tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79266548282865202172024-03-06T00:34:03.194-08:00Three Frags Left...David "Tinman" Conroy's Game Development and Review JournalDavid Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.comBlogger153125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-15273460439987564722021-07-02T05:04:00.002-07:002021-07-02T05:10:10.867-07:00For The Emperor!!!<p>I am a big fan of Warhammer 40k. For some reason certain people find that unusual. I am not sure why. The 40k Universe is, in my opinion, the best science fiction universe currently established, and far, far superior to any other mainstream sci-fi verse. So of course I am a fan ... what other universe has 8 foot fungi fighting space nuns?</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg05-ygcSkE4duTfoKanQhBHg42vsmIbWwnJjCe374h64ark8jd3cfXg4m4_qZ739iE4i-MtZOs122zyDDw17hOc8pnDgRrb-WOHKsRTccxljX7doZrjiKsPVEWdxZioSRu0WeLt3TNneWc/s1167/40K-20180924044832.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="1167" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg05-ygcSkE4duTfoKanQhBHg42vsmIbWwnJjCe374h64ark8jd3cfXg4m4_qZ739iE4i-MtZOs122zyDDw17hOc8pnDgRrb-WOHKsRTccxljX7doZrjiKsPVEWdxZioSRu0WeLt3TNneWc/w400-h235/40K-20180924044832.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>I should clarify that I am more a fan of the books and lore than the tabletop RPG, which is possibly where people get confused. I have over 30 books so far, most involving the Horus Heresy, but some focused on the 40k era proper. Many folks only really consider the tabletop realm when describing 40k to them. This is a shame and something that also confuses me as 40k is so much more than plastic figures and dice rolls on a table. The video games, for example, are a great way to explore both the lore of the game and the glorious and horrifying universe that is 40k.</p><p>One such game is Inquisitor Martyr, a B-tier ARPG by a small indie company that I have been playing recently. For what it's worth, its not a bad game, but not quite on par with the likes of Diablo 3 and Path of Exile. It is perhaps more comparable to Wolcen in terms of production value as far as ARPGs are concerned. Nevertheless, Martyr has allowed me to cleanse a pocket of the galaxy of xenos and heretic filth in 40k style, which is more than I can ask for in the current drought of good 40k games. Hopefully Darktide further cures that itch in the near future.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzOwvKkCXTQsn2MscCED7-W8QJBNm6FkCCj8UFZO_NCPt_FhOk2XiQa5gBGA9_FBZcgXu1U-eO7RBZMOegeQqjGJ2tp-1etenVSEYk8SPxfOTFmGxjw8bKkoxlfDREFntWA0hPoemZ5udf/s1475/tumblr_p3voqmfoFe1vjjcaco1_1280.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1475" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzOwvKkCXTQsn2MscCED7-W8QJBNm6FkCCj8UFZO_NCPt_FhOk2XiQa5gBGA9_FBZcgXu1U-eO7RBZMOegeQqjGJ2tp-1etenVSEYk8SPxfOTFmGxjw8bKkoxlfDREFntWA0hPoemZ5udf/s320/tumblr_p3voqmfoFe1vjjcaco1_1280.jpg" /></a></div><p>I have been playing as a Crusader, one of 4 types of 'Inquisitors', a word used very lightly in said game. I burn things with a Heavy Flamer, the most zealous and righteous tool for correcting the errors of heretics, mutants and the unclean. The build focuses on crit, vulnerability and area of effect damage. It's all very straightforward work. However, the build I am running is quite unique as I seem to be doing something that no-one else is. I usually build incredibly tanky with good sustain in almost all ARPGs I play, and although that is technically no different in Martyr, I am approaching it from a very different angle.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVx8qwl2gbqJzaEshPImZ6ArD-yS9pwr5RDOA_EYnHISeYjV8WMDt8TDkA33QwNmu_QMlE3dPEb3MzolV2UbOBdGxfZXCLdPiL4EuSaIhujuFg9dh7tJJGRRgchXvqAxjK4P0NgcnKHYjB/s900/heavy+flamer.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="464" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVx8qwl2gbqJzaEshPImZ6ArD-yS9pwr5RDOA_EYnHISeYjV8WMDt8TDkA33QwNmu_QMlE3dPEb3MzolV2UbOBdGxfZXCLdPiL4EuSaIhujuFg9dh7tJJGRRgchXvqAxjK4P0NgcnKHYjB/w206-h400/heavy+flamer.png" width="206" /></a></div><p>In Martyr, there are up to 3 health pools you should maintain in order to stay alive. The first two exist by default, Health and Suppression. Health is obvious: if you hit 0 you die. Suppression is not as obvious, as you can technically be completely suppressed (i.e. 0 suppresion) and still stay alive. Suppression acts as a pseudo crowd-control and status effect resistance meter, with multiple game mechanics tied to various stages of it. Keeping it as high as possible in the green or "Protected" state is usually the best strategy. Both health and suppression regenerate out of combat, however you will definetly need to build for both if you want to stay alive IN combat (i.e. sustain).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNcmQltQFP-iewuRb2M3swCJNZi19v4Eh8NhDExhSVhOhfNOi_ViXXxapfSivCEEaAldTuKZMG01aMy1qJ4C6mJr-SATf0Ca_AC_jUEV6Ln2H_IlHQLK8pDjhlEUn1QRmaLI_b2tKPHVEk/s232/sustain.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNcmQltQFP-iewuRb2M3swCJNZi19v4Eh8NhDExhSVhOhfNOi_ViXXxapfSivCEEaAldTuKZMG01aMy1qJ4C6mJr-SATf0Ca_AC_jUEV6Ln2H_IlHQLK8pDjhlEUn1QRmaLI_b2tKPHVEk/s0/sustain.png" /></a></div><p>Energy shield is the third form of "health" pool that you can explore, sitting over/before your health pool and tangential with suppression. It is optional as you can choose to use gear which gives you energy shield on activation, or have (very) small amounts of it accumulate on hit or kill. You can accumulate up to 2x your health pool in energy shield. However, it is generally accepted within the community that energy shield is ... really bad. This is mostly because it does not scale with your defenses at all (i.e. it takes raw damage) and therefore does not last for any reasonable or worthy amount of time. However, it is the backbone of my build's defenses and sustain.