jdodson | Cheerful Ghost

Double Fine's Psychonauts 2 - Behind the Launch

I have really enjoyed Double Fine's documentary videos. It's something they started with Broken Age that has carried through each game and they are continuing it with the development of the much anticipated Psychonauts 2. The video covers the games reveal at the Video Game Awards as well as successful funding on Fig.

Jin. Whatever I Do I Do It To Protect You. Rogue One Story Trailer.

A brand new Rogue One Trailer dropped bringing us more details about the upcoming Rogue One Star Wars film. Showing more of the story it seems that Jin's father was captured by the empire and forced to build it's ultimate weapon. This trailer features the music of Michael Giacchino who replaced Alexandre Desplat and you can heard Giacchino's style front and center for the trailer. Internet people have been worried about a series of pickups for Rogue One but that's still something I am not really concerned about. Why wouldn't you want to make a movie even better?

The new Rogue One trailer story trailer is out but what do you think? Does the movie still look like something you are interested in or maybe something else?

Travis Admin wrote on 10/13/2016 at 10:09pm

Aww yiss. This looks tasty.

scrypt Supporter wrote on 10/13/2016 at 10:53pm

I have a feeling this will surpass Episode VII at the box office, if the trailer is any indication of the tone and atmosphere of this film. I expect to see a distant shot of the Falcon somewhere along the way. Kind of a two-ships-passing-in-the-night thing.

JaBo wrote on 10/13/2016 at 11:21pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/14/2016 at 12:25am

I'm sure I briefly saw Jeremy Irons as one of the Empire starting at 1:16 (https://youtu.be/sC9abcLLQpI?t=1m16s). He says, "the power that we are dealing with here is immeasurable." But, I don't see his name in the credits nor do I see this movie on his IMDB page. I did, however, see James Earl Jones voicing Darth Vader.

I'm not really sure what's going to happen in this movie. Ok, so Jin's father helped build the Death Star and the Rebel forces are fighting the Empire, but weren't both Death Stars destroyed within the first three Star Wars movies? So, it seems that the Rebels won't destroy it in this one, so I'm not really sure what the plot or point will be, unless maybe it's to show how it was built and their failure to destroy it the first time they try.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/14/2016 at 02:26am

Greg: remember the opening crawl to Episode IV?

"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy…."

This is the story of that opening crawl. In the Rogue One trailers we see the crew at the Yavin base. They strike from there against the empire and steal the plans for the Death Star to turn them over to the resistance. They do the thing they do in Rogue One, and then Leia has the plans to plant into R2 before he and C3PO end up on Tattooine.

It's interesting. We don't know the details but we know exactly what the overall outcome will be already. So we can focus on the people, and that's what I hope the director emphasizes. Based on what he did in Monsters, I think he will.

And that guy at 1:16 is Ben Mendelsohn: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0578853/mediaviewer/rm1132534784

Travis Admin wrote on 10/14/2016 at 02:34am

Also with regard to "their failure to destroy it the first time they try." I highly doubt they even try in Rogue One. The dialogue in Episode IV suggests that it's basically untested. People know of it but nobody has made any attempts on it.

I imagine the big battle will be a massive battle with star destroyers. Since the whole point is to get those plans so they know how to fight it, it seems unwise to go after it.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/14/2016 at 02:37am

Oh! So I forgot-- I read a book that covers this whole story and people working on the Death Star are aware of the major battle, but yeah, the first attack on the Death Star is the one in Episode IV.

Lost Stars, such a good book.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/14/2016 at 02:55am

Ok so that makes sense. Thanks for making that make sense for me. Still, it seems kind of odd that the Empire built the first Death Star, which got destroyed, so they built another one, which also got destroyed, then they built the Star Destroyer (is that what it's called in the latest movie), which also got destroyed. It seems like the Empire is really stupid. It seems a bit repetitive, too. They built all those powerful weapons, which were inevitably destroyed. It seems kind of like a weak plot, to keep repeating it. Don't get me wrong, I like Star Wars. I only recently really put some thought into this criticism.

