(Note: I wrote this a loooooong time ago, a few months after the D3 release. I wrote a TON of posts during the course of this illness, just for some reason, I never really posted them. I’m not sure if they’re still relevant or make a lot of sense – thank you morphine- but it’s not like anyone reads this shit, so it’s pointless to go back and edit it. I can’t just delete it, because then I feel like I TOTALLY just wasted a bunch of time, and at least this way I can pretend I did SOMETHING productive, even though it has absolutely no value beyond my own verbal thought diarrhea. At least this is one of the more “calm” and “friendly” (aka boring as fuck) posts)

So Diablo 3 is here, and by this time, most of the hardcore players are 60 and the majority of us have sore clicking fingers. Most of us pre-ordered or bought the game the day it was released, as shown by the game breaking sales records. So we all picked our classes, added each other on the Blizz ID, and hacked our way (solo or in groups) to Diablo. Then we did it again. And again. And was it worth it?

Fuck No. I’ve played the previous Diablo games and the expansions. I also – like many others – played the HELL (haha -punny!!) out of Diablo 2. Not only did the single player game & story in Diablo 2 take a lot longer to complete on a single difficulty level, it also felt much more epic & engaging. The random map generator, which for some reason is missing in D3, took a lot off the repetitive edge, especially when playing with friends.

I’ll start my ranting with Diablo 3′s story, or rather, it’s lack of one. In previous Diablo games, the story had much more depth, & a larger sensation of discovering a huge plot that had been unraveling for years. Diablo 3 really doesn’t manage to convince me that I’m the last hope for mankind, & the only one who can stop this diabolical plot that’s been in motion for years. Here’s the plot in convenient condensed form:

Blue Fireball crashes into old church

Me: Did you see that shit? Let’s go check that shit out!!!

Leah: I think it totally splatter my crazy old uncle. Thank god – I don’t have to listen to his crazy old man stories anymore.

  fight loot fight loot fight loot fight loot

 Me: So the comet made that crazy old Skeleton King rise up AGAIN? It couldn’t even   wake up something new? Well, we have to kill him to get to that comet…..

  fight loot fight loot fight loot fight loot

 Deckard Cain: ‘Bout time you got here. Look over there.

  Me: Holy Fuck! It’s Tyreal! Fucker tore off his wings to be mortal. You dumbshit.

Tyreal: Yo, Belial and Azmodan are totally here. Wait…where’s my goddam sword?

Deckard Cain: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Me: No one was watching the old guy?

Leah: We’re totally kicking his killer’s ass. Follow that Maghda cunt to Caldeum!

Act II

Me: Hmmm. This place looks familiar. Well, let’s go chase that crazy bitch Maghda into the desert. Maybe then we can get an audience with that totally unsuspicious 7 year old king that can astral project.

fight loot fight loot fight loot fight loot

Leah: DIE BITCH!!! Hey look! My mom, who I totally thought died 20 years again, is alive and conviently RIGHT HERE! HI MOM! You owe me 20 years worth of birthday presents.

Adria: We’ll go shopping after we stop Belial and Azmodan, which we can only do by duct taping this dead guy, Zoltun Kulle, back together. He has this Black Soulstone we store all the demons in.

fight loot fight loot fight loot fight loot

Me: Ok, we found all his pieces, he’s good as new!

Zoltun Kulle: Suckers! I KEEL YOU and keep the Soulstone and take over the world! Muhahaha!

Me: *stab stab stab*

Zoltun Kulle: Shit. *dies*

Adria: That kid king is really Belial. Go kill him.

Me: ‘k. *stab stab stab*

Belial: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo! *dies*

Leah: Woooooo totally had a vision of Azmodan invading some place that looks like a Led Zepplin album cover!

Act III

Me: The Keep is under attack! fight loot fight loot fight loot fight loot Dammit – there’s a gate in the way!

Tyreal: I totally got this.

fight loot fight loot fight loot fight loot Kill Azmodan

Leah: OK he’s in the stone too – that’s all of them! We should totally destroy this right now!

Adria: Fooled you! My baby daddy is DIABLO & we’re totally using this stone to become the PRIME EVIL & trash Heaven! Oh, after I kill Leah, of course!

Leah: wait, wut? You bitch. *Gurgle gurgle choke dies*

Act IV

Heaven is under attack!

Imperius: This shit is all your fault, Ty.

Tyrael: WhatEVER. *pouts*

Me: ok Aspect of Fate says I need to rescue the aspect of hope, because without her we’re all too depressed to fight or play harps.

fight loot fight loot fight loot fight loot

Me: Not that you’re not depressed, get off your ass Ty, and help me kill Diablo. Again.

fight loot fight loot fight loot fight loot kill Diablo loot loot

Me: Whoops, I dropped the Black Soulstone and it fell back to earth. Should we go get it?

Tyreal: Nah, it’s fine. Ima stay here and be the Aspect of Wisdom and keep promoting Angels on Human lovin’.

So that’s the story.  Nothing engaging. Nothing really epic. It also seems to  lack more substance as the acts progress, instead of getting more involved as most stories do. It’s almost like someone had the beginning of a basic story idea written on a post-it note, but the author left the company and they tried to finish it.  The story was barebones, and just plain short, which brings me to my other bitching point:

DESIGNING A GAME TO REQUIRE PLAYING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN IS NOT CONTENT. I DON’T CARE HOW MANY CARROTS ON A STICK “ACHIEVEMENTS” YOU ADD TO IT.