<br /><br />To explain, I will introduce you to one of the many Psalm Doctrines (i.e. think D2 Runewords) currently in the game:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ZwDVNUDDX86iRwiij9ZCEnx-8aAtDimjOxX5RoTkQCjO1otDgl2BZfoi3ride3nz9AYWy2g6gv1PUMPFdrIK9Tj8TIZLCjvQPhVzkW-ulOPQw05-H-kIVJBiPTqkmrVPV0uCzdYcijnw/s402/es+doctrine.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="57" data-original-width="402" height="56" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ZwDVNUDDX86iRwiij9ZCEnx-8aAtDimjOxX5RoTkQCjO1otDgl2BZfoi3ride3nz9AYWy2g6gv1PUMPFdrIK9Tj8TIZLCjvQPhVzkW-ulOPQw05-H-kIVJBiPTqkmrVPV0uCzdYcijnw/w400-h56/es+doctrine.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>As you can see it gives you health and energy shield based off a portion of the damage you deal. Not too bad, but it absolutely pales in comparison to some of the more powerful damage focused Psalm Doctrines, for example:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgomJF71iTcBMMvz8WiQYbvu1FdG3_GwvXIp1VJoaRgerxCUgLptjRJ55bYjZGNudhU7CTUW2hjR6HnPAlRPvMEn_XdwMtSXvauPppbm_8IJ28mpXKKaCV39RYF38EhbnQiEfi0Ky7vKl4E/s450/cc+dmg+doctrine.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="57" data-original-width="450" height="51" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgomJF71iTcBMMvz8WiQYbvu1FdG3_GwvXIp1VJoaRgerxCUgLptjRJ55bYjZGNudhU7CTUW2hjR6HnPAlRPvMEn_XdwMtSXvauPppbm_8IJ28mpXKKaCV39RYF38EhbnQiEfi0Ky7vKl4E/w400-h51/cc+dmg+doctrine.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>Sooo ... no one uses it. This is a grevious mistake, one that I personally cannot blame people for. Prior to using Psalm Doctrines, you are taught that energy shield sucks and you shouldn't pay it any attention, which is mostly true. However, 12% of your damage done going into energy shields is quite considerable ... assuming you are dealing truckloads of damage and SIGNIFICANTLY more than anything else in the game. So, the more damage you do, the tankier you become. However, you can still get suppressed while shielded and occasionally even lose health. You don't always have the potential to maintain 100% energy shield uptime, especially when things get hairy. To counteract this, I will introduce you to two very special relic gear enchants, which again no-one seems to be using:</p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPRBaPP_h2JoHhuEBMZkFlt8S3cdK-L7xBEG4KwR2voW3MCIjM7ptXduVzadyZkwaIiFP-MZv0IA9sA4io-eFud8Te-cwFw1XwxDUY2WQuvaG80HkpZowLflD4yUEsDdEk4ZwA3R7DhIO/s430/relic+es+enchants.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="114" data-original-width="430" height="106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPRBaPP_h2JoHhuEBMZkFlt8S3cdK-L7xBEG4KwR2voW3MCIjM7ptXduVzadyZkwaIiFP-MZv0IA9sA4io-eFud8Te-cwFw1XwxDUY2WQuvaG80HkpZowLflD4yUEsDdEk4ZwA3R7DhIO/w400-h106/relic+es+enchants.png" width="400" /></a><br /></p><p>Yes, that's right. Taking damage to energy shield can completely restore your health AND suppression, and taking higher amounts of energy shield damage (i.e. raw damage) means you only do this faster and more efficiently! That is ridiculous, and results in a build philosophy very much in the vein of "a good defense is a good offense". Essentially, damage=tankiness=sustain. Combined with a reckless playstyle, the build becomes incredibly fun to play with a solid risk vs reward paradigm, dealing and wading into damage as a means of staying alive. Observe...</p><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oaqYvmpDkmc" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Inquisitor Martyr has been a good bit of fun during a general drought of interesting games. I will likely be done with it soon, but I can safely say I did enjoy it and definitely got my money's worth (over 110 hours presently). It has also taught me a few things about game design that I was not expecting.<br /></p>David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-47809934551469793712021-05-05T23:04:00.007-07:002021-05-05T23:18:24.399-07:00Recklessness!<p>Somewhat recently, I had a laugh and an enjoyable conversation with some old school friends regarding one's sense of humour, inspired mostly by me randomly linking them my first Youtube video ever. This video title '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ7tmoI5f7Q">Warrior and Rogue Live Action PvP'</a> was a video published in 2008, but was actually created the year before I even made a Youtube account. This video is incredibly violent and stupid. It uses footage from Braveheart, audio from Unreal Tournament (though people still think it is from DoTA!) and text from World of Warcraft, composed to be what the title suggests, a live action player versus player video. It was created for the purposes of comedy and I remember having a jolly time editing and releasing it back in the day.</p><p>Strangely enough, watching it again 12 years later, it had not lost its charm. It was still as ridiculous and horrible as it was when I was a younger man. The only difference is that I am somewhat embarrassed about it nowadays. The content is something I would never show someone off the cuff as I think it points directly at my still incredibly dark sense of humour, inspired by Ren and Stimpy, Monty Python and other politically incorrect media of the 80s and 90s. My sense of humour is about the last thing that I ever actually reveal to people and this video was much too forward for modern day discourse.<br /></p><p>I was also embarrassed because the quality of the video is absolutely rubbish! I am sure at the time both myself and the Youtube Gods thought it was state of the art, but at just 480p and 25fps, I knew this treasure would not age well. So, I had the grand idea of completely recreating it from scratch, being my first ever 'remaster' of an old video. During this process I rediscovered just how much effort went into even this first publication, as it took almost an entire day of straight editing to get it basically 99.9% the same as the original, but this time in glorious 4K (2160p) at 60fps. Behold!! </p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_mwjg6mzSWM" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>
