jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012
  Admin

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2731 Posts

I love Borderlands and as such am very excited about
http://cdn.ientry.com/sites/webpronews/pictures/borderlands2collectors_616.jpg
I love Borderlands and as such am very excited about Borderlands 2. More gun collecting RPG shooter mayhem? More guns? Going more places than just the desert? Uhm.... Totally in. So totally in.

When I love a game++ I am drawn to pre-order it. Often times I buy the collectors edition. What can I say? I am sucker when people say "game, art book and soundtrack." I just have to pay more because I love that kind of stuff. Borderlands 2 seems willing to indulge me with pre-ordering and they upped the ante with TWO collectors editions.

I am going to pre-order the game I am just not sure what version of the game I will actually buy. To my eye there are actually 4 different versions you need to discern between. Ill drop you to the site so you can check it out:

http://www.borderlands2.com/preorder/

So basically, you have the pre-order game that comes with a crap load-o-dlc. I think rewarding your biggest fans is a great thing. I got a few special bits with my Diablo 3 Collectors Edition(ill post about that in the future). Thing is, its not quite that simple.

Every pre-order gets the same DLC except Game Stop. Game Stop's pre-order nabs you all the DLC goodness AND the "Creature Slaughter Dome" and a special rocket launcher. Honestly that sounds like a really great pre-order bonus that everyone should get. I don't dislike Game Stop, I just don't like special retailer only pre-order bonuses. I also don't like special console only DLC. That said, you know about it now so plan accordingly.

The other two versions of the game are the collectors edition and they seem fun save one critical thing I would love. A soundtrack. I LOVE GAME SOUNDTRACKS! I may very well be in the minority here, but when a collectors edition includes the soundtrack I get much more interested in purchasing it. Toss in a making of or behind the scenes DVD and you have my money in your hand. Both Borderlands 2 collectors editions seem to omit both. That said, they are both pretty hefty and the $150 collectors edition includes a loot chest that looks pretty epic.

I am leaning to the pre-order at Game Stop on the PS3 for the "plain Jane" game itself as the collectors editions are not really compelling me right this minute. Are you going to pre-order Borderlands 2? Do you buy collectors editions? Do you like retailer specific DLC? Did you enjoy SkiFree on Windows 3.1?

Let me know in the comments.

This is kind of how I feel right now. Ill coin a new phrase
http://hellyeahcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/HellYeah_Release_en.jpg
This is kind of how I feel right now. Ill coin a new phrase here, I am "Diablo tired." So very tired.....

http://hellyeahcomics.com/finally/

This post isnt really a D3 review, I just want to share my
http://i.imgur.com/lL2LT.jpg
This post isn't really a D3 review, I just want to share my current character as he sits today.

I typically like the summons classes so the Witch Doctor seemed like a no brainer to me. The above image is "SnuggyBunny" as he sits right this second. My current skills for SnuggyBunny are: darts, zombie arms, spider queen, poison zombie dogs and horrify. The slowdown that occurs when you zombie arm/eel an area is the basis of how I play the Witch Doctor. Basically I try to get the enemies into a choke-point or slow them such that I can pick them off from a distance. When they are slowed, I toss in the Spider Queen and then start to use the poison darts. My zombie dogs train the mobs so they don't focus on me. Horrify if they get too close and I hit them as they run.

My current skill tree and attributes:

http://i.imgur.com/ZR9Nk.jpg

At the start of act II I got a pretty sweet legendary drop:

http://i.imgur.com/dI9ai.jpg

So far I know only one other person that got legendary gear, so that's kind of awesome I have some. Will be hard to let it go when I get something better. I imagine I can sell it at the auction house for a few gold.

Speaking of auction house, if I can't give my old yellow gear to the Enchantress, Templar or Thief I sell it at the auction house. So far I can generally pull in 5x the in game sale price. I am not into MMO's so this is the first real experience I have with an auction house, so far so good.

Haven't really unlocked a ton of achievements yet, but I open a few each game it seems.

http://i.imgur.com/n1JjM.jpg

One of the interesting things about Diablo 3 is the major amount of achievements the game has. Some achievements require a ton of gameplay to get, some are fairly easy. I believe one requires you to max level both class sexes? I wonder how many hours one would need to spend to unlock that?

All that to say, I really like the Witch Doctor character. I like how he talks and I like the kind of person he is. Odd to say that, but Blizzard did a great job fleshing him out as a person. The back and forth dialog he has with the Templar is really cool. The Templar is essentially a religious zealot and the Witch Doctor is spiritual. The contrast between those two types of personalities is very interesting as many times the Witch Doctor tries to offer a different perspective to the Templar's pretty intense dogma. I won't spoil the communication direction between the characters, but its a really interesting side story and I hope it continues to open up over the course of the game.

If you are looking for a class where you get a ton of pets to start, the Witch Doctor will not satisfy you. But, as you progress in levels you can focus on abilities that gradually allow him an army of pets and poison attacks.

I would totally get the Skyrim gameboy version. Gameboy
http://i.imgur.com/BnTDt.gif
I would totally get the Skyrim gameboy version. Gameboy might limit the size of the world.

Be interesting to see The Elder Scrolls in a mobile context.

As I type this I cant get into Diablo 3. I moved from a
As I type this I can't get into Diablo 3. I moved from a state where I was understanding of Blizzard to making the choice to make Diablo 3 a multiplayer game to thinking, maybe they bit off a bit more than they should have with Diablo 3. Perhaps its too much for them to handle because Ive spent more time thinking about outages than playing Diablo 3. Currently at 9.30PDT they are undergoing emergency maintenance:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5149005198#1

I hope they clean these issues up pretty soon. That said, when I was in game it was flawless and smooth. Its just the hours of downtime that is a problem. After all this clears up, expect more detailed posts about how fun the actual game is. Oh right, it is fun... When you can play it.