Back in Diablo 2, the initial storyline itself required a decent time investment, regardless of what difficulty level it was played on. When you finished the game, you didn’t feel the need to play it AGAIN on a higher difficulty level in order to get the most out of the game.  But if you DID, thanks to random map & Dungeon Generators, and different boss locations & behaviors, it didn’t feel repetitive.  The co-op aspect of the game kept it going for more than a decade. In Diablo 3? Sure, playing with my friends did extend the life of the game for me…..for another few weeks. Big fucking deal, right? Most of us don’t play the Hack N’ Slash dungeon crawlers for storylines. We play it for the loot that falls from the sky! Not once did I feel like I was rolling in loot in Diablo 3. Most of the drops were garbage, epics and legendaries were extremely rare, and getting one that was usable for your character was almost unheard of. At least you could give potentially good ones for other classes to your other characters – oh yeah, that reminds me. You were expected to play all the characters, in all difficulty levels in order to “Maximize” your game play. Oh sure they had “randomly generated encounters” but that was nothing more than having a door to a basement or small house open on one area, & and closed upon revisiting it. They were still located in all the same spots, and had little to do with the actual game.

It’s Dangerous to go alone! Take Them!

Playing Diablo 3 offered very little in substance or challenge -and  if you could complete all the difficulty levels without boring yourself to death, you were rewarded with a virtual cockblock (initially – it’s been toned down) at the last act of the hardest difficulty level, this requiring you to farm previous acts over and over for resist gear….or you could just buy it on the Auction house.

That fucking auction house.  At first, I didn’t give two shits that people could sell items for real money. It’s not an MMO, it doesn’t affect me – fuck, maybe I’ll find some Uber Sword Of Ass Kicking and be able to sell it for hundreds, like people were doing with Diablo 2 items on Ebay.  Of course, in order to make it rich, you would have to dedicate most of your waking hours to remain above poverty level, after giving Blizzard its 15% cut, and then another 15% of the total amount you want to “cash out”. Fuck that. No, there was a bigger problem – most loot that dropped in game was either too low for the content level I was on, or it would just be a random generated mash of stats I didn’t need. Crafting, you say? By the time you could craft it, the item was pretty much obsolete. Did you HAVE to use the auction house (either with real money or in game currency)? No – but you’ll be farming for a metric shit fuck length of time. How fun!

As I said, I started writing this a long time ago, about a month or two after release. Since then, there’s been some updates, fixes adjustments….whatever.  Gamers are a fickle bunch – when you promised certain things, we expect you to deliver. Most games don’t get a second chance. Look at a good majority of MMOs released:  No matter how much they improve, fix or add, if they had a shit launch, the opinion has already been formed. There’s way too many games out there to choose from to warrant giving a game that’s already disappointed (& taken money from) the game player.

And I’m not even going to TOUCH on the always connected internet bullshit. That’s the way things are heading, we might as well get used to it.

I win! Now I have to do it all over again as a Witch Doctor!

Blizzard used to be a game company that you would fork your cash over to without asking any questions. You know you’d get a solid game. Maybe it was getting involved with Activision, or maybe they just became victims of their own success. Whatever it is, it no longer seems like maximizing value for the gamer is the first priority,and goals seem to have shifted to getting as much money as possible out of as little investment as possible. They know we’ll continue to buy what they keep shoveling. Between the disappointment World of Warcraft had become, to the questionable decisions regarding StarCraft 2′s split releases, and now Diablo 3….Blizzard games aren’t a sure thing anymore. It’s not even anything special. You used to know a Blizzard game was released “when it’s ready”. Not anymore.

CONSPIRACY!

But here’s what REALLY fucking bothers me. I know I’m not the only one that feels this way. I see people talking on twitter, Facebook, hell in the game chat itself or within other games. But you would think this game could perform fellatio with the amount of positive reviews it received online. Not just decent reviews – GLOWING REVIEWS. 85,90 A/A+ 9/9.5, ****/***** Reviews. Look, I don’t mean to sound like that one asshole on twitter who sees a conspiracy in everything, but come ON – tell me there isn’t a case of “you suck my dick & I’ll suck yours” going on here” with a lot of these large production games these days?

I got my ass kicked by a Chubby Pink Unicorn, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.

I just built a new PC. I didn’t even bother re-installing Diablo 3. I think of how many months I played Diablo 2 – solo play, mind you – before I even tried online play, or added expansion packs…. I think I can measure Diablo 3 engagement in hours. Sure, there’s been patches/fixes/additions to the game:

8/22/12 patch 1.0.4 was released which included a new system of leveling, called “Paragon levels”. It also included a redesign of all the legendary items, making them more powerful.

10/16/12, patch 1.0.5 was released including new ways of scaling difficulty selectively, called “Monster Levels”. Furthermore, the patch included changes to many class abilities, as well as new “uber-bosses” designed to provide an additional challenge for players with a chance at a new craftable legendary ring as a reward.

2/12/13 patch 1.0.7 was released. It brought the first PvP addition to the game, a simple free-for-all system called “Brawling” and multiple item crafting options

5/7/13  patch 1.0.8 was released which included monster density increases (act 1, 2 & 4), identify all book in all acts and improved multiplayer functionality.

But it just seems like the company no longer understands what a gamer wants; from a marketing standpoint, probably because on paper, the average gamer doesn’t maximize profits. So as long as we keep handing over our money, the only ones we have to blame is ourselves.

