jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

Its 12.29am Tuesday May 15th and Battle.net is down for

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

Tungsten wrote on 05/15/2012 at 01:23am

I apparently have a corrupted MPQ... again... It seems to be a common problem though.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 01:36am

Doh! Totally totally sucks.

Tungsten wrote on 05/15/2012 at 01:47am

I have an operating theory on how to get it to work...

I delete the corrupted file and it tries to re-download it. It inevitably tells me that it is corrupted again, but it gets further in the download. Maybe when it finishes the download...

We'll see. I'm also operating anti-virus free (don't worry, it'll be back on before anyone reads this) and I deleted a my Battle.net folder.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 02:03am

Heres for hoping.

Tungsten wrote on 05/15/2012 at 02:33am

FIXED IT!!! Still can't slay any demons tonight or tomorrow, but here's hoping this weekend is filled with the blood of my enemies.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 02:34am

For the Horde! Oh wait....

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Portal 2 Map: Levels Be Three, Let Them Be

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

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.

Tungsten wrote on 05/13/2012 at 01:02am

The editor is amazing. Great product. It was actually kind of sad: I could finally make any level I could dream up, but I realized I'm very bad at dreaming them. All my attempts turned out boring and straight forward. Playing some of the other community maps, you can see that some people are very good at it.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/13/2012 at 02:39am

I was just tinkering around with what I could do and I made something I kind of thought was fun. I kept tinkering and it was OK.

Working on another one now that is just tinkering and a bit more grand. Somehow I like big maps.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/13/2012 at 03:40am

One gripe with the tool this far. I made a huge epic map. 10-20% of the way building it, Portal 2 crashes. Ok, load it back edit the map.... Crash. Again... Crash.

Bummer it was a cool start to a fun map. *sigh*

Tungsten wrote on 05/13/2012 at 04:41am

Just put mine up...

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=71723761

vdogmr25 wrote on 05/14/2012 at 09:07pm

I found it beatable without even having to go underground. There's a way to take the laser reflection cube with you into the next room and you can use it to activate the switch. Thought I'd let you know. Other than that, it was pretty good. It required a little head scratching, but was pretty quick to get through.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/14/2012 at 09:26pm

How do you take the redirection cube to the next room? Isn't it fizzled out?

I'll check it tonight and fix :)

vdogmr25 wrote on 05/15/2012 at 12:01am

In the first room there's the ledge with non-portal-able surfaces that leads into the next room. You can get up there by portaling onto the small box-like protrusion on the opposite wall by the entrance, putting a portal on the ground next to the non-portal-able ledge, putting the other portal on the ground in front of you, and jumping off. If you take the redirect cube with you, you can access the exit. I hope I explained well enough. I can screen shot it out if you would like me to.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 12:41am

Nope I get it now. Ill remove the ledge or make it non-portalable.

Thanks!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 02:50am

OK I believe I fixed that bug and a possible other one, thanks for the heads up!

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2K just dropped two gameplay videos for Borderlands 2. They

2K just dropped two gameplay videos for Borderlands 2. They handed out the same gameplay footage to all the big game news sites and then the news sites commented over the footage. The above video is IGN's take on the siren video drop. Some interesting footage of the class.

2K also release some footage of the gunzerker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46GOWOkHySM

The game looks mad epic. Can't wait for Clap-Trap to bring the wub wub. This is a game I will pre-order and nab on the PS3. What will you play it on? Are you going to pick it up?

One minor gripe from the IGN video commentary: "How many times do you need to mention Borderlands is like Diablo?" Yeah, we got it when the game dropped, thanks.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/12/2012 at 07:09pm

I will most certainly pick it up and it'll be on PS3 so I can play split screen with the wifey. :) I usually don't preorder games but I think I will for this one so I can pick up the extra DLC class and just because I loved the first game so much. I actually don't know what class I want to play first. Soldier was my favorite from the first game, but so far the Gunzerker looks really fun and fits my preferred play style.

Yeah they mention the Diablo thing a lot. It's probably just because everyone has Diablo 3 on the brain at the moment.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/12/2012 at 10:29pm

Do you get the new class with a pre-order?

The gunzerker class looks cool, I might try him first too.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/14/2012 at 01:00am

*ahem*... I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS!

OK, I'm better now. Seriously, this looks amazing. And hang on, WhiteboySlim, you have to preorder to get all the classes? That's kinda lame. I'll probably do it anyway though.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/14/2012 at 01:59am

They talked about another class they wanted to add after launch. The mecromancer. I hadn't heard you needed to pre-order to get all the classes though. Hope not.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/15/2012 at 06:37pm

"As a special thank you to our early supporters, the Mechromancer will be available as a free download to members of the Borderlands 2 Premiere Club, which you can gain access to by pre-ordering Borderlands 2 from a participating retailer. The Mechromancer will also be available as premium downloadable content for those who aren't Premiere Club members at the same time."

from this article: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/122/1222572p1.html

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/15/2012 at 07:08pm

Right, I saw that at Besy Buy last night. You going to pre-order?