Don't you think that guy sounded like Jeremy Irons? I thought it looked like him, too. Granted it makes sense that that's not him because he's not in the credits nor is the movie listed on his IMDB page. I did see Ben Mendelsohn a few times during the trailer, but that moment when he spoke, I swore it was Jeremy Irons.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/14/2016 at 03:02am

I didn't get a Jeremy Irons feel from him, no, but I see your point!

Starkiller Base was the one in episode VII. That wasn't the empire but a group of fanatics who basically worship the empire, so they tried to emulate them and expand on them. They thought they had fixed the design flaws.

As for the second death star, that was hubris. Basically "Oh you destroyed a death star? No big, we'll just make another. See how little we care?" Trying to show that they were more confident to keep the fear alive, because if people stopped fearing them after the first death star was destroyed, then they would lose it all. That's also why so much more was riding on that second death star, and how they used it as bait to try to destroy the rebellion once and for all.

That's how I interpreted it anyway!

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/14/2016 at 04:29am

Yet again "that makes sense." :)

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/15/2016 at 10:58pm

> I have a feeling this will surpass Episode VII at the box office, if the trailer is any indication of the tone and atmosphere of this film.

Interesting prediction. I am both seriously excited and curious about this being the first non Skywalker Star Wars film to hit theaters. It's exciting because, well, look at it it's awesome looking. But curious because i'm not sure how well it will do. It's Star Wars so I think it has a huge built in audience but I'm wondering if everyone and more that was VII will see Rogue One?

> Still, it seems kind of odd that the Empire built the first Death Star, which got destroyed, so they built another one, which also got destroyed, then they built the Star Destroyer (is that what it's called in the latest movie), which also got destroyed. It seems like the Empire is really stupid. It seems a bit repetitive, too.

Yep. This.

If you take all the "people/persons fly into big super structure and blow it up from the inside then Phantom Menace, New Hope, Jedi and Force Awakens have VERY similar ending plots. It makes watching them all in order sort of samey and it is repetitive. At least with Rogue One they aren't blowing up the Death Star they are building it. Anyways, I made a joke on Facebook that the only think they have left is to build a "Death Dyson Sphere." Funny but i'm pretty sure they won't do that.

But yeah, I hope Star Wars can kind of drop the Death Star thing. It's fun and such but it's been covered well now. Maybe we can get some super virus that creates Zombie Troopers or something. Might be a terrible idea but at least it hasn't been done in Star Wars before.

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Steam Developer Days Day 1 - VR Is All Around You

http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/JwFF8GLtwvgszkXtr7JUW9-650-80.jpg

In 2014 Cheerful Ghost published it's first game Starship Rubicon, an asteroids-esque rogue lite. Working with Wick to take his game to a wider audience was a really fun experience and along the way we hit some fun milestones like releasing the game on Windows, Mac and Linux on Steam. Because of that Cheerful Ghost was asked to attend this years Steam Developer Days and we happily signed up. I wasn't sure what to expect but I figured we'd learn more about what Valve was up to and maybe play some fun games along the way.

It's All About VR Baby!

It might not be too surprising that Valve is focusing heavily on VR and the Vive. The main social area here at Steam Developer Days is lined with VR booths featuring a ton of really interesting games such as Work Simulator and Tilt Brush. I've really enjoyed trying my hand at Work Simulator and after the whole experience really think that the Vive is the most immersive VR I've used to date. The sensitivity of the tracking and controllers is superb and much smoother than other VR I've tried like the Oculus. Wick discovered the Tilt Brush VR app by Google and was painting some really interesting things for about an hour. It's hard to describe just want you can do with Tilt Brush but imagine a paint program where you can paint with light, smoke and other effects in 3D at room scale. These kinds of VR art experiences are going to allow people to create some really great stuff and I can't wait to see what people do with it when VR becomes more popular.

Valve Dropped Some News On What's Next

We've heard rumblings of a new Steam client update that aims to change things up considerably and I heard first hand of this today talking to a Steam designer and it was later confirmed in a Steam talk. They didn't talk a ton about what the new version would do but they did note that they wanted to improve how people find new games.