Yes, I know – I haven’t written a blog post in over a year. Well, that’s not ENTIRELY true -Not counting the things I write for other sites, I’ve started about 20 posts for this blog; I just didn’t finish any, so eat me. You would think not being able to work, go anywhere or do anything would afford me tons of time to write, but the truth is, the pain is usually at levels that would lead most mortals to kill themselves, which means it’s hard for me to tolerate long enough to sit & write something. I mean, I’m sure posts that are made up of nothing but cuss words are amusing the first few times, but after that it’s a rather boring read. And while the morphine does make the pain tolerable, usually anything I’ve written after swallowing a handful of happy pills makes Mad Libs look like Pulitzer Prize material.

You may have heard, but I finally have an orthopedic surgeon that may be able to end at least some (if not close to all ) of my agonizing pain if we’re lucky. However, that does require a rather risky surgery, and like any risky surgery, it requires anesthesiology. And like anything that requires anesthesiology, I might die. *Insert Dramatic Music Here*

Now hold on, stop faking tears – I have no money to leave you, so can the act (however, you can bug my husband – I’ll be leaving him everything because I’m too damn lazy to sort it out). Also, even though we know it’s almost impossible to kill me off, I can’t risk leaving this mortal realm with out making a few people doubt their sanity, or just make them outright uncomfortable. Now, I don’t have much time since I have less than 5 days, so any grandiose plans will have to wait. So with the time and resources currently available, here’s what I have so far:

1) Put vanilla pudding in a empty Mayo jar. Walk around supermarket and eat with spoon.

2) Write ‘Life” in big black letters with a marker on a white tshirt & put it on. Hand out lemons on the corner of Schamburg & Roselle road.

3) Run into the Starbucks down the street during the morning rush & ask what year it is. When someone answers, yell “Holy SHIT it WORKED!!!!” and run out.

4) Fill empty Windex bottle with blue raspberry koolaid. Walk around park spraying it into my mouth.

5) Mush up a few Chocolate bars with nuts & other lumpy things. Leave on lawn. Wait until I see my nosy old neighbors outside, pretend to take a walk, say “Damn these irresponsible dog owners” and eat it.

6) Wrap semi-full garbage bags in sheets. Tape them up to look like it contains a body. Carry to curb on  garbage day, hit with shovel, spit on it, and yell “Bet you regret asking what I would do if you didn’t put the toilet seat down now, don’t you asshole?!” and go back inside.

7) Have him drive me past adult bookstores, then honk & wave at a random person in the parking lot. Now they have to worry & wonder who the fuck saw them there.

8) The morning of surgery while filling out paperwork, continually look in purse. After about ten minutes, say ‘excuse me”, open purse up and very firmly say “Shut UP or I’ll give you back to the lab!“. Go back to paperwork.

There’s a ton of more fucked & obnoxious shit I want to do, but I need more time and a functioning body. So if this surgery goes well, I’ll finish part 2 of the obnoxious crap I like to do. So wish me luck, the surgery is August 15th. If all goes well, I might even finish some of those other blogs I started – even the one made up of different variations of the work ‘fuck’ – that one was my favorite.

“Tennis Elbow, minor strain. Aspirin for pain. Keep elevated and activity to a minimum for 2 weeks.”

‘Holy shit!!” the mans says “That’s amazing!!”

‘Yes, said the doctor, ‘it’s a new invention I’m working on. Come back and see me for a follow up in 2 weeks. Bring your urine sample in the specimen cup the nurse will provide.’

So 2 weeks go by, and the man is getting ready to return to the doctor, but he’s really curious on how good this machine is, so he decides to play a little joke: He adds his urine, some from his wife, some from his daughter, some from the family dog, a little motor oil from the car, and finally – he jerks off into it.

He hands the sample to the doctor, who places it into the machine,  which goes nuts.

“What’s wrong, doc?” asks the man, trying to stifle a laugh.

“Well..” the doc finally says, ” Your dog has worms, your car needs a new oil filter, your wife is sleeping with the neighbor, your daughter is pregnant, and if you don’t stop jerking off, that elbow is NEVER going to heal.”

What the hell is WRONG with you? No, seriously….do other states just rubber stamp your driver’s license? How is it that many of you seem to lack the basic principles of expressway driving? Or is there some sort of cosmic field that wipes your memory when you cross the Illinois State Line? I’m sure you’re quite baffled in regards to what I’m talking about, so I’ll discuss a few things you need to know for successful Chicago land driving. If you can’t do these things, I highly suggest you avoid the expressways in and around Chicago land….otherwise someone is going to kill you.

1) The Speed Limit: Yes, I know the sign says 55. If there’s no cops around, it’s merely a suggestion. Take a look around you….see how fast the other drivers are going? That’s the speed limit. Keep up, or get the fuck off the expressway.

2)  Left Hand Lane usage: This goes with the speed limit thing. The left hand lane is for PASSING. If you are not passing anyone, and people are passing YOU on the right, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THAT LANE. Also, if you refuse to go over the speed limit, you have NO BUSINESS in any lane but the one farthest to the right. There’s a few other things in regards to lane usage you should pay attention to:

• If you look up in your rearview mirror, and you see a line of cars behind you, and the first car is about 3 inches off your bumper, you are holding everyone up. Either speed the hell up, or get the hell out of the lane.
• If you are going the same speed as the cars to the right of you, you are blocking others from passing your slow ass. FUCKING MOVE OVER.

3)  High Speed Merging: All of the expressways in Chicago merge at one point with major roadways or other expressways. If you can’t do this, or do this at high speeds….stay off the expressways. Merging etiquette follows the ‘Zipper” technique, therefor can be done at 80 mph. You DO know how a zipper works, right? Well, ok, maybe not you people from Wisconsin, so I’ll explain:

Is this concept REALLY that fucking hard?