<p>Something I realised while re-editing this is that the original footage I was using was not at 25fps, meaning I must have forced this during my 2007/8 rendition. This caused a variety of syncing issues that needed immaculate attention lest footage went out of sync with the original (but also remastered) audio sequence. Every 5 seconds I needed to cut frames, increase or decrease playback speed and resync in order to get the new and old footage to roughly line up. This took a long, long time. In addition to this, I decided to render the whole new composition at 60fps using a frame blending technique called Optical Flow. This has a tendency to create artifacts, particularly early on in the video, when the sampling has not had many frames to work with. You can definetly notice this in the opening sequence, but it quickly dissipates. I guess every video will have its quirks, and this is one of them. <br /></p><p>Anyways, part of the reason I did this was because the conversation I had with friends was around the idea of whether or not I would ever make something like this video again. The truth was that I actually would, and to prove my point ... I simply remade it again. That probably seems like a waste of time, but for me it immortalizes something about the era I grew up in, what I found funny and honestly still find comical today. In a time where I find myself laughing less and less often (for various reasons), having something like this in my skeleton closet is reassuring. Even if it is quite embarrassing.<br /></p>David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-15921562015104520152020-11-03T01:15:00.002-08:002020-11-03T01:16:47.103-08:00The Destroyer of Worlds<p>I should probably make a blog post about this. Mostly because it is actually quite a significant achievement for me across multiple vectors. Also because I have severely neglected this 'blog' in recent years, so giving it some attention is a nice way to kill time.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwP6BvLBNTOxIWoIPgX2Uv1MY7pR0VwX9Xu10D8ae4htu3pYa7ChzjLoS4kuFg3OUCj_il6hWhOOra5IDTlSyBtYCCM3DJIPrylayfhERsuZUkrxYVKQzT_fkAF2-fhOQcE8bpM2FKkaRT/s1920/WoWScrnShot_091919_194906.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwP6BvLBNTOxIWoIPgX2Uv1MY7pR0VwX9Xu10D8ae4htu3pYa7ChzjLoS4kuFg3OUCj_il6hWhOOra5IDTlSyBtYCCM3DJIPrylayfhERsuZUkrxYVKQzT_fkAF2-fhOQcE8bpM2FKkaRT/s320/WoWScrnShot_091919_194906.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>I started playing Classic WoW last year like a lot of people, riding the nostalgia train and experiencing the best version of Blizzard's Azeroth once more. Of course I played a warrior, and of course I played Horde ... how could I not? What was different this time though is that instead of my goto Undead choice, I chose Orc, which had its ups and downs. Not having Cannibalize while leveling was significantly limiting. I probably regret this choice overall.</p><p>I leveled with a small group of friends and had a grand time on the journey to max level. We mostly ran a 'melee cleave' team through dungeons, though to be honest most of the cleaving was probably done by me. This was significant because I have NEVER had the opportunity to play WoW, in any of its expansions, with a group of people I know. It was a jolly time and fun was had by all, for the most part.</p><p style="text-align: center;"> <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='527' height='314' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dx35uoYM-AKsu2ci75bM4wnh_txjNVB44nkr4mf1XXD_Hg_uMYR3Ihi533ONooMzQcUJFkesip-wu-jpN5Chw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></p><p></p><p></p><p>Eventually a few patches later, Blizzard historically released the Honor and Battleground system. I was excited for this because I was interested in doing the honor grind again in some manner. Unfortunately, queues for Horde were in excess of 30 mins, which not only killed that idea, but my interest in playing the game further. My group stopped playing it too.<br /><br />I took a break from it for over 10 months, randomly coming back a couple of months ago. My objective this time was specifically two things:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Achieve Rank 10, despite BG queue times</li><li>Acquire <a href="https://classic.wowhead.com/item=19854/zinrokh-destroyer-of-worlds"><span style="color: #800180;">[Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds]</span></a> (my favourite weapon)<br /></li></ul><p>I achieved both of these in due time, but it was one hell of a time and energy commitment. Firstly I needed to not just raid, but I often needed to tank. Being a tank in WoW comes with the most responsibility and pressure of any role, and requires you to have ideal gear and knowledge for the job, lest you die and wipe the raid. Spamming Zulgurub, Molten Core and AQ20 runs for a month straight eventually led to Zin'rokh finally dropping. I was incredibly fortunate enough to win the roll against 2 other warriors and 2 hunters (wtf??). It was probably the most ecstatic I have been playing WoW, ever, and will probably be my most memorable moment playing the game, even after 15 years.