Valve said that they are partnering with Samsung to have the Steam Link built in to upcoming Samsung TV's. Smart TV's are doing so much these days and integrating the Steam Link into them seems like a really great next step to get Steam into every living room. I wonder how long it will be before you don't need a PC to stream the games and the TV's have enough horsepower to do it themselves?

During the VR talk they also let us know that they are working on bringing VR to Mac and SteamOS and that there would be a demo of VR on Linux for us to get our hands on tomorrow. Valve bringing VR to SteamOS, Linux and Mac sounds like something that should make people happy as will push VR to be a more open system, something Valve is committed to.

The Swag Is Strong With This One

Each Steam Developer Day attendee was gifted a Steam Controller, Steam Link and a bunch of other swag. This is a really great bonus and something I am looking forward to checking out. It's also really nice for players of Steam games because now that more developers have a Steam Controller, adding support is that much easier.

There Is No Steamboy

Personally, I've been interested in Valve producing a handheld system for quite some time. While I was talking to a Valve Developer I asked them if Valve was working on such a system and they said they weren't. They remembered the Steamboy concept video and thought it was pretty interesting but said Valve wasn't working on anything like that. It makes sense as they are focused on other things right now but I thought it was worth mentioning and lamenting.

Interested in reading my thoughts on day 2? Hit the link below.

http://cheerfulghost.com/jdodson/posts/3132/steam-developer-days-day-ii-a-wrap-up-to-a-great-conference

Get Beyond Good and Evil & Dungeon Keeper Free!

Ubisoft and EA are giving away two classic games you might want to check out. Continuing with it's 30 year anniversary celebration, Ubisoft is handing out copies of Beyond Good and Evil on UPlay. EA just dropped a Peter Molyneux classic Dungeon Keeper on its Origin service for free too. If you were looking for some classic PC titles to play these might be worth checking out.

Unless you are too good for free and absolutely must pay for them and I imagine you could do that if you wanted.

Head over to Club Ubisoft to get Beyond Good and Evil:

https://club.ubisoft.com/en-US/ubi30

Dungeon Keeper on EA Origin:

https://www.origin.com/usa/en-us/store/free-games/on-the-house

Nike Finally Brings Us Power Laces. Alright!

Dreams of finally owning the self lacing shoes from Back to the Future 2 might finally be here and coming along side a very good cause.

"Almost 30 years ago, Nike inspired a future vision of footwear — an individually responsive shoe that senses the wearer and adapts on its own. The Nike Mag, famously worn on the silver screen by Michael J. Fox, quickly became a cultural icon.

Today, Nike and The Michael J. Fox Foundation proudly announce the release of the 2016 Nike Mag — a limited-edition release of only 89 pairs available globally through an online draw — to once again channel the excitement of the Nike Mag to raise awareness in the fight against Parkinson’s disease and the Foundation's tireless efforts to speed a cure."

If you are interested in entering in the raffle, check the link below. It would be incredible if you won and hopefully, someday, Nike releases these as an actual think. Because if they did, i'd totally buy them.

http://news.nike.com/news/how-to-get-the-2016-nike-mag

My Review Of Plinkett's Star Wars The Force Awakens Review

I really enjoyed watching Star Wars The Force Awakens in theaters. I still enjoy watching it now and think it's a very solid addition to the Star Wars universe. With that, as I was watching it, I noticed a few things that stood out to me that I may have chosen to do differently. Some of those things are covered in Red Letter Media's Plinkett review of Star Wars The Force Awakens. The main one for me is how similar it is to a New Hope. It's nice that it "feels like Star Wars" but maybe i'd have made it less similar? I love talking about this stuff and Plinkett's Force Awakens Review opens the discussion again, which is something I can't get enough of.

The Force Awakens review starts things off by covering all the time that has passed since the Revenge of the Sith Plinkett Review and all the think pieces that have attempted to put the Prequels in a positive light. It's an interesting discussion about stupid click bait articles and reviews as well as the Star Wars Ring Theory that is an interesting idea but when put up to a microscope seems a bit silly.

