level 20 for a normal land mount and 40 for a epic land mount with reduced costs. The normal flying mount now can be brought at lvl 60, its faster now at 125% of movement speed and it only costs about 650g for training and the mount! So leveling in outland is going to be fairly easy now.

I can’t wait to hit 80 or 85 if the expansion comes out before I’m at 80!
Also I’m dying to hit 55 so I can roll a Death Knight and have that as my tanking alt who will level up just in dungeons.

You can check out my character Ashbrooke below.

So in an effort to let some steam off I though I’d make a “reply” to one of these stupid comments.

k gave it a3:
Same old story, same old song and Danceeeee my friends, this is Ridiculous! I just wasted 50 dollars on this game, and its basically the same stupid Mass Effect one problems, Over-bloated, unfollowable story that’s plagued with the same problems as the first one, you’re telling me they still can’t figure out the AUDIO levels?! I can’t hear half the lines of speech, My character plods around space like playing an old SNES game, whereas you just keep hoping he’ll move alittle faster, or this crummy repaint of the same garbage Bioware tricked me into buying last time called Mass effect. I don’t understand the Hype at all, have you all been paid for you’re time? This game falls far, FAR, short of anything ground breaking like Fallout, Bioware in my opinion, after Dragon age’s slight disappointment < or major disappointment if you bought the Console version like me > Is slipping down hill in quality. It used to be I’d pick up a bioware title just because they put out great games, but now it’s getting to be they put out buggy, lower quality games they expect to patch and make proper? TRY shipping a properly looked over product, instead of trying to pump out game after game. It seems as though the scores are so high maybe due to the fact those that didnt like the first havent brought into the hype, but I did, and let me tell you I regret it already, The excitement the silly articles and scores people have given this game undermine the product itself, They claim in one major Magazine put out by a giant game retailer, that the mechanics people complained of have been removed, but that really only boil down changing the unlocking and hacking parts of the game, Which are two seconds stupid little mini-games, THE ENGINE RUNS THE SAME! Shepard’s choices for looks are still the same generic space-man, the voice actors still grapple with a lore that’s far too overloaded with nuances for anyone really listening to get bored and left feeling as though it was written for people who just click through this garbage they’re calling dialog, Why do I care, I ask them, You’ve hardly even made me feel like I am this character, it’s more like watching a movie you don’t care about, you’re just waiting for the shooting to start, And Thats just about the same as the first game as well BUT WAIT, we need a clip now! oohhh that makes a ton of sense, we don’t overheat now guns use antiqued bullet clips when last installment I had a Assault rifle firing thousands of odd shaped plasma green b.b’s a second. That was the only complain about the gunplay?! Fallout 3 has a better grasp on RPG gunplay then they do over at Bioware, and Bethesda has alittle ways to go still as well! If you’re thinking like me, that It seems people are making this game out to be one of the greatest of all time, try to start thinking of all the games they’ve been using this STUPID new marketing tactic on us, the communal memory of our glorious public about 5 seconds, We forget they just released the best game of all time two weeks ago, and three weeks before that, and two months prior to that Another Greatest game of all time was Uncharted, OR ANY other big huge media spend fest, if you give these guys a few bucks, They shout Its The Best! yeah right… Avoid Mass Effect 2, it’s horrible

Now let’s pick apart the really stupid bits in this waste of data comment.

I just wasted 50 dollars on this game, and its basically the same stupid Mass Effect one problems, Over-bloated, unfollowable story that’s plagued with the same problems as the first one,

The story really isn’t that complex K, I can understand people not quiet getting what is going on if they didn’t play the first game but you just said you did play the first game. What confuses you K? Do you also get confused reading Dr Seuss books?

I can’t hear half the lines of speech, My character plods around space like playing an old SNES game, whereas you just keep hoping he’ll move alittle faster, or this crummy repaint of the same garbage Bioware tricked me into buying last time called Mass effect.

Your also probably one of the fools who complain they can’t read the text on a SD TV. Don’t blame the game, blame your equipment.

K you can “storm” when you press the A button it will make you run faster for a short period. Maybe you should learn the game controls.