Think of each zipper tooth as a car. Notice how when you zip up, each is spaced to allow a tooth in front and back of it? How they merge as ‘left, right, left, right’ etc? SAME FUCKING CONCEPT. If a lane is merging into yours, you allow enough space in front of you for a car to get in. The car behind you does the same, and so on. IT WORKS GREAT. If YOU are the one merging, don’t ride the ass of the car in front of you, and try to force yourself in.  Leave a car length in between you and the car in front of you AND MERGE LIKE A FUCKING ZIPPER. IT’S NOT HARD.

Also, when lanes are reducing (either by design or construction) and one lane has to merge into another, don’t drive your stupid ass all the way up the ending lane and then try to squeeze in at the last minute. And don’t tell me you do it because the other lane is going SOOOO SLOW. It’s going slow because of fucking retards like you that try to squeeze in 5 at a time at the last minute

4) The ON Ramps: Ramps are a really simple concept. They allow different levels of roadways to connect to each other. As the name implies, you should “ramp’ up your speed to match the speed of the road you are getting on. You do NOT creep down a ramp at 30 mph, stop at the end of the ramp, or attempt to merge into traffic at anything less than 55 mph, unless you want some company in your shitty front seat. And as a side note, check your mirrors before you merge on, don’t just cut your happy, oblivious, slow ass into traffic. If you don’t cause an accident, someone will run your dumb ass off the road sooner or later.

5) Don’t rubberneck: I’ll admit, this goes for some chucklekfucks here in Chicago as well. If you see an accident, or a cop pulling someone over, you REALLY don’t need to slow down and look, especially if it’s not even on your god damn side of the expressway. You’ve seen cops before. You’ve seen accidents before. If you really want to see them that bad, go home, and search your hearts content on the internet. It has ALL KINDS of pictures of that crap, and you can stare at it as long as you like.

6) Learn to Drive in the fucking rain and snow: I can understand slowing down for torrential rain, or a blizzard, but if you’re driving 30 mph because of flurries or a drizzle….GET OFF THE EXPRESSWAY. I find it really hard to believe that it only rains or snows in Chicago, and you’ve NEVER seen this shit before and don’t know what to do. If you’re that paranoid, there’s plenty of side streets you can take, rather than slow down the people that have seen this kind of thing before. To be fair, there’s people that have lived here all their life that still do this, so I’m assuming their excuse is  that they’re simply retarded.

That’s the basics, people.  Life moves fast here, and so do the drivers. If you can’t adapt or deal with it, don’t drive here. Take a train. Take a bus. Fucking walk for all I care – just don’t do it on the damn expressway.

It’s no secret I’ve been sick for awhile now. It’s also secret that no one is 100% sure of what’s wrong with me. It started out with general pain in the upper shoulder and back. Eventually it migrated all over, but different areas would hurt at different times. Then the skin started burning. It became intolerable, but I dealt with it…or at least tried to. Anyone who’s had any moderate amount of pain can understand that it’s hard to do much; when the pain never goes away, and sleep is impossible, well….everything, from walking, to getting dressed, to even getting out of bed, is a huge ordeal.

I’m a tough chick – I don’t go running to the doctor for every little thing. Quite honestly, I try not to go at all. But when the pain became so bad that I would vomit and be in tears, I didn’t know what else to do. I had to do something – that couldn’t continue. I was at work the day it became totally intolerable, and how I managed to get to the ER is beyond me – I don’t remember the trip. In hindsight, I should have asked someone to take me, but I really wasn’t thinking straight.

The next 2 weeks, with leave from work, were a whirlwind of doctors, tests, specialists, and more tests. Blood tests, Biopsys, even a nerve cauterization in the shoulder (which was done as a last resort), and finally I had a TENTATIVE diagnosis: Rheumatoid Arthritis. I say tentative because while the tests pointed at it, including an elevated RA factor from bloodwork, it didn’t explain EVERYTHING, namely the burning of the skin. It gets so bad that you can actually FEEL the heat radiating off of it, and nothing can touch it – even clothes are painful during the worst flare ups.

So I’m put on some heavy duty meds to treat the RA, shots to neutralize the pain in my shoulder tendons and spine, and we continue to throw darts at the other symptoms. I have good days and I have bad ones. At first I would get optimistic – there would be some days the pain was totally gone, sometimes as long as a week, but it always comes back. You’re almost scared to wake up, because you have no idea how the pain dice are going to land.

Daily living is tough like this….working is even tougher. My ability to think clearly is shot. I can’t concentrate. I have blackouts, for lack of a better term, where I can’t remember hours at a time. I’ve started to worry about my future…if you can call it that. If I don’t get better, and soon, I may be forced to admit my only option may be disability.

It’s humiliating. I honestly think I would rather die than become someone else’s burden. And the thought has been eating at me. I have no doubts I’m developing some sort of full blown depression – luckily, I’m one hell of an actor when I have to be, so I doubt the people I interact with on a daily basis know. Hell, I hid most of it from my fiance. I cry a lot. I feel hopeless. I don’t know what to do. I think about suicide a lot. I take my pills in the morning, and think in the back of my head “how many would it take?”. I drive to work and think “If I crank the wheel hard, would the impact do it?”. I cut an apple and wonder if I could do that to my wrist. But I’m sure if I say something to a doctor, they’ll just put me on MORE MEDS for that (or throw me in the hospital) and I’ll be digging an even bigger hole.