The Plinkett Force Awakens Review is interesting because it also contains a few notes from the past Prequel reviews. I like this because it sort of gets everyone up to speed even if you haven't watched all the previous reviews. That said, if you haven't and like the style of this review, I seriously recommend you watch them all. I'd even start with the first ever Plinkett review of Star Wars Generations because they all blend together and form a fun story that is loosely threaded together.

Plinkett forges ahead discussing Disney's acquisition of LucasFilm and George Lucas's departure from Star Wars. Originally when LucasFilm was purchased Disney said Lucas would be involved in Star Wars something that was quickly changed and Plinkett notes.

My favorite parts of the review are when Plinkett discusses his ideas for an alternate Force Awakens storyline and each Plinkett review contains live action scenes involving George Lucas and this time JJ Abrams joins. Overall the review seems to note that The Force Awakens is a good movie but suffers from a few issues to repeated viewings. Not sure I disagree with much of what he says here but again... I really like the movie and still do.

Ultimately Star Wars The Force Awakens had an impossible job of creating a modern version Star Wars to lifelong fans as well as kids. It had a very fine dance to do in that the prequels were a thing that many longtime fans didn't love but a new generation of kids did. It had to start up a whole new universe of films as well as be a fucking great film and for that, I think it was one of the most impressive movies made in quite some time. It's not the best movie I saw in 2015 but it's one of the most anticipated and more than met my expectations considering how much was riding on it and how many peoples expectations it had to meet.

I love nearly everything Red Letter Media does and loved watching The Force Awakens Review. As someone that comes back to watch the prequel reviews multiple times i'm happy we got this review and if you watch it let me know what you think of it.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/04/2016 at 01:20pm

My Review of Jon's Review of Plinkett's Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review:

It's good. I agree with the points Jon makes and he states them well.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/04/2016 at 03:11pm

Actually I said that before even watching the video. :D I'm going to write this comment while watching.

I'm 45 minutes in and so far it's just a critique of Star Wars fans and the media around it. I kinda feel like the pacing would have been better if this was split in two-- a teardown of the lead-up to TFA, and then the review of TFA itself.

But I do like what he's saying about the politics of the prequel trilogy. As a more adult adult, I appreciate that part of the prequels more. I think it's likely that some of the political scenes were cut or trimmed down for length so it doesn't flow as well as it could, but Sidious masterfully building the Empire is great.

His criticism of the Republic/Resistance dichotomy is fair but it's also addressed. The Resistance is a semi-official military because the Republic has mostly disarmed. There were scenes cut that explain that, but again, I guess the politics was trimmed. It's also covered pretty extensively in other media, but those shouldn't be required for understanding.

I disagree with what he's saying about the OT not having much comedy outside of C3PO. The comedy is ramped up in TFA but it never felt out of place to me.

Oh man, that shot of Lucas saying "I was sort of ahead of my time with Red Tails. An all black film?" That felt so cringeworthy.

The lack of a "get the girl" plot didn't even register for me. I don't know. I don't see that as necessary at all. He really wanted Finn and Rey to kiss, but I never felt it was necessary. In fact it may have felt more derivative it if had happened.

Toward the end I felt some of these criticisms felt off the mark. Unfortunately I can't tell how many of them are the person's criticisms and how many are the character's, especially when he's talking about diversity.

I'd love it, though, if this was a guy talking about this stuff, not a guy talking about this stuff through a character with skits about being killed by filmmakers and banging pizza with a phone. It may be that in a near-two-hour video, the character and the humor just wear thin. But I've never really watched a Plinkett because of it until this one. There's great info and great critique, but I don't prefer the presentation.

That's contradictory, because I love boogie and his Francis character. LOVE him. So maybe the humor just isn't for me. But I do now see that the humor of Plinkett is worth sitting through for the content.