How does someone trick you into buying a game especially when you hated the first one? God that’s like being tricked into jumping off a building for fun when you break your leg the first time only to do it again 2 years later?

It seems as though the scores are so high maybe due to the fact those that didnt like the first havent brought into the hype, but I did, and let me tell you I regret it already,

In what fucking universe does that even make sense in!? Why don’t you go wrap your head in tin foil.

They claim in one major Magazine put out by a giant game retailer, that the mechanics people complained of have been removed, but that really only boil down changing the unlocking and hacking parts of the game, Which are two seconds stupid little mini-games, THE ENGINE RUNS THE SAME!

Those are called game mechanics and yes the stuff people complained about were removed. Such as the Mako and the annoying inventory system! I don’t think anyone really complained about the hacking in the first game!

the voice actors still grapple with a lore that’s far too overloaded with nuances for anyone really listening to get bored and left feeling as though it was written for people who just click through this garbage they’re calling dialog, Why do I care, I ask them, You’ve hardly even made me feel like I am this character, it’s more like watching a movie you don’t care about, you’re just waiting for the shooting to start,

Now we’re getting too the truth! You even hate the awesomely written dialogue of the game, something which Bioware really excels at. Which also happened to by done by great voice actors! But nooooo you just want to shoot shit, so why didn’t you just buy Modern Warfare 2 you mouth-breather

we need a clip now! oohhh that makes a ton of sense, we don’t overheat now guns use antiqued bullet clips when last installment I had a Assault rifle firing thousands of odd shaped plasma green b.b’s a second.

Did you really play the game at all or are you just stupid? The clips are “thermal clips” that means that the guns do still have unlimited ammo but you need thermal clips to take away the heat generated when you fire your guns. If you didn’t have any thermal clips you would break your gun. This is much faster than waiting for your gun to cool down like in the first game.

fallout 3 has a better grasp on RPG gunplay then they do over at Bioware, and Bethesda has alittle ways to go still as well! If you’re thinking like me, that It seems people are making this game out to be one of the greatest of all time, try to start thinking of all the games they’ve been using this STUPID new marketing tactic on us,

Ugh back to guns again. The gunplay was so much better in this game than the last but you still seem to hate it. Also the gunplay in Fallout 3 is really average when you  didn’t use V.A.T.S., that’s what made Fallout 3 so fun to play.

I don’t remember anywhere where Bioware said this was the greatest game of all time! Their marketing slogan for this game was “Fight of the Fallen”. Now some magazines and people may have claimed this was the greatest game of all time but then that’s really down to personal tastes isn’t it!?

In finishing I’d like state that you sir are a moron of epic proportions. I think you should stick to games where you can tea-bag people online and laugh along with the rest of your primate buddies. Try not to construct any criticism of anything in the future because you fail on so many levels.

I picked this up on launch day and have a blast with it. Dissidia is a sort of 3rd person fighting game with rpg elements in it. You can level up and gain access to new attacks and abilities.

You have two types of attacks, the first is HP attacks which will obviously hurt the other characters HP. The amount of damage you do greatly depends on how high your bravery is. The second type of attack you can do gains you bravery while taking the other characters bravery down. Each set of attacks are different for every character (and there’s 21 of them) and every character has a few different attacks he/she can use. These attacks can also be swapped out as well as other skills like increased jumping or taking less critical damage.

Most of the time when you make an attack of any time the other character will shoot out a bit of ex “dust”. Once your purple bar on the left is filled and turns a yellowish orange you can then use your ex mode. In ex mode you will regen hp and once you land a hp attack on the other character you can do a “limit break” on them. The limit breaks are different for each character and require you to do different inputs, some are easier while others can be a tad annoying.

There’s a story in single player mode which makes a lot more sense than the usual square FF storyline (FFX I’m looking at you). It’s basically the good guys work for order while the bad guys work for chaos with elements of the good guys own FF storylines mixed in.

I think this game is probably only interest you if you are a fan of the FF games. I’ve played three of them and that was enough to get me into Dissidia. Though I can see non-ff fans enjoying this game as its fairly balanced fast paced and has a long life to it.