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/15/2012 at 10:55pm

Probably just so I can get the DLC for free. I haven't looked into who is offering the pre-orders yet. The only games I've ever pre-ordered before were Ocarina of Time and one of the expansions for FFXI when I was still playing that.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/16/2012 at 03:51am

Ill pre-order Borderlands 2, just have to figure out where :)

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Gather round children, for I will tell thee a story of

Gather round children, for I will tell thee a story of Angels and Demons of old. Past battles fought between good and ill that shaped the very fabric of our universe! Well, that or you could hit play on the video above this post.

"Long before the creation of Sanctuary, the Eternal Conflict between angels and demons raged on for untold millennia. Blizzard Entertainment teamed up with renowned director Peter Chung and acclaimed animation studio Titmouse to create this unique vision of a fundamental moment in the battle between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells."

A bit of other interesting Diablo 3 tid-bitery comes from a recent Joystiq article about just how many people joined the Diablo 3 open beta weekend from a recent Activision/Blizzard investor earnings call where Michael Morhaime revealed:

"We recently conducted an open beta stress test for Diablo 3, where anyone could download and try out the game. The response we got was huge, with more than two million people worldwide participating in the open beta." A lot of the testing, Morhaime said on the call, was beneficial to Diablo 3's development – particularly to the Auction House feature."

Awesome. Hopefully that means launch will be flawless.

In other news that makes me squee with delight like a 8 year old... Seems retailers around the United States are unboxing Diablo 3 for launch next Tuesday. A few rouge employees are even snapping a few pics of the un-crated boxes.

http://i.imgur.com/JEt5n.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oSkS9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bhJGO.jpg

I want one of the autographed collectors editions so bad!
-
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/09/diablo-3-open-beta-nets-2-million-participants/

Chowda wrote on 05/11/2012 at 03:42pm

Great video thanks for sharing.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/11/2012 at 03:57pm

Yeah, I thought it was awesome too! Apparently Angels can be goaded.

Tungsten wrote on 05/11/2012 at 10:02pm

Video was great. It was done by the same guys who do Metalocalypse. It would have been a step up though if they added a heavy metal soundtrack.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/11/2012 at 10:55pm

Haha yeah, especially when Imperius cleaves Diablo in half.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/14/2012 at 04:59am

Honestly, I'm not really interested in Diablo III, so I'm not sure why I clicked on this video...

But CRAP!, that was cool.

Tungsten wrote on 05/14/2012 at 11:58am

Diablo 3 launch day: I have to work until 8pm and be back at work at 6:30am. Great timing.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/14/2012 at 03:25pm

Apparently even with one day shipping amazon says D3 will arrive the 17th... I may never pre-order from Amazon again.

Live learn I guess.

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Seems like a few companies are celebrating 20th

http://epicgames.com/community/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/OSTCover_FINAL41.jpg

Seems like a few companies are celebrating 20th anniversaries lately. Epic is celebrating its 20th anniversary and to commemorate the event they are releasing the "Epic 20th Anniversary Original Soundtrack."

Download it here:
http://epicgames.com/community/epic-20th-anniversary-commemorative-soundtrack/

Its a good sampling of all their games over the 20 years they have been pumping out the hits. To bad they didn't include ZZT.

iD Software is celebrating Wolfenstein 3Ds 20th birthday

iD Software is celebrating Wolfenstein 3D's 20th birthday today. As such they are releasing it for free on a few platforms as well as dropping the prices for a few other game packs on Steam:

How to Play:

Play the game in your browser now for free:
http://wolfenstein.bethsoft.com/

Download the game now for free on iOS:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wolfenstein-3d-classic-platinum/id309470478?mt=8

Wolf Pack for $3.75 (75% off of Steam) — includes Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Spear of Destiny, and Wolfenstein 3D:
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/418/

id Software Super Pack for $49.99 (50% off) — includes so many games, you should just visit Steam to get the lowdown:
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/14587/

I remember packing this game around on my floppies and playing it anywhere I could. This game blew my mind in terms of what games could be when it was new. I loved using the level editor to make my own levels. I made my High School, house and many other awesome levels with the Wolf Editor. I never beat all the Episodes save Episode 1. Had the shareware version for quite some time before I copied the original full game. Always felt bad about that, but I have purchased it MANY times over since as an adult. One memory I have of Wolf 3D is building up a boot disc so I could get the sound blaster to work in game. Cool to see things evolve such that I don't have to do that any more.