JaBo wrote on 10/04/2016 at 07:00pm

Can't watch the video from work, and I've never watched any, but one of my only criticisms about the force awakens, is Finn's humor. He's been brainwashed since a kid, yet suddenly he acts all normal? He should be awkward at best.

Travis Admin wrote on 10/04/2016 at 07:05pm

That's a very fair point, yeah. They touch on that in a short story that takes place before TFA, caring for others is kinda driven out of them. BUT at the same time, he's always resisted the brainwashing. Still, initial signs of the mental torment that gradually fade a bit as the movie goes on would have been great.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/06/2016 at 05:10am

JaBo: Good point. That said, that wouldn't work for the style of The Force Awakens. Finn is often comedic relief, which I enjoy but yeah when you put it that way, he wouldn't really be like that.

Travis: This review has the least amount of Plinkett's character than most. The Revenge of the Sith review had the most that I remember. Anyways, I think part of the fun is the character but the humor can get super dark and VERY sick.

> Toward the end I felt some of these criticisms felt off the mark. Unfortunately I can't tell how many of them are the person's criticisms and how many are the character's, especially when he's talking about diversity.

The diversity stuff was stupid. Essentially he said something like "diversity is fine and the characters are fine but Disney added diversity for market appeal so fuck them." So it's not bad, the movie isn't bad and the characters aren't bad but because a big corporation did it it's wrong or cynical? Or they realize that we live in a diverse world and did something for everyone. This is the weakest part of the argument he makes I think.

Also he admits it's a good film so his arguments aren't from the perspective of "this movie is bad" more like "let's discuss aspects of this movie that could be bad." It's like the Plinkett review of Avatar or Titanic, he admits they aren't bad movies up front and just really talks about how James Cameron makes big tentpole movies that pander to audiences. In the end I think the best kind of Plinkett review is of a bad bad movie like The Phantom Menace or Star Trek Insurrection not a good bad movie like Troll 2 or a good movie like The Force Awakens or Avatar.

AdamPFarnsworth wrote on 10/09/2016 at 02:32am

This review was almost Episode 1 for me. I was really looking forward to it, and even had a friend over to watch it with me. And was pretty disappointed.

The first hour was an uninspired rehashing of "Prequels vs Originals." Mike/Plinkett brings up the Ring Theory, says it's dumb, then discusses it for-ev-er.

Finally at Point 5, the Force Awakens Review begins. I agree with everyone that it seems difficult to make a good Plinkett review of a movie that is pretty good. RLM was practically required to make this review, but it felt like they had to nitpick to fill time.

I did love the pizza-phone sex. Plinkett reviews need the absurdity. It was uncomfortable to watch, but that's what Plinkett does best :)

Because the first half hour filled with not much new, the review felt really long. I was ready for it to be over with 10-15 mins still to go.

I can't say much that wasn't said already about the actual points. The diversity point felt forced and the lack of "sex" was interesting, but I didn't miss it when I watched the movie.

Overall, I was disappointed in this review and won't be watching it again.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/09/2016 at 03:10am

That's too bad Adam. My first viewing had similar moments but a second time was better. I think the hype I felt for it was a bit misplaced. I don't think the phantom menace reviews can be topped. Or Babies Day Out. Or Cop Dog.

Dubb wrote on 10/09/2016 at 04:51pm

Yeah, so, it was entertaining. The beginning majority just felt like it was rehashing a lot of the things from the prequel reviews, and things that they've said a lot on Red Letter Media. Then, it felt like it just sort of dragged on after he'd already made the point. It had entertaining moments though.

Interestingly, I thought the Ring theory made some good points, but didn't redeem the prequels, in that it's a good idea, but wasn't executed in a way which made the prequels enjoyable to watch. An entertaining movie doesn't need for one to find an intellectual premise after having watched it to justify its entertainment value. You know a movie is entertaining, because you're being entertained as you're watching it.

The review of TFA part of the review of TFA, like other people have said, made some good points, but it didn't have the feeling of totally tearing it apart, like with the prequel reviews, simply because, with its flaws, it's still an enjoyable movie. It is sort of a gutless clone of A New Hope, but I felt that was sort of needed in order to reestablish Star Wars to people who felt jaded by the prequels.