NO MORE MEDS PLEASE

This isn’t a cry for help…I’ve been getting help. I just haven’t been getting any better. The pain is slightly better, but mentally, I’m just not there. The doctor I saw today said it may be a reaction from the steroids…but I need to take those to keep the RA in check. How long can I function like this? How long can I work? An engineer that can’t think straight isn’t that desirable. Honestly, if I don’t leave of my own free will anyways, I’m sure the asshole I work for will fire me. He seems to think this is flu, and I should have been all better after my short term leave. But it’s a large company, and I’m sure he’s forced to play the PC game -otherwise I would have been gone months ago, and replaced by someone he can hand pick. I know I’m being set up for failure anyways, and honestly, I’m tired of being his verbal punching bag when he’s having a bad day. It’s really not helping things.

I think that’s the biggest thing: I’m just tired. So fucking tired. Tired of pretending I’m fine. Tired of pretending I’m getting better. Tired of pretending I have options. Because at this point, I don’t. So why am I writing this? I don’t know. Perhaps, some time down the line, if I do end it, I want people to know it wasn’t because of anything that happened, or anything anyone did; it was simply because what I’m going thru isn’t living. Like they said in Pet Semetary: Sometimes, Dead is Better.

I’ve spent a good chunk of time with the Upcoming Rift MMO Beta this past month or so. I leveled several classes and combos to try and get a feel for the world, and I’ll be honest -  I really wasn’t expecting much. All the MMOs before that have been promising in the past, only to fade away or outright fail, left a bitter taste in my mouth: Warhammer, Age of Conan, DDO, Aion….all the supposed “WoW killers” barely diverted people’s attention for a month before they were forgotten. So why should Rift be any different? If those couldn’t kill WoW, why should Rift be any different?

Well, maybe because we really don’t want a WoW killer. We just want a great game.I’ll let that sink in. We. Don’t. Want. A. Warcraft. Killer. Why does a game have to ‘kill’ World of Warcraft to be successful? You won’t kill the 900lb gorilla with 12 million subscribers. It’s asinine to try, and that’s why most games fail – they try to replicate 6 years worth of appeal. Not only that, they try to replicate the same reason most are tiring of Warcraft: The everything for everyone. The game for PVE, PVP, Solo, group, crafting raiders!!! What MMOs need to do is find a niche, a segment that can take an aspect of a game and improve on it. Siphon the WoW players that are tired, jaded, and playing out of habit.

So when I began to play, I (like many) thought “this is really like WoW”. It felt somewhat similar, some commands were the same. But as I progressed thru the started zones and souls, I began to realize how much this ISN’T like WoW. And as I continued playing, I realized that for the first time in years, I could really see playing this MMO. So here’s why:

The Class System:

First off, I’m not here to bash WoW; I’ll always have a soft spot for WoW, I had some great times with it and met so many great people. But I’m also not going to say WoW was remotely perfect. Community aside, one of the many things that bothered me about WoW, and attracted me to Rift, was the class and spec system.

In WoW, you either tanked, did damage, or healed. While things did get better with the dual spec system, you were still pretty limited. And players like me that played a healer with 2 healing specs, we rolled alts if we wanted to DPS. Or tank. And who ever heard of a mage healing? A support rogue? Your role was defined by your spec – your resto shaman wasn’t going to be stormstriking anything.

Now let’s look at Rift’s classes. At first glance the 4 classes – Warrior, Mage, Cleric, and Rogue – seem a bit….underwhelming? Generic? But each class has a choice of 9 specialties (called souls – think of them as traditional MMO classes) and can have up to three Souls in one Role! How’s that for choices? Not only that, but right from the start, you can save two separate role trees, and can purchase two more for a total of four. So perhaps you have a three soul layout for soloing, and switch to healer build for dungeons. Or maybe a DPS/Support role? For example, I spent the majority of my last beta week as a mage class; I healed as a Chloromancer/Archon/Dominator, but ripped shit up by switching to my Elemental/Archon/Stormcaller. And the possibilities don’t stop just by picking the 3 souls….even placing talents within the soul branches can further refine your build. The possibilities are almost endless. Check out the Soul Calculator here!

Some may be turned off by this. It certainly is daunting, and almost intimidating. But for players like me that are excited by the thought of a clean slate and discovery of how classes and souls work, it’s a godsend. Remember how excited we all were when Cata launched? Everything we knew was thrown out the window and anything went because it was a period of discovery? It’s that feeling all over again, only bigger, and no one’s scared of a giant nerf bat taking away our toys any time soon.

A great source of information (other than the official Rift site) is Riftjunkies – a fan run rift site. They have some great discussion, and laid out some guides for beginning solo and group builds for all the classes.

The Support Class? WTF is that?

A support class was something of a dying breed these last few years. How many of us had said over and over again, we would HAPPILY give up our offensive talents to bring the best support? Or the best heals? That’s why WoW classes became a giant cluster fuck of homogenization – Player X wanted to have the same DPS as player Y. Player Y said that’s retarded because they can’t heal. Player Z didn’t like that his tank didn’t have the survivability of Player B, who was pissed he couldn’t mutli-mob tank like player Z. Player C couldn’t single target heal like player N, who complained he couldn’t Group heal like C….so after several thousand buffs, nerfs and “class balances”, after awhile, classes pretty much all felt the same; their spells were just called different things.