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIz2MuFBUxgo-UlbBq1051Nb8oebFZ69dNfN-G3Ta_0qT6p38H_5N9une7OcWuD-MoDmXrZvlgA_NkO0BrrsJZQEhxAMDN3pGNk6zPma94MWR6kBRsgyT9Iyn6RonklhlmHQ39NgFa-s1x/s585/Zinrok.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="585" data-original-width="501" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIz2MuFBUxgo-UlbBq1051Nb8oebFZ69dNfN-G3Ta_0qT6p38H_5N9une7OcWuD-MoDmXrZvlgA_NkO0BrrsJZQEhxAMDN3pGNk6zPma94MWR6kBRsgyT9Iyn6RonklhlmHQ39NgFa-s1x/s320/Zinrok.png" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC6gtlIvrFumHT1bd7wITfLgo0bsPA6uK4nLkAdizr4iaqXpFamOi-KmQM6wtQxB2HT-aPkrs9NjLOUXBHRtR9BzYj4zzwMQadmqv67g6dws6DFM1baVNq4Y4I9wjsaxGWLHQXmoKKk3z6/s986/WoWScrnShot_100820_204614.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="986" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC6gtlIvrFumHT1bd7wITfLgo0bsPA6uK4nLkAdizr4iaqXpFamOi-KmQM6wtQxB2HT-aPkrs9NjLOUXBHRtR9BzYj4zzwMQadmqv67g6dws6DFM1baVNq4Y4I9wjsaxGWLHQXmoKKk3z6/w400-h225/WoWScrnShot_100820_204614.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p> Armed with the Destroyer of Worlds, I decided that now was the best time to push towards Rank 10 in PvP. Back in the day I achieved Rank 11, Lieutenant General, on my Undead Warlock, probably my most memorable achievement in the game. I knew it was going to be an enormous grind, but that it would also be a fantastic opportunity to but Zin'rokh to great use and collect some ridiculous footage. I ran solo, lone-wolf, without a team, healer or any support, which I cannot recommend as a warrior.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhABUvubv9vecnRYvIiMEw1rRcbhPWY0PEht2jWiXuDrJl-2spmxBPHq2zbpXkwOv0Ce80t22ehtJyMBT6O8_E6IiAsPmiqdMEgh3HbFdkBepw4ipkG0_IWol6cEIMdypkgH_yaEAMRJSpp/s720/Just_Zinrok_things.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhABUvubv9vecnRYvIiMEw1rRcbhPWY0PEht2jWiXuDrJl-2spmxBPHq2zbpXkwOv0Ce80t22ehtJyMBT6O8_E6IiAsPmiqdMEgh3HbFdkBepw4ipkG0_IWol6cEIMdypkgH_yaEAMRJSpp/w400-h225/Just_Zinrok_things.gif" width="400" /></a></div><p>After a solid month of PvP I hit Rank 10, being at a consistent ~50-100th standing on my server every week, while still doing full-time work. This is actually quite surprising, considering I did not have a premade team to PUG stomp with and was in competition against the horde premades for honor on my server. The old vanilla ranking system was more about competing against your own faction than the enemy.<br /><br />The footage I collected was absolutely absurd. Even in my ok-ish blues and epics I would frequently 3 shot or even 2 shot opponents. I made a video and it has many of these moments in relatively quick succession. A month of recording results in a LOT of footage, after all.<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9-3yEi-PHPw" width="560"></iframe>
<br /><br />The video also contains a couple of sections where I square off against other Warriors in much better gear than I using either <a href="https://classic.wowhead.com/item=21134/dark-edge-of-insanity"><span style="color: #800180;">[Dark Edge of Insanity]</span></a> or <a href="https://classic.wowhead.com/item=19364/ashkandi-greatsword-of-the-brotherhood"><span style="color: #800180;">[Ashkandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood]</span></a>, two of the best weapons in the game (at this time). These were special moments as even though Zin'rokh and my gear do not compare to these powerhouses, you can still take opponents down with enough skill and luck. It's times like these where vanilla WoW's PvP mechanics shine through, something modern day WoW severely lacks with its constant normalization.<br /><br />The last 2 months have been probably some of the most fun and rewarding WoW experiences I have had. It's strange that I have basically done it solo, once again, like I have always done. Perhaps that says something about my character more than anything. I will finish this post by leaving my equipped gear listed. It's by far not in any way the best in the game, but for me it has definitely been the most memorable.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-7jS1u3An3jIlc7m2FRvtfM53Ik282QNUZpofWGLwSPfxN44BPF0FdxxLpxxvsop65CFZbYM4b8UFXIc1g9dMI-e24k95vKZcU0rTzJ54xzZ70RLeTbUf_7_gXurcG6baeP7RHUkKFAz4/s804/Destroyer+of+Worlds+Gear.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="804" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-7jS1u3An3jIlc7m2FRvtfM53Ik282QNUZpofWGLwSPfxN44BPF0FdxxLpxxvsop65CFZbYM4b8UFXIc1g9dMI-e24k95vKZcU0rTzJ54xzZ70RLeTbUf_7_gXurcG6baeP7RHUkKFAz4/w400-h199/Destroyer+of+Worlds+Gear.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p>David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-87833819051363106932020-04-18T16:40:00.000-07:002020-04-19T03:55:39.803-07:00First Final FantasyFinal Fantasy VII Remake is the first Final Fantasy game I have really sat down and played. Sure, I have dabbled with the demos and small segments of the older VI, VII, VIII and IX before, but only to become familiar with the tried and true Active Time Battle (ATB) combat system. I never played them for the story, nor did I care much for the lore or background of these games, despite their cultural significance. I guess I always thought the FF games were not dark and gritty enough for my liking.<br />
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I'm not sure what got me interested in the remake of VII, but I downloaded the demo and quite enjoyed the combat system. However, what struck me was the amount of effort the creators have gone into crafting an actually decent narrative, something I am generally quite critical of in games. Story has never been something I found overly compelling in the games I play, preferring to watch movies or read a good book for my fix of that. However, even in the demo you could tell the creators both love and respect this game quite dearly and have gone to great lengths to make in a legitimate expositional experience.<br />