Like Travis, I wasn't bothered by Ray and Finn not kissing. The race thing didn't even enter my mind. I thought it was a deliberate attempt to show that just because the main character's female, she doesn't need to fall all over the male hero. Likewise, the male hero doesn't have to be horny over her just because she's female.

I enjoyed Finn's humor. I did find it odd that the defected storm trooper seemed to be so at ease. But I enjoyed it.

I did not, however, enjoy the diarrhea scene at the end of the review. Sometimes Red Letter Media does things like that, and sometimes they don't. I prefer it when they don't. I prefer implied humor over, "let's show a long drawn out gross-out scene". I usually just tune out and imagine the pretty flowers or something.

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Listen To The Entire Doom Soundtrack Clocking In At Over Two Hours

Mick Gordon the composer of the new Doom Soundtrack has dropped the whole score in it's entirely on YouTube and you can stream the whole thing above. At over two hours this intense hash metal soundtrack is worth checking out if you were a fan of the game or crazy metal scores.

First Look At The NES Classic In All It's HD Glory!

From the first mention of the NES Classic I was in. 30 amazing NES games in HD that hook up to your modern TV? Hell yes. Nintendo is known for producing good quality stuff but we didn't know how it would look in person or what the user interface would be... until now. Nintendo has launched a new commercial with a song that sounds like Don't You Want Me by The Human League which basically means it's pitch perfect for the NES classic. The TV spot shows off how easy it is to create save points by pressing the reset button. The NES classic interface is a 8-bit themed homage to that era and it looks very easy to use. When you move through each game there is a 1P or 2P icon on each game signifying if you can play it with a friend or not, which is a great way to sell that second controller that isn't included. The commercial also shows off the 4x3 mode in crisp HD and CRT filter mode which looks good for what it does.

The NES Classic drops November 11th and is already sold out on Amazon but if you ask them they will alert you when you can pre-order it again. Curious how many of you plan on picking this up and if you weren't does this convince you?

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/02/2016 at 01:16am

Not sure, still a bit undecided, not very motivated to get it. I do like that this spot shows off the save feature, which is great.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 10/03/2016 at 02:44am

The nintendo nx looks so dated.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/03/2016 at 02:52am

> The nintendo nx looks so dated.

/rimshot

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/03/2016 at 02:59am

LOL @Will_Ball, yeah I guess they decided to go with that retro look, after all it worked quite well for them in the 80's and 90's. LOL

Travis Admin wrote on 10/03/2016 at 06:43pm

The save points are great and really simple to use. This is looking better each time I see something new.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/03/2016 at 10:25pm

I read something today that said the demo unit cord length for the controllers were somewhat short around 3 feet. The original NES had an 8 foot controller cord length. Hopefully they increase that for the production run OR i'll have to get a long HDMI cable.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/09/nes-classic-edition-sports-tweakable-graphics-very-short-controller-cord/

Travis Admin wrote on 10/04/2016 at 01:29am

Oh damn, that's short. Hopefully it was just for the demo unit. I can't imagine that being very workable.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/04/2016 at 01:52am

Agreed.

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Get New Hearthstone Hero Tyrande Whisperwind Free- w Twitch Prime

After Amazon bought Twitch I was wondering what that had in store for Twitch as when a company is bought out it usually has a big effect on the child company. Today Amazon is launching Twitch Prime which is an extension of the Amazon Prime yearly service. Basically if you have Amazon Prime you get Twitch Prime included as part of the package, which is a nice bonus for Amazon Prime members. Twitch Prime gives you an exclusive ad free experience and every so often you get free games and exclusive in game items. For the launch of Twitch Prime you can get the free Hearthstone hero Tyrande Whisperwind free until November 5th. If you have Amazon Prime but don't care about the Hearthstone Hero, I urge you to head over to link your Twitch and Prime account to get the code and give it away. Apparently this deal is region locked to the counties Amazon Prime is available in so not all Hearthstone players are eligible to get the hero.