The only thing I don’t really like about the game is that it’s hard to work out how to get new/better items for your character etc. I’ve purchased a guide for the game because if I didn’t have that I’d be randomly grinding until the end of time hoping to get some components that might help me make a end game weapon.

I’m Giving Dissidia: Final Fantasy: 8.0/10 
for being fast, fun and pretty awesome for the PSP

My group played our third session of D&D last weekend and I think it was our best session yet. The party had finished up at the Dragon burial site and after refreshing themselves in town they headed to the old keep.

The reason this was the best session yet was because of a number small factors and one larger factor. The smaller ones are that the party had some fun encounters in the keep and that we have got a play flow going as everyone knows most of the basic rules now.

The large factor was due to using the “DM Tracker” iPhone app. The app allows a dungeon master to track initiative, hp, effects, party members and monsters in an encounter.

You start by adding in character stats such as hp, movement, initiative, perception, insight and defenses.  From there you can “clone” a character which is great for making multiple monsters quickly. After you have created your characters and monsters you can add them into groups for each encounter.

There’s a inbuilt dice so you can roll initiative (It also adds their ini modifier on automatically!) for each character and after you save they will move to their order in the initiative list. I roll all monster initiative before our session and add in the players rolls once we start the encounter. It takes a fraction of the time doing it this way rather than doing it all on paper. In combat you can set status on characters, set damage and healing surges.

So basically this app does all the messy combat stuff quickly and easily. I don’t have to spend time writing onto sheets of paper or looking around for someones basic stats. Which allows me to devote more brain power to other things such as monster tactics etc.

DM Tracker is like having your own little dm assistant for every game, allowing you to focus on more important things like story, monster tactics and seeing if your pc’s are having fun or not.

Though the app does a lot already, I do however have a wishlist for features I’d like to see in future updates.

• The ability to make groups on the character screen in order to sort monsters and characters etc.
• A feature to automatically track on-going damage and what kind of damage it is.
• To be able to add icons or pictures into character/monster profiles to find a certain character easier and because it would look cool!
• To be able to do heals on character as you can only use healing surges at the moment.
• Customizable backgrounds, such importing pictures from your camera roll  (The blue wood is cool but I’d like some variety at least).

You can read more about the DM Tracker here at the Kbar apps website.

After our second session I’m pretty sure that I’ll only want to play as a DM (Dungeon Master) from here on in. The job (an awesomely fun one) is very creative and really open in what you can do.

D&D is a game of imagination so anything can happen really. I’m currently enjoying mulling over ideas for the campaign ahead. Once my group finishes the published adventure (Keep on the Shadowfell) we will move onto stuff purely written by myself. I really can’t wait for this as thinking up battle encounters and story arcs is really fun.

Creating a campaign is a lot of work so it’s a good thing I’m enjoying it. Here’s some of the things you have to create when you plan a campaign:

• A story arch that allows for player interaction and decisions
• Non-Player Character. Basically anyone the party comes across in their journeys
• Quests that involve the characters back story as a group and individually
• The main villian and their motivations
• Battle encounters.

That’s just some of the things to think about. If you’re not using a campaign setting like me then you would also have to design a whole world, which can be as detailed as you want it to be. The detail would depend on your group though, not all groups like to sit around hearing about lore etc.

As for groups, I think my group is getting a hang of the rules now which is great. We breeze though combat and they seem to be doing things like thinking about when to use their skills without me dropping any hints.

I’ve really found the 4th Edition D&D books to be quiet clear and easily accessible to a newbie DM like myself. I’ve gone a bit nuts in buying the books and now I currently have:

• Dungeon Master’s Guide
• Monster Manual
• Player’s Handbook
• Dungeon Master’s Guide II
• Monster Manual II
• Player’s Handbook II
• Adventure’s Vault
• Adventure’s Vault II
• Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
• Forgotten Realms Player’s Handbook

I probably don’t need all of those books but I like having options as I feel the more options you have the more real the world will seem.

I’ve also found some great online resources for D&D such as Obsidian Portal which is a online site to help you chronicle & organise your D&D campaign. My campaign can be found here.