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Finishing the game left me in an awkward, alien state - I've never been depressed about completing a game before. The desire to continue the journey (even though I know vaguely what happens) was strong with this game and having to put it down from a narrative standpoint was sad and disheartening. If this is what FF fans or story game players feel and look for in games then I can safely say that I get it now. I wouldn't say its the healthiest state to be in constantly, but the fact that a video game has the capacity to do that is remarkable to me. It truly is the best entertainment medium.<br />
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Visually the game is impressive too, pushing PS4 technology to the limits with the latest Unreal Engine tech. Although its capped at 30fps on the console (hopefully this improves) the level of detail in the environments in certain places is beyond ridiculous. I would say the term 'overkill' is both appropriate and accurate to describe the detail the creators have put into sections of this game, particularly from a visual standpoint. My PS4 is audibly struggling (i.e. fans cooling) to the point where I have put my old laptop cooler underneath it to not stress it too much. On PC this game is going to look gorgeous, and play even better!<br />
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Gameplay wise it is also a blast and would have had to be for me to stick around playing it at all. It is a good mix of real-time and ATB modes that requires you to employ both to have any degree of success. You can control any member of your party, but while doing so, other party members wont do much more than attack (occasionally) and guard (thankfully). Sometimes the AI here is a little frustrating, having characters run off and even face the wrong way at times. Tifa I found was especially bad at this for some reason. I would have personally tweaked this to not have to babysit non-active members so much - doing nothing is fine, but doing less than nothing is cancer. However, when things work, the combat is chunky and visually impressive with the damage numbers during staggers (enemy incapacitation) feeling rewarding almost every time.<br />
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After completing the campaign, playing the game in Hard mode and attempting the endgame VR Arenas has been a solid challenge. Some of the VR battles contain monsters that are not seen anywhere else in the campaign, and the rewards for defeating them are basically best in slot. Not being able to use items means you need to consider how much Mana Points (MP) you are using as you can't just spam spells and brute force your way through. Even simple monsters hit like a truck, so making a build with some solid defences and sustain efficiency is also critical. You don't do any damage when you are dead, as they say.<br />
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I do hope they continue releasing content for remake and not just work solely on the second chapter. A few more difficult arenas to conquer would cater towards crazies like myself for awhile yet, and be minimal work at best. Here's hoping Square Enix realises this and finds the time. Otherwise, solid game, easy recommendation, 10/10.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-86833630516779218782020-04-07T16:37:00.002-07:002020-04-07T16:41:21.020-07:00Rip and TearI should probably make this post, mostly so I have a reference for it later when I upgrade my PC again 8 years from now.<br />
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Conveniently before the Caronavirus nuked the PC component economy (not to mention the rest of the economy), I decided to buy a new PC. This is different from the minor upgrades and part replacements over the last 9 years (i.e. the last time I did this), as this is, of course, a completely new build in a completely new case. I still have my old computer which actually works fine for the most part.<br />
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So why did I upgrade? Well, there is a host of reasons, one of them being I liked the old model of having a back-up PC and a reliable machine for folks to use at LANs. But more realistically, it was honestly just time to. There were parts in my old PC that were going on 9 years old (e.g. the power supply) that could give out at any moment. Plus, PC performance was becoming a slight issue.<br />
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So, the new PC. It's not bad, probably the most powerful machine I have constructed to date, even using the price:performance ratio I opt for (i.e. slightly above medium range). Coming in at just under $2000, I have built a machine that runs everything I currently play at ultra high settings - not a statement I have been able to say for awhile now. The build consists of the following parts (again, more for my own reference/keepsake):<br />
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<b>GPU -</b> Asus Geforce RTX 2060 6GB<br />
<b>Case </b>- Cooler Master MasterBox MB520<br />
<b>PSU</b> - Cooler Master MWE Gold 550w PSU<br />
<b>CPU </b>- Intel Core i7 9700KF 3.6Ghz<br />
<b>CPU Cooler</b> - Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED Turbo CPU Cooler<br />
<b>Thermal Grease</b> - Artic Silver 5 <br />
<b>Memory </b>- G.Skill 32GB 2666Mhz RAM<br />
<b>Mobo</b> - Asus ROG Strix B365-G LGA1151 ATX Motherboard<br />
<b>Storage </b>- Western Digital Black 500GB m.2 NVMe SSD<br />
<b>OS</b> - Windows 10 Professional OEM <br />