That said, if you are you should check it out as I've played a couple matches with Tyrande and she is a fun new hero that makes losing as Priest a bit easier to handle. All joking aside, I made a pretty fun Resurrect & N'Zoth Priest deck and Tyrande pilots it well.

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20303032/try-twitch-prime-and-get-tyrande-whisperwind-9-30-2016

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/01/2016 at 05:36pm

I read about this last night. I have Amazon Prime, but not a Twitch account, so I think I'm going to create one. I do have the Twitch app on the PS3, but I've never used it. I haven't watched any Twitch channels, but I suppose I could start. If nothing else, the game bonuses would be nice to get.

*Update* I created my account and found one of my favorite YouTubers to follow for free. I claimed my free Hearthstone gift, but am waiting for Battle.net to update.

>Tyrande and she is a fun new hero that makes losing as Priest a bit easier to handle.

What do you mean by this?

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/02/2016 at 12:45am

It's a sort of inside joke about the current state of Priest not being very good. In fact I didn't have a Priest deck even made before this. I made a Rez death rattle deck and it's not amazing but fun!

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/02/2016 at 01:13am

Ah. That's the funny thing about this game, you'd think the Priest would be one of the best because his ability is to heal yourself. Also, you'd expect Gul'dan to be the worst because his ability to draw a card causes you to lose life. It seems that's apparently not true, from what I've seen and you've said.

Speaking of Gul'dan, I'm thinking about posting about the Warcraft movie, because I recently rented it via Amazon Prime (see I mentioned AP, too, so this is even more relevant). He was in it and I thought it was a cool movie.

As for Twitch, I'm all signed up and have my AP account linked. My user name is "gregopeck" and I've already subscribed to one of my favorite YouTubers and followed another. Let me know if you're on there, or send me a friend request. :)

Back to Hearthstone, since I got Tyrande, I switched out the Priest and selected her. I also changed the card back for all of my decks to the one you get when you unlock her. That one is beautifully blue, even better than the Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void card back.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/02/2016 at 05:55pm

> Ah. That's the funny thing about this game, you'd think the Priest would be one of the best because his ability is to heal yourself.

It's a fine ability later game but not great early game. Nearly any other classes hero power is better early game. Turn 2 comes around and you have nothing to play? Well with Rogue you get a 1/2 weapon. Druid gets a 1 attack 1 armor weapon. Warlock can draw a card. Paladin gets a 1/1 minion. Shaman gets a Totem. Mage can hit face with a fireball. Warrior gets 2 armor. Priest's healing is USELESS turn two because you nearly never need to heal anything.

Warlocks ability seems to me to be terrible until you realize how incredible drawing a card is.

> Speaking of Gul'dan, I'm thinking about posting about the Warcraft movie, because I recently rented it via Amazon Prime (see I mentioned AP, too, so this is even more relevant). He was in it and I thought it was a cool movie.

Interested in reading what you think of it. I was thinking of buying it straight up because of getting the Hearthstone Midevh hero for free with the Bluray.

> Back to Hearthstone, since I got Tyrande, I switched out the Priest and selected her. I also changed the card back for all of my decks to the one you get when you unlock her. That one is beautifully blue, even better than the Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void card back.

It's a very cool card back. Currently what I am playing with for all my decks too.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/02/2016 at 07:01pm

I think Midevh was in it, too. I don't really have much to say about it. I liked it and thought it was cool. I liked things that were in it that reminded me of the Warcraft games I've played (I haven't played all of them), including Hearthstone. Other than that, there's not much else to say about it. I think if you like Warcraft, you probably won't be disappointed. From what little I've seen about it online, it seems that it is pretty popular.

JaBo wrote on 10/13/2016 at 11:25pm

I did not like WoW, but I do like the traditional Warcraft series. Would the movie still be good without an appreciation for WoW?

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 10/13/2016 at 11:28pm

Yeah! I've never played WoW, but I've played the first two games and Hearthstone, so I was able to appreciate the movie as a Warcraft fan.