I miss roles that brought something special, and I’m not the only one that loves the idea of support classes: sacrificing personal dps or output to bring party and raid buffs/debuffs to a fight.  Like a Bard, Inquisitor or an Archon. Or a tank that specializes in magic resistance, like a Void Knight. Or a powerful healer like a Purifier. And the best part is: those souls are only ONE of your THREE soul choices for ONE Role! The possibilities are endless. Your class can and WILL bring something desirable; where there are ‘jack of all trade’ classes and builds, they are a master of none.

“But AVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVA” you cry “What about those raiding pitfalls where you were lacking certain players? What the hell are you going to do then?”  Easy. Because of the almost endless combination of classes, almost all classes can fill any role in their own way. Need a tank but only have a Rogue or Mage? Use the Rogue Riftstalker soul in a build or the Mage Elementalist soul. Or what if you need some healing instead from those two? use the rogue’s Bard soul, or the mage’s Chloromancer soul. With so many possible soul combination, and 4 spec saves available, not to mention the ability to wipe and respec souls for a fee at trainers, a group will be hard pressed to be lacking for much.

This list is imcomplete, but you get the idea

A Dynamic World:

What I really love about RPGs is IMMERSION and character development. I think the lack of both was my biggest turn off in WoW (besides the “trophies for everyone’ theme) – you didn’t really develop your character. You got some loot, and then started an alt. And another, until you had character slots full of toons for which you had no particular attachment.  And then you pick one of these characters, form a group, & zone into an instance that removes you from the world in which you interact with others. World events are limited to holidays or expansion kick offs that, for fear of disrupting the world, arn’t much of an event. What good is an event if it doesn’t effect the world? Not much.

The world of Telara is under assault – by demons, by dragons, by elements, pouring through Rifts torn in the fabric if the universe to rain death upon the inhabitants. There’s nothing really immersible or  consequential about that if it’s business as usual when that happens. YOUR WORLD IS BEING TORN APART – YOU AREN’T GOING TO CONTINUE TO MAKE BAGS AND SCAN THE AH. If you don’t beat back the rift, they will continue to spawn dangerous beings that roam the land, and eventually, can attack and crush towns. Dangerous creatures, both native and foreign to Telara will assault travelers and cities alike – the guards ain’t just for show. Help defend it for honor and survival! The rewards are  great and many, and determined by your participation.

Click here to watch a video of a Life Rift Raid

P-A-R-T-Y? Becuase I gotta!

A fire rift- it may burn when you pee.

Now there wouldn’t be much of a threat if there were just ordinary monsters. They come in solo, in waves or groups and many are elite, requiring groups for safety and success. But what better way to kill the immersion that to start yelling “LF4 more LIFE RIFT (MAJOR) NEED HEALZ? Lucky, when a threat is approaching, the game automatically starts forming a raid of those in the area. It will ask you if you wish to Join Public Group – if you wish partake, click the button, your raid frames pop up, and fight your way to the rewards! If you choose not to partake, simply ignore it, and the option will disappear when you are out of range.

And nothing gets your attention like a Demon screaming across the zone, taunting you and everyone there about your approaching death. And not just text – actual voices.

The Other Shit

• Graphics – While I liked WoW stylized look, I’m also a fan of this. It’s pretty. The effects are amazing, the motion is fluid, the lighting is spectacular. And while you need a beast of a machine to run everything full bore, a standard PC that plays WoW will still run it with the bells and whistles.
• Crafting – while the basics are covered, like weapon and armorsmiths, outfitters (tailors), butchers (skinners) and what not, you have the ability to choose three. I chose an outfitter with  foraging (herbalism) and butchering, since many main professions need 2 gathering to support it. It’s not NEEDED, just like in WoW, you can forgo gathering and barter and buy your supplies from others in the AH. However, what I like about it is simply it doesn’t feel tacked on or lack a purpose other than to provide buffs for endgame. Your trainers provide quests, items can grant XP, and the best part is – you can actually use the gear and it’s usually a substantial upgrade. Even better, is the ability for crafters to salvage gear to reclaim some of the materials.
• Questing – perhaps it’s simply because it’s a fresh new world, or a new story, I never felt like I was grinding, nor did I ever feel lost or confused about quest specifics. The quests are well laid out, the general areas marked on your map, and they had a good flow to them. While I do think the time involved to level will be slightly more than one may be used to in WoW, it didn’t feel like a negative to me.
• The UI – right out of the box, the in game UI is fully customizable, movable, & scalable.
• The music – I usually don’t have MMO in game music turned on, but I was suprised here. Like most MMOs, it’s themed per zone and area, but also situation! And not just “you entered combat” – impending danger, about to make a discovery….it really just adds something special.
• Character Customization – While I am disappointed that each faction only has 3 (inital?) races to choose from, the amount of customization I was able put into my character made me a happy camper.

Raids and Dungeons

I personally can’t say to much about this from experience – I dinked around with classes so much, I didn’t get past level 20 on any character, so I didn’t partake in any 5 mans, much less raids. The first dungeon, Realm of the Fae, is available at level 17 (I think) and there are numerous more on your journey to end game. The devs have also mentioned they are fully aware of the importance to end game, both to themselves as gamers and to players. I’ll have to have a follow post for this part later after launch. If you have any experience in this area, please leave your thoughts in the comments for others to read!

Rest assured, like others, this will be the biggest draw for me. I play MMOs for the raiding end game, so I’m hoping it pans out and they keep getting my subscription payments, or if this ends up being a $60 diversion until Star Wars: The Old Republic is released.

For now, Rift Junkies has some great Dungeon Guides, complete with layouts, boss abilities, gear and screenshots. The Rift Official site also has some descriptions with videos.