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Somewhat satisfyingly, the build was an incredibly smooth construction process, with no mistakes and everything working without unnecessary configuration. I did do extensive research in advance, so I was expecting this, however. I am quite happy with the build and case, being an anti-dust setup with lots of space and cable management, for once. The 'new' component, that being the use of an m.2 SSD was also a joy to figure out, and the speed of booting the system is definitely noticeable. I am very happy with the results.<br />
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Performance in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is phenomenal, running at 120+ frames the majority of the time with maxed settings. I feel like I am playing a completely different game when I do. More importantly, Doom Eternal has been a visual treat and definitely a good stress test for the build overall. No complaints, basically.<br />
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Speaking of Doom Eternal - great game. While initially I was not sold on the adjusted game play mechanics (a departure from Doom 2016), requiring you to play a very specific way, you eventually get used to it and the flow of the experience comes to the fore. Having mastered the play style to some extent, playing on Ultra-Violence or Nightmare difficulty is really the only time the game can be challenging for me now, which is good. One addition to the standard campaign of particular mention is the introduction of Slayer Gates, which are considered some of the hardest content in the game presently. I will let you decide how difficult they are...<br />
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Overall though, its nice knowing that even this old, bitter man can still find some joy in upgrading his PC and playing the latest games at high performance settings, just like I did in the past. While I will say the excitement is certainly diminished, overall it is pleasantly nostalgic to feel like I am in my early 20s again. Something to look forward to, once in a blue moon.<br />
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Speaking of once in a blue moon, this dropped in Diablo III:<br />
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I can probably stop playing the game now, I think.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-45961599674528465132020-02-29T00:06:00.003-08:002020-02-29T00:08:45.427-08:00Weebmaster 9000I haven't posted in a long, long time. Strangely I have been playing and making games, just haven't felt the need to discuss it. I feel I am becoming more humble and stoic with age, and happy to keep to myself. Times continue to change.<br />
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I guess something I could add is the fact that I have (had?) been playing the new Iceborne expansion for Monster Hunter World on PC. For the duration of the campaign and for some of endgame I took up the Longsword, a surprisingly difficult weapon to master that requires extreme precision and timing in order for it to be most effective. It also makes you feel like some kind of samurai, drawing and sheathing your sword over and over during combat, which is novel and fun.<br />
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The Longsword has 4 unique moves that offer the player a short window of invincibility frames, allowing someone with foresight to punch through dangerous monster abilities with confidence. However, these moves are all very different, and are used at varying times during combat. Learning to most effectively employ them against various monster moves has been both a frustrating but educational journey, teaching me to be patient but also supremely aware of what is occurring. You can't just roll your face and expect to win. <br />
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I would post information regarding my build but it's not really important for progression in the game. The way MHW works is that you can basically make anything work if you try hard enough, and the endgame doesn't lock you into farming specific things forever. It's nice to play a game that is more about execution and awareness than it is about balancing a spreadsheet (e.g. Diablo III). Although, to be fair, I enjoy doing that too đ<br />
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Anyways, I look forward to both Doom Eternal and a much needed full PC upgrade on the horizon. I guess I can post something about that too. Soon(tm). Maybe.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-3940722159737097582019-05-29T19:50:00.001-07:002019-05-29T19:53:02.369-07:00No mercy for the wicked...More Diablo. Yep. Sif not.<br />
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So I randomly decided to play Season 17 of Diablo III for a few weeks. Gives me something to do while I watch podcasts and random Youtube nonsense. The culture war in America is amusing to witness in a horrific, canât-look-away while it collapses kind of way. It is also interesting transitioning back to a ranged character after so many years focusing on melee. Not bad, just different. I actually died several times while leveling. Thatâs certainly different!<br />
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Anyways, the first thing I have noticed about playing a Demon Hunter in season is that their set multipliers are just better. Shadow Impale is an absolute monster and insanely strong for killing Rift Guardians. So high is their single target damage that you actually need to think about killing trash more effectively, which is just unnatural for me. After a bit of survival horror (i.e. lack of specific gear), I managed to find a level of tankiness and sustain that I am comfortable with. Currently I am as resilient as I ever was playing a Barb or Crusader, so performing optimally as Shadow Impale is quite easy. Translation: stand inside the monsterâs asshole at point blank melee and let your numbers do the work. I was already good at that.<br />