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Upcoming Hearthstone Nerf's In Patch 6.1.3

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/gallery/1MP96FB3EZF31475025687604.png

For quite some time Hearthstone players have noted that some cards are a bit overpowered. Chief among the cards most cited as massively overpowered are Yogg Saron, Tuskar Totemic and Call of the Wild. Blizzard seems to have agreed because today they dropped information about some upcoming balancing changes to the cards I cited. I never felt that Yogg or Call of the Wild were overpowered but I don't really mind the changes made to both cards. In the case of Call of the Wild Blizzard increased the mana cost to 9 still making it a very powerful late game card but it now competes with other Hunter cards like King Krush. One change I really liked is the nerf to Abusive Sergeant. Abusive Sergeant is now a 1/1 down from a 2/1 which makes it a more situational card as opposed to a card that was nearly always good at any point in a Zoo deck. The changes to Charge seem to have entirely wiped out the Warrior OTK Worgen deck which I won't lament as when the combo was achieved there was nothing you could do to stop it.

Happy Blizzard made these changes and now that One Night in Karazhan is safely behind us I can't wait to learn more about the next expansion, whenever that will be.

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20303031

JaBo wrote on 09/30/2016 at 07:32am

So, I agree with all the nerfs except Yogg. I can't justify playing Yogg after this. Before, I could kill myself with Yogg or do some great things. It typically averaged out that if I had 10+ spells, I could hope to wipe the board at the least. But, I've killed myself by over drawing my deck and fatigueing myself out more than a few times.

Now though, it's like servant of yogg. Could have 20 spells to cast, but the 1st one could kill Yogg and then done. I can't spend 10 mana to do nothing in a game. So now, the odds will be more likely that Yogg is a flop or a negative effect than ever. It was barely a competitive card as is... I'm not sure why C'Thun can be powerful, N'Zoth can be powerful, but not Yogg.

The rest are nice changes though. So sick of Shaman decks, FUUUU hahah.

Call of the Wild is way powerful, so it going to 9 is actually reasonable.

Btw, the best way to stop that Worgen OTK is with mage or hunter secrets :D

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/01/2016 at 04:07pm

> So, I agree with all the nerfs except Yogg. I can't justify playing Yogg after this. Before, I could kill myself with Yogg or do some great things. It typically averaged out that if I had 10+ spells, I could hope to wipe the board at the least. But, I've killed myself by over drawing my deck and fatigueing myself out more than a few times.

Yogg often kills himself early on, so you're right, this is a pretty big nerf to Yogg. Firstly I don't have Yogg and was sort of considering crafting him. This doesn't change that, but I might craft another more essential card. Yogg always seemed like a #yolocatchup card, this does change that but it seems.. honestly it seems more fair to me. Typically when people prayed to Yogg I never felt like the outcome was very good, I mean sometimes it was but generally it was a pile of nothing. That said, when Yogg works it's incredible and people seemed really upset by that.

> The rest are nice changes though. So sick of Shaman decks, FUUUU hahah.

Agreed. The deck is so much value on value it's gross. I am not sure these changes really fix the main issues but when standard rotates GOODBYE TROGG AND TOTEM GOLEM! Honestly liked Totem Golem before Tunnel Trogg and when they added Tunnel Trogg Shaman still wasn't amazing but those cards combined with others make it so hard to out value. Shaman used to be my favorite class but it feels like such cheese now I have a hard time playing it.

> Btw, the best way to stop that Worgen OTK is with mage or hunter secrets :D

Or a later game taunt. Once I knew what to look out for with Worgen OTK I don't think anyone ever killed me with the combo again.

JaBo wrote on 10/02/2016 at 10:48pm

http://venturebeat.com/2016/09/30/twitch-prime-users-get-new-hearthstone-priest-hero-tyrande-whisperwind/

I already had amazon prime, so yay for free hero

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 10/03/2016 at 12:52am

Totally. I picked her up. She's a fun hero.

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jdodson1

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