Realm of the Fae Video

Iron Tomb Video

Overall

The biggest downfall from almost every MMO in the last 5 years has been over promising and underdelivering. Gamers in this day and age are unforgiving and fanatical. If we throw down $60 or more for a game, that game had better be ready when it launches, and deliver what it promises. Almost every single MMO since WoW has shot itself in the foot by simply launching before it was ready. I may not speak for everyoe when I say I would rather wait, knowing that a quality product will launch, than to pay for some half-assed, unfinished, untested piece of shit. You know the saying: You never get a second chance to make a first impression? Well it goes for games as well. Fail to impress when you launch, and no matter what you fix, add in or patch, most players won’t return to see your efforts.

With that being said, this is the first MMO in YEARS I have been confident in saying “it’s ready”. My gameplay was fluid, I didn’t experience any game breaking bugs, and even during load tests, server crashes were rare. Now I’m not saying the game is bug free or crashes won’t happen (because I’m sure they will) but it is by FAR the most polished of any game in recent years.

So now what?? DRUNK TANK GAMING!!!!!

90% of the draw of an MMO is playing it with people you know and have fun with. Many of you have all heard me mention the project Rane and I have been tossing around, Drunk Tank Gaming. It’s a gaming community for all of us, run by all of us adult gamers looking for a relaxed, no kid environment to play video games. Well, we’re probably putting the site up tonight – it won’t be anything fancy as of yet – just the boards and forums. What will make the community a success is YOU! Come visit! Chat! Tell your friends! Meet new ones! Yadda Yadda Yadda…..more on Drank Tank Gaming in a later post.

Now, for those of us looking to play Rift, that’s where this comes in. We’re looking to start a a guild on a PVE server (hopefully the Live server lists will be published on 2/22/11, so we can pick one). There is no faction preference as of yet, so we can vote guardian or Defiant on the DTG boards (I’ll be honest – I’m leaning HEAVILY towards Defiant, but we can be swayed). Now, for those of you wanting a PVP server, check out Dregcast’s NegativeZero (they’re also hosts of the new Rift podcast, Ascended) – I played most of my beta with them, and they’re a fun bunch! http://dregcast.enjin.com/

We have no ambitions for whatever guild we create – while it’s safe to say most of us are interested in raiding, currently the focus is to give people a place to play and a large group to try the game with, explore, tackle dungeons and level. And if we have enough people at end game, we’ll go from there! No Pressure, no commitments, just us immature gamers from the social interwebs. We have a vent or mumble server going up as well – we’ll have to vote on that too!

Now, as I said, Ranedor has promised to have the site up tonight – it’s a work in progress, but at least we can start using it (and if it’s not up, make sure you send him a DM every 5 minutes asking when it’s going up). Register (and leave a comment here) letting everyone know if you’re interested, and we’ll get a vote going on faction. For those of us with a pre-order, we want our ducks in a row before the 24th of this month! We’ll have an entire rift section for general discussion, dungeons, the usual.

And as far as Drunk Tank Gaming the community goes – it’s a community! Feel free to post anything you wish, contribute in any ways, or if you wish to lend a hand, let us know! It’s For gamers, By Gamers! Bookmark the site! See you there! www.drunktankgaming.com

**** EDIT – Server lists are out: We’re thinking Defiant side, and PVE server Shatterbone to start. Sound good?

We're going thru RIFTDRAWL!!!!

Well…not REALLY about ME – that would be pretty fucking boring, and I think the Dilbert cartoons already have that covered. But my “other’ me – That Ghoul Ava! You know, that crude, loud, foul mouthed, brash and obnoxious individual. Actually…that’s really not a big help, is it? Ok, the one that puts on the Ghoul Costume for the Horror Society – THAT one.“That Ghoul Ava” started as a joke, more or less. My internet face, if you will. I really don’t have an explanation as to why the character is almost identical to me, personally, other than it’s easier to pull off this way when I’m drunk – it’s extremely easy to be in character.

But anywhoo, apparently I amuse the shit out of people. I assume it’s like the monkeys at the zoo – you really don’t want one in your house, but it’s hilarious to watch them throw shit. But through social interactions, I came to meet a talented author, TW Brown and his company May-December Publications. You may have heard me talk about some of his books, including Dead: The Ugly Beginning and Zomblog – excellent books, each set in a zombie apocalypse. His writing reminds me of Brian Keene – vivid, with extreme and explicit imagery….these are not PG rated books, nor should they be….I doubt the end of the world will be pleasant.

But as a side project, perhaps to amuse himself, he created a series based on That Ghoul Ava. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it. And if other people enjoy it, we’ll be making it a series. So I was hoping all of you, kind people of the internet, could spare $4 (only $1.50 if you use code JJ33A at checkout!!!) and give it a read? You can check out the preview for free! So please, leave comments here & let us know what you think, even if you just read the preview, or if you want to tell us this is the biggest waste of time you’ve ever heard of.

Now the character isn’t EXACTLY like me….I’m too claustrophobic for back seat romps, and I wouldn’t have hesitated to eat that damn dumpster baby. But she’ll get there….soon.

So please: go here to Smashwords, and check it out! You can even put it on your Kindle! Ain’t technology fucking amazing?

I hate this fucking holiday. What the hell is the god damn fascination with Christmas? Oh joy – a time to spend money I don’t have on people I don’t like! WHAT A GREAT FUCKING IDEA! Look – I hate Christmas. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE. Oh sure, we get a few extra days off work but I would happily trade those if we could get this torturous holiday banned. And yes – I am drunk. HEY KIDS – GUESS WHAT I’M GONNA DO? THAT’S RIGHT – BITCH INCESSANTLY!