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Secondly, the Demon Hunter community is surprisingly competitive. While the Barb and Crusader communities are certainly better at theory-crafting, more demon hunters push harder and faster on the leaderboards. I think the class attracts a slightly more bloodthirsty demographic, lone-wolves who really enjoy the hunt/push, but donât have much to say. Their top 100 leaderboard competitors are all geared to the teeth with smart rolls and optimized builds. They seem like a veteran crew and I appreciated the challenge, especially when this thing dropped:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">perfection...</td></tr>
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Speaking of which, I still managed to push into their top 25 with my inexperienced Demon Hunter. I really shouldnât say this as I have played Diablo for a long time now and understand the ins and outs of the game, even on a different class. There is an optimal way to play and an even more optimal way to build which seemingly translates to multiple classes in subtle ways.<br />
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A few things I did work out as Shadow Impale is that you really have to maximise your positioning, even more so than say HoTA. Impaling trash is useless if you cannot get to the elites behind, and needing to vault too much causes your Travellers Pledge damage buff to become useless. You also need to rotate between using Vault and Shadow Power, not just to stand your ground as often as possible, but to allow diminishing returns on knockback (for Strongarms) to wear off. Itâs a bit more to keep track of and creates an interesting branch of options every few seconds for optimal play.<br />
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I probably wonât push any further than this as I have new and more interesting games on the horizon. 2019 is shaping up to be a fun year for casual gaming. Doom Eternal inboundâŚ.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-41657960112968862232019-02-05T19:33:00.001-08:002019-02-05T19:33:20.913-08:00Too easy!I have not made a blog post in quite a while. Again, a combination of playing fewer games lately or playing games that do not really necessitate any kind of discussion. Additionally I find myself doing other things in my spare time, including a general desire to stay in better shape. Doing weights will do wonders for your mental and physical well-being. Highly recommended.<br />
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So, Diablo, again. After the incredibly disappointing announcement of Diablo Immortal at 2018âs Blizzcon, I must admit that my skepticism for Blizzardâs handling of the franchise has peaked. I certainly feel for the many Diablo fans who attended last yearâs event, hyped up for the âmajor Diablo newsâ only to be hung drawn and quartered by the announcement of a mobile game. Why they did not have even a small amount of content for Diablo III, even a new patch announcement, is completely beyond me. It is sad to see a developer so out of touch with their own community.<br />
Anyways, Season 16 of Diablo III has rolled around. Nothing really new, just buffed sets and native Ring of Royal Grandeur (translation: ~20% more damage). Having accrued a library of podcasts and material that can be listen-watched, I decided it was a good time to jump in and remind myself of how things are. I initially started as a Crusader, but another Clan member also had the same idea, including running Rolandâs Sweep, so I jumped ship to a Barbarian as soon as it was sensible. Most folk who were non-committal had stopped at this point too.<br />
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Interestingly, for the first time in the longest time, I actually experienced playing Diablo with another individual who has a very similar build and play-style focus as me. As a HOTA Barb, grouping with a Sweep Crusader is just magic. Without the need to communicate, it is very obvious where we should go, where we should stand and when we should move on during difficult rifts. Indeed, pushing above GR100 has been a pleasant and smooth experience, with two builds that are functionally similar and derived from near identical play-style philosophies. Itâs intense, but the casualties are incredibly low and group pushing is a joy. Additionally, the group buffs (Warcry & Laws of Valor) and clustering mechanics (Bloodshed, Provoke/Condemn & Sweep Dot) are absolutely game changing. If we somehow had a monk, any monk, I think the team would be completely devastating. Dream Team right there.<br />
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Additionally I undertook further investigation and experimentation regarding sustain. Life on Hit no longer uses proc coefficients, and as long as you hit something per ability, you will get the full life return back. This scales with attack speed, but not the number of targets hit. This ... is surprisingly good. Not great, but definitely worth considering, as the amount you can roll on Ancients is huge, and the attack speed you can obtain is utterly ridiculous! For the longest time I was undecided whether to go with Life on Hit this time, or run with the tried and true Life on Resource spent. Eventually I came to the following conclusionâŚ<br />