PS Error 37 & 3003, I hate you.

Update from blizz:

"We're continuing to work on the issues currently affecting the Americas region, which are resulting in failed login attempts and service issues. While we've identified the causes and are working to resolve them, we expect our efforts to require an approximate two hours to complete. We expect game services to fully return by approximately 11:45 p.m. PDT. We apologize for the downtime, and appreciate your continued patience."

So frustrating.

Its 12.29am Tuesday May 15th and Battle.net is down for
http://i.imgur.com/AKjcg.png
Its 12.29am Tuesday May 15th and Battle.net is down for maintenance. Error 37, servers are busy abounds and people are mad complaining right now. One of my friends said his pal connected and tried retrieving the character list and it was so slow.

Apparently the amount of traffic is DDoSing the battle.net servers. But its a good kind of DDoS because they are all paying customers. Going to stay up a little longer to see how bad this get? This feels like people won't be playing for another few hours, but I have absolutely no idea how many people are trying to play? A few million? I guess that would cause some issues but doesn't Blizzard have 10 million WoW players?

Oh a tip on the BlizzardCS Twitter:

"We are aware the Battlenet sites are in maintenance. No ETA when they will be available Updates to follow."

Not a great time, but if its a planned outage I guess....

Anyways, my client installed without a hitch. I have some options available that others don't seem to. I can watch all of the cinematics for each class right now. In fact I can watch all the cinematics for the first act. I imagine this is a bug but even if it wasn't I don't want to ruin any of the game so ill watch them in the game.

If you are running into connection issues check this handy dandy Blizz created guide:

http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/diablo-iii-connection-troubleshooting

Anyways, hopefully the issues clear up and people can start playing post-haste as there are minions to slay in Sanctuary!

**EDIT** I just tried and it looks like Starcraft 2 works fine but I can't login to WoW.

**EDIT 2** Update from Blizzard: "Please note that due to a high volume of traffic, login and character creation may be slower than normal. If you're unable to login to the game or create characters, please wait and try again. We've temporarily taken our Battle.net websites offline and launched more servers to accomodate for the traffic. We hope to resolve these issues as soon as possible and appreciate your patience."

Here we are on the eve of the Diablo 3 launch. I am not
http://hellyeahcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/HellYeah_AtTheGates_en1.jpg
Here we are on the eve of the Diablo 3 launch. I am not sure I have anticipated a launch quite as eagerly as this one. I kept hitting the refresh on my Amazon package track and was really excited it moved 30 miles. Yeah, its like that for me.

If all goes well I may head to 12p line at a Best Buy with a friend that wants to pick it up tonight. Ill take pictures and all that, hopefully there is a nerd rush and someone mistakes the event for a Pretty Petz 2 launch. "Wait, you mean this isn't Catz 4 Back in Mittens launch line? OH MAN!" Or maybe thats what I will say.... Hmmmm.

Anyways, as always here is a few Diablo 3 news bits for your consumption. Don't joy puke early, you need to save your strength for the midnight drop.

According to Amazon Diablo 3 is the most pre-ordered game ever. Makes sense to me.

"A representative for Amazon told Joystiq that Diablo 3 is Amazon's most pre-ordered PC title ever. "Today, it became the most pre-ordered PC game of all-time on Amazon.com – even exceeding pre-orders for Blizzard's own StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm," the rep said."

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/11/diablo-3-is-amazons-most-pre-ordered-pc-title-ever/

And like the aforementioned article says, with gamer desktops like this it makes sense:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=472706

Looks like Oskar Pannier, the guy that did a few Diablo 3 comics he posted to Facebook got a new website located at http://hellyeahcomics.com. One such comic is shown above. Cool to see he will start doing it regularly and he has a proper website for it now.

Blizzard keeps talking about the console port of Diablo 3. Its so complicated and what they say makes so little sense to me I won't bother summing it up. You can decode it yourself here:

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/14/blizzard-explains-why-its-hiring-for-console-diablo-but-not-ma/

What are you doing for the D3 launch?

**EDIT**

Exchange between some married people about D3 launch: http://i.imgur.com/EX00x.jpg

Portal 2 Map: Levels Be Three, Let Them Be
http://i.imgur.com/Gy7Ve.jpg
I created another Portal 2 map: "Levels be Three Let them Be."

Not entirely sure what the name means, but it sounded good to me.

Its a bit more puzzley than my first map and it requires you to use one cube the entire map, which is kind of neat. Been spending quite a bit of time playing other peoples Portal 2 maps and building my own. This is my second map and as such spent more time decorating it than the first map. Trying to place the observation rooms and lights such that the test chamber doesn't look bare. Also pushing up single blocks and putting a light on top to make things look a bit more natural. I like the way it all turned out.

The map description:

"Run, jump and catapult yourself to the top tier. You only have one cube and you will need it for the entire course, so don't lose it!"

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=71898109

**EDIT** Fixed a bug with this map that allowed you to enter a place out of order. Should be all good now.

I just made and published my first Portal 2 map called The
http://i.imgur.com/eDqvZ.jpg
I just made and published my first Portal 2 map called "The Joys of the Underground." The new Portal 2 map editor is pure awesome. I haven't had this much fun making maps since Wolf 3D. For the first 45 minutes I was just building things, then I started pushing out walls and built a huge chamber. 3 hours later "The Joys of the Underground" was complete.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=71669237

Let me know what you think. The map isn't hard but it is pretty fun and I LOVED creating it. I will be making more maps for certain. Making a map creator tool that doesn't take a PHD to use is nice.