First off, let’s debunk some holiday reasoning and myths. Maybe with a little luck, you’ll start hating it too. If enough people hate it, maybe some whack job like Glenn Beck will help brain wash the rest of America, ride the coattails of popularity and we’ll get this removed from the calendar.

1) WE’RE CELEBRATING THE BIRFFDAY OF BABY JEBUS: The fuck you are. You’re celebrating the Winter Solstice. Until someone shows me Jesus’s birth certificate, the only thing your celebrating is is Christianity’s largest brainwashing – subjugating the pagans by covering up their holiday with this one. Hey!! Can we send Happy Bonfire Day cards if I tell you Jesus healed his first burn victim on April 20th?

2) IT”S THE SEASON OF GIVING! Giving what? Ulcers? Why do we have to give gifts to anyone? Because 3 supposed wise men came bearing gifts for Jesus? If they were so fucking wise, why the hell were they out wandering in the god damn desert in the middle of the fucking night carrying  anything of value? They probably robbed a caravan, got fucking lost and tried to hide in a barn where, inconveniently, some bitch was having a baby. That wasn’t a gift – that was an alibi.

So now, I have to give people gifts. Because it’s expected. It doesn’t matter how much I HATE you or how much you HAVEN’T done for anyone; I have to drag my fat ass to the mall, get crammed in a crowd like a heard of cattle elbowing each other, trying not to vomit from the reek of sweat & cheap perfume, and hope to god I can get out of there before I kill every fucking one of them. If it wasn’t for online shopping, you people would get the same thing from me every year: Disappointment.

3) IT’S A TIME TO SPEND WITH FAMILY! Have you MET my family? I’ll clue you in – I’M THE INTELLIGENT, QUIET ONE. The only thing my mother’s family hates more than blacks & non-designer clothes is each other, and they’re a perfect example of what happens when people with more money than brains are allowed to breed. If you cross the Sopranos with one of the Alien creatures, that’s my family.  So forgive me if I don’t want to spend an evening drowning in passive aggressive, judgmental bullshit and having the delicious irony be lost on them. The only small amount of enjoyment I get are the comments on how I’m torturing myself by avoiding them. Yes, I’m having a horrible time, surround by friends, copious amounts of alcohol, cheesy jokes, dirty one liners and crappy horror movies. The great things about friends is you choose them, where, unlike family, you’re stuck with thanks to this whole DNA crap. If I wanted to torture myself for an evening, I would go slam my tits in a drawer a few hundred times – at least that way I don’t have to put on pants.

4) IT’S A FESTIVE TIME! Festive? FESTIVE MY ASS! If I go to the store to buy some blood mixture for Halloween, and there’s already Christmas decorations out, that’s not festive – that’s nauseating. Sure, it would be fucking beautiful if I didn’t have to stare at this shit for 6 months out of the year.

So sing your stupid carols, watch “it’s a Wonderful Life” for the 416th time, give expensive gifts to people and enjoy the socks you get in return. I’m opening a bottle of wine, going to watch Return of the Living Dead with my friends, and then we’re putting Halloween Decorations up.

Go choke on a yule log.

I’m sure every generation prior to mine has screamed about “those damn kids” and their slang. So I’m sure my incoming rant is nothing new. However, we all know I’m always right, so previous grievances were simply pissing and moaning – I have a legitimate complaint here. And I’m just going to be blunt about it:

Stop. With. Your. God. Damn. Text.  Talk.

Yes, YOU. You know who you are. KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF. Do you have ANY idea how retarded you sound? No, I’m not buying the excuse “it’s just quicker”. Even if saving .03 of a second WAS a legitimate excuse, it wouldn’t justify the trade off of being labeled a window licking moron. Even my friends and engineer coworkers do this. Hell, my boss sent me a “R U in the office” and I wanted to stuff his head in his ass. I don’t care how intelligent you are; you could have an IQ of 250 and design cold fusion devices in your kitchen – when you type like that, you sound about as intelligent as a 13 year old girl at a Justin Beiber concert.

Here, let me put it perspective for you. You’ve heard of Einstein, right? He was a pretty smart guy. The theory of Relativity and all that. Now imagine he sent Roosevelt a text when alerting him about the German Atomic weapons research, typing like this:

“LOL  u kno germans r trying 2 build a bomb? We need 2 do it b4 them or every1 here will die”

Do you see it now? Do you see how even the most brilliant mind typing like that is immediately labeled an idiot with the intelligence of a rock? It can’t be helped, mainly because that’s how you sound. Every time I see someone posting a “Going 2 dinner” “Wut R U doing?” or “Wut is every1 doing?”, I have to suppress an urge to find out where that person lives, hunt them down, and drown them in the toilet.

I really think this shit is worse than ebonics. Sure, that was gutter garbage talk, but at least those idiots had to spell what they were trying to enunciate.

Are Americans the only fuck wads that do this? Or was this how those stupid emoticons were developed? By Japanese text talk?  turned into =^..^= ?

Look, this country and this planet have enough problems, and the last thing we need is for people to label us morons before we even open our mouths. KNOCK IT OFF.

Just a quick update – Terrorscribe is doing a theme piece from numerous bloggers & site writers in the horror industry, asking them to describe what they want from horror. He thought it was a good idea to ask me. I don’t think I’ll be asked to contribute again.

Give it a read if you like: What Do Horror Fans Want?