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The results are absurd. Even in my non-optimized gear, I can restore around 200k HP per second. That is 25% of my health, on average. At over a billion toughness when rolling, that is a LOT of EHP. I wonât beat this dead horse any more than I have in the past, but if you are still building without any consideration for sustain in Diablo III as melee, you are doing it wrong, plain and simple. I will rarely dip below half health, and even if I did, I would become near invincible with Esoteric Alteration. There is a reason I completely ignore most damage in the game: math.<br />
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Anyways, I did not push as hard as I usually would this season, mostly because the Immortal King set was not buffed as much as others and it is unlikely I will get much higher. The build still works for what it is and its nice being the 2nd highest HOTA Barbarian on US seasonal servers. Observe:<br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_VrOdP2fyWI" width="560"></iframe>David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-74861251318295870782018-09-27T17:52:00.002-07:002018-10-08T19:48:30.236-07:00Battle for Azeroth, apparentlyI was pretty excited for the new World of Warcraft expansion, Battle for Azeroth. Excited so much that I started playing a month in advance during the last month of Legion. I put my three mains at 110, farmed gold and generally just waited for its release. Hopefully the new content would bring back some of the spark of not just the PvP content in WoW, but from the Warcraft RTS series as well.<br />
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My review of the new expansion can be best summed up as the following: Where?<br />
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Where is this alleged battle for Azeroth? It does not exist, from what I can tell. Besides a couple of PvE quests in the vein of fighting the opposing faction, and the somewhat poorly implemented Warfronts (i.e. a PvE raid) there is nothing in the game suggesting a battle for the future of the world.<br />
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Additionally, what a horrifically missed chance and exploitative bait and switch by Blizzard. If the intro CG trailer and follow up gameplay videos were anything to go by, you would have mistaken the expansion for being focused on the concept of War, for once. Because ... you know ... it is Warcraft, after all, right? They have to actually bring back Warcraft at some point, surely?<br />
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More dungeons, more raids (released at a drip pace), more zones to level. That's basically it. Admittedly the new zones are really quite nice, a huge improvement over the abomination that was the stupid island horror in Legion. Warfronts are sort of fun for rather stupid/broken reasons, and island expeditions can be amusing at times. Otherwise, same old formula for a game that has really not followed up on its heritage. At least in my opinion. <br />
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Having said that though, I did manage to do what I always do. Do some PvP, record it, make an interesting video. I actually really enjoyed editing this one, with a lot of thought and deliberation into an editing style, with a track I have had on the back of my mind for a couple of years now. It has come together quite well, so there is that at least.<br />
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Not gonna lie, sometimes the things I edit worry me slightly. I might just be a bit darker and malevolent that I like to believe. I am surprisingly ok with this...<br />
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Anyways, I have been really disappointed with Blizzard games lately. Overwatch seems ok (despite being a bit too childish for me lately) but a severely neglected Diablo franchise and a very unconvincing WoW universe is ... really disappointing. What frustrates me, is that for folks like myself (and I a certainly not alone in this), addressing the war/battle/pvp element of WoW's universe would be so easy. The game already has a host of interesting battlegrounds, arenas and events. You could modify them ever so slightly (Warsong Gulch CTF with teams of 15, 10v10 arena, AV with no tower caps etc.), make them worth double honour/conquest, and make all BGs contribute to warfront and raid access. Done.<br />
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There's your Battle for Azeroth, and you didn't even need to add a thing.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-77636790303736862212018-04-06T19:15:00.002-07:002018-04-06T19:18:45.575-07:00Monster. Hunt. Whirl.I am getting old. Thirty years of age is a strange age. When you start putting a 3 in front of your digits, you start thinking about where you are in life and where you would like to be. You find the metabolism and regenerative capabilities of your body are not so resilient, and you actually need to exercise and eat well to not expand rapidly. You also realise you start dedicating less time for things you enjoy as things in life (e.g. work) start to take the reins.<br />
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Having said that, I never would have guessed that I would randomly pick up and play Monster Hunter: World. Perhaps it was said realisation that I donât play as many games as I used to, or perhaps I just longed to get lost in a magical world of monsters and slaying once again (i.e. Skyrim). Whatever the reason, Monster Hunter: World has been an interesting experience, one that I have several opinions about that are not all positive.<br />
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Certainly the game is addictive. âHuntâ monsters. Equip their body parts. Get better at stuff. Repeat. Admittedly, I found this cycle to be a bit unusual at first, perhaps having never played a Monster Hunter game before. Having actively decided not to hunt real-life animals ever again, I