There’s also a bunch of great blogs out there for players and DM’s alike.  Covering every aspect of playing D&D:

• http://www.d20source.com
• http://www.critical-hits.com
• http://newbiedm.com
• http://slyflourish.com

Are the ones I keep up to date with and are only a handful of  helpful D&D related blogs out there.

I’ve also created a bunch of stuff for my campaign such as Quest Cards and Monster tokens which I’ll put up on here later on.

I’ve been a bit slack in updating lately, due to moving house and lack of a interweb connection, I’ll try to get back into a regular posting schedule over the next few weeks.

Anyways onto the review of Prototype.

Prototype is a sandbox game along the lines of Crackdown. You play as Alex Mercer has recently awoken in the city morgue with viral super powers and a hankering for revenge. Meanwhile New York is now dealing with a viral/zombie outbreak.

This is one game that I find myself hooked to the entire time I play it, I basically have to tell myself to stop playing it or I don’t get any house work etc done that day. The game play feels tight even if I can’t remember every devastator attack.

I love the fact that everything you do in the game earns you evolution points (Prototype’s version of experience points). Taking down a infected or military base never gets old as there’s a lot of destructive options.

I did find the end of the main quest line to be a big let down though, I won’t spoil it for you but they build up to something that never quiet happens. I guess we will see what’s planned in the second game.

But the game does tell the story in a cool new way. You get glimpses into the plot by consuming certain characters who hold memories which you gain by consuming them. I’m one person away from completing “The web of intrigue”. The characters show up on your mini-map at certain times of day and area’s, I also think the main plot line progression effects which characters show up.

If you like super hero and sandbox games then this will be a greatly fun game for you. Also I think parts of this game will annoy the casual gamer so I recommend this game for hardcore gamers only.

I’m Giving Prototype: 8.0/10 
for being hard to put down

So I woke up to a scene similar to this today. Seems like performing those D&D rituals wasn’t such a good idea…

My sinus’s aren’t happy and my eyes kept watering nearly the whole time I was outside which nearly got me hit by a car.

I can still smell the dust even in my air conditioned office.

More pics etc here: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/sydney-turns-red-dust-storm-blankets-city-20090923-g0so.html

I recently got back into D&D. I ran a demo game off the D&D starter set and it went really well. My group liked it so much that we all went quarters in buying the core books and Forgotten Realms campaign books.

We have decided to use a published adventure first (Keep on the Shadowfell) which will tie into our campaign.

I’ve been writing up some notes here and there about how the campaign will progress, the characters and the awesome story arc I have planned.

I really want to have some “holy crap!” moments when major plot points are revealed and memorable moments that the group will look back on and go “remember when…blah blah blah happened?

Another thing I want to add in is some comedy, not a huge amount but enough to get a chuckle which will help things become more memorable.

I’ve only ever played D&D as a DM (Dungeon Master) but that really don’t bother me as I enjoy the creative freedom of the role. As I get to design and run my own campaign, with input from my group as well of course.

I’m really enjoying reading the Forgotten Realms campaign setting book and thinking of what lore I can add into my campaign.

I also seem to be grasping the rules a lot better this time around. I don’t know weather it’s because I’m older or the fact the rules have been streamlined.

I like the fact that combat takes place on a squared grid now and the use of miniatures. It really helps in combat to have a visual aid. I think it’s a lot more accurate this way and takes out the guess work.

A groups who play and love older versions such as 3.5 seem to hate 4.0 as they feel it basically makes D&D like World of Warcraft. To which my response is “cry more”.

4.0 is a lot of fun and especially good in this day and age where people don’t have hours on end for a single combat encounter. I think a lot of people are just so devoted to the older versions that they fear the new version because its so different.

I think 3.5 players should really just stop whining about 4.0 as theres no real reason they can’t play 3.5 for years to come.

I could see myself playing 4.0 even after 5.0 comes out in 2012. If I don’t like how the game has evolved I simply won’t change over, it’s that simple. I’m not going to kick a storm up over it, I’ll just hold tight onto 4.0 as it’s such an enjoyable game.