The Gaming Diary: Chapter 2

[SirPsycho]

When I get the wow itch I play private servers since I never play enough to justify a sub. I play on one that is true old school vanilla. No outlands, no northrend, old school ridiculously hard Naxx instead of the Wrath baby raid.

[bombatomba]

I played WoW for exactly four months.  Basically once I saw all the sights, took some pics, and ganked some fools I was done.  I'm thinking of doing the "Free 'till level 20" trial just to look around again just to see the changes made in Cataclysm.  I'm don't think the game is bad.  I had way more fun in WoW than I ever did in Everquest or DAoC (though not as much as UO).  Fun game for what it is.

[Sirgin]

You make some interesting points, JSoup, especially about the leveling. It's good that leveling in Cataclysm and beyond takes longer, otherwise it would be a bit of a joke. I went from 39 to 43 in about 3 hours the other day doing random dungeons. If that were the case with the expansions, you'd reach max level on the first day.

I have to disagree with this statement, though:

As for the crazy stat boosts and bonuses, that's mostly due to the level 90s having fully modded, gemed and enchanted gear, with the possible set bonus.

Yes, I'm sure all the geming and enchanting adds to it, but it's the basic gear stats that grow exponentially after a certain level; something you acknowledge here:

according to the current stat models, three expansions from now we're going to be finding basic green items with base stats in the millions.

Here's a quick comparison of 4 bows. I tried to make it fair by having all be the same rarity (not too rare) and having the level requirement between the first two and the second two equal (20 levels, to be exact).

Level 20 bow: Naga Heartpiercer = 21.1 dps & +14 agility
Level 40 bow: Ancient Bone Bow = 39.7 dps & +26 agility (88% higher dps and 85% higher agility)

Now let's compare two bows, again 20 levels apart, higher up the ladder.

Level 70 bow: Valano' Longbow = 114.6 dps & +35 agility, +32hit, +32crit
Level 90 bow: Tempestuous Longbow = 2910.6dps & +797 agility, +1195 stamina, +531hit, +531crit (2539% higher dps, 2277% higher agility, extra stamina, 1659% higher hit and crit)

I hope you can instinctively feel by looking a the ridiculous jump in numbers between the lvl 70 and 90 item how stupid it is to have the stats swing way out of control. Remember, there are exactly 20 levels that a player must progress between each of those two. The level 40 bow is close to twice as powerful as the level 20 bow. Fine. The level 90 bow is 25x as powerful as the level 70 one. Stupid.

It's interesting that Blizzard knew what they were doing when changing the level cap from 40 to 50 to 60 yet still keeping the items stats increasing linearily. There is no reason they couldn't have done the same with all the expansions.

Interesting article: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/9995063/ (The first graph says it all...and that's without MoP! The paragraph below the first graph is very revealing, btw)

[Seno]

Just completed Thomas was alone (PC) short but sweet

[Link41]

Frogger Returns (PSN) - This was really short....four levels, four Trophies.

[Izret101]

Finished Awesomenauts.
Hopefully i can finish (or at least make some serious progress in) WRC Powerslide tonight.

[JSoup]

You make some interesting points, JSoup, especially about the leveling. It's good that leveling in Cataclysm and beyond takes longer, otherwise it would be a bit of a joke. I went from 39 to 43 in about 3 hours the other day doing random dungeons. If that were the case with the expansions, you'd reach max level on the first day.

It also depends on the person. Some people just aren't good at leveling, some are really efficient at it. I have several max level characters, so the leveling process is pretty much a science for me at this point. All depends on your play style.

Snip, all that stats stuff, cause I'm bad at quote tags.

Having it right in front of me, the problem is even more evident. That fix can't come soon enough. I think lion's share of the problem eluded me because I normally only pay attention to the finer points of stats on my main, which is a mage. Any stat outside of intelligence (and there are some insane int boosts on mage crap) are academic at best.

[Izret101]

Have about an hour left of WRC Powerslide.

Got pulled into World Series of Poker: Full House Pro. Since i only have one gold tag now i had to use one of my 48 hour codes (wish i hadn't given so many away now...) so i will be "playing" that for the next 2 days straight.

[Link41]

Plants vs. Zombies (PSN) - This is one of the most addicting games ever lol

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

Messing around with more Mount and Blade mods. Prophecy of Pendor is pretty sweet, new world new factions new gear. Also tried 1257AD, but it's a bit overwhelming, as it features pretty much the known world (for 1257ad) and is still to scale with the usual player size for M&B.

Loading up the Floris mod now, which just adds stuff to the base game.

[Necrosaro]

Messed around doing some retro gaming recently.

I played and completed the Castle of Illusion remake on PSN, Sega of Australia did an amazing job with this, aside from slightly floaty 3D controls. Even better than Ducktales Remastered IMO, although I kinda wish it had difficulty settings.

Galaga Legions DX, a PS+ freebie, is pretty boring. Will probably end up deleting. I didn't care for Pac-Man Championship Edition DX either.

Finally, I pretty much finished the rhythm game portion of Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F. Seems like I did better on the English version than the Japanese version of the game, I dunno, maybe I've gotten used to it. I cleared a bunch of songs on Extreme, but I still can't do the hardest songs. Still, I got my b-day event, three times as a matter of fact. Who wouldn't want Luka and Meiko to wish you a happy b-day? I dunno if I want to do the Diva room events again, way too grindy.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Luka and Meiko b-day?

[Link41]

Plants vs. Zombies (PSN) - I love this game...except for Survival mode...

[Necrosaro]

Luka and Meiko b-day? :'(

Yup. If you start up the game on your birthday (or one of the vocaloid's birthdays, yes, they have b-days) and go into the Diva Room, you'll see a special birthday event. I started up the game on three separate occasions on my b-day, and got to see the event three times, I actually didn't know it could be seen multiple times. Miku and Rin presented me a 'cake' the first, got Miku and Luka the 2nd time, then Luka and Meiko (my favorite vocaloids) the 3rd time around. Good timing in terms of the game's release in NA. Also worth noting are the vocaloid's b-days, you get a Diva room event on these days as well (from http://projectdiva.wikisp...om/DIVA+Room+%28%C6%92%29):

Hatsune Miku: Aug 31
Kagamine Rin and Len: Dec 27
Megurine Luka: Jan 30
Kaito: Feb 17
Meiko: Nov 5

[GrayGhost81]

Tried to get back into Tales of Vesperia but we were having power outages from a storm so I switched back to the Vita Uncharted game, which I am still really into.

Still haven't picked up Hatsune Miku. I'm gambling between some kind of price drop and it disappearing.