What are your favourite memories of this game?

PS the above commentary with John Carmack is amazing, check it out.

http://www.bethblog.com/2012/05/09/happy-20th-wolfenstein-3d/

Travis Admin wrote on 05/10/2012 at 03:42pm

Oh man... stupid Steam sales. I can't afford to keep saving so much money.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/10/2012 at 03:48pm

Since I already bought RAGE, I'm not sure if I can justify this. I have a little over an hour to decide. Decisions, decisions.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/10/2012 at 03:52pm

And why isn't the new Wolfenstein included in the id super pack? http://store.steampowered.com/app/10170/

If it were, this would be a no-brainer.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/10/2012 at 07:45pm

I wondered that myself. They did it with Raven and maybe them and the publisher couldn't work something out?

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/10/2012 at 07:45pm

Nabbed it on the iPhone. Picked it up on the PS3 before the newest Wolf was released.

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Wondering if one should buy this. You know, I dont entirely

http://www.splitreason.com/Product_Images/d344fd7c9d73.jpg

Wondering if one should buy this. You know, I don't entirely mean me, you know its for someone I know. He is a big dork and loves this stuff.

Thoughts?

My friend likes Ninja Turtles AND Mario. Too much awesome in one shirt? Possibly.

http://www.splitreason.com/product/ign/1234?utm_source=gplus&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=ninjatroopasGP

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 05/09/2012 at 05:38am

That is pretty rad.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/09/2012 at 03:19pm

I think so.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/09/2012 at 08:19pm

Do you think all of them except Raphael will still walk off the edge of a cliff?

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/09/2012 at 08:38pm

Yeah, they look like Koopas in Halloween costumes.

Tungsten wrote on 05/09/2012 at 11:22pm

That guy looks like Eric Bana

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/09/2012 at 11:25pm

SPOOOOCK! And your right, he does look like Eric Bana.

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I have so much Diablo news I am going to break it out into a

I have so much Diablo news I am going to break it out into a few posts over a day or so. The above linked video is a 5 minute recap of the Diablo story till now. If you are interested in a 50 foot view of Sanctuary and the sordid history of Tristram and why you shouldn't build your city right next to the place you imprison one of the main prime evils, check it out!

Blizzard recently blogged a Diablo 3 launch day preparation guide:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/5338015

They are missing some off my Diablo 3 prep list:

1. Come up with a good fake illness to call in to work with.
2. Stock up on dollar store 5 hour energy(the real ones are expensive yo!) for the 16 hour blitz you will give the game after it boots up.
3. Stock easy foam bats and nearby pillows for when Battle.net goes down and you CANT PLAY
4. Make no weekend plans as you need to power level all 5 classes to 60. GET ALL THE LEVELS!

Chowda wrote on 05/09/2012 at 07:56pm

Level all the classes to 60? I'm going to need to forge a doctors note...

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/09/2012 at 08:37pm

:) I NEED TO LEVEL THEM ALL IN 48 HOURS!

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/09/2012 at 08:37pm

I wonder if that's possible. Like how many hours to max level? Power leveling wasn't allowed in the beta so it's normal grind. Hmmmm.

Chowda wrote on 05/09/2012 at 09:49pm

I just hope it takes about as long to complete as Diablo 2 in a normal run-through. Without power leveling or giving uber gear it was a decent amount of time to finish, especially on 3 separate difficulties. I would be fine with it taking a little longer as well.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/09/2012 at 09:50pm

I agree, long games that don't drag are fun.

hardeyez wrote on 05/09/2012 at 11:59pm

don't forget perma-death hardcore... or did they remove that in d3?

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/10/2012 at 01:30am

Hardcore characters are included :)

Chowda wrote on 05/11/2012 at 03:43pm

It's too bad you have to unlock hardcore. I'd rather play HC from the beginning.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 05/13/2012 at 03:51am

Wikipedia says you unlock hardcore after level 10. Hopefully that's how it goes!

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jdodson1

2755 Posts

Its 12.29am Tuesday May 15th and Battle.net is down for

Here we are on the eve of the Diablo 3 launch. I am not

Portal 2 Map: Levels Be Three, Let Them Be

I just made and published my first Portal 2 map called The

2K just dropped two gameplay videos for Borderlands 2. They

Gather round children, for I will tell thee a story of

Seems like a few companies are celebrating 20th

iD Software is celebrating Wolfenstein 3Ds 20th birthday

Wondering if one should buy this. You know, I dont entirely

I have so much Diablo news I am going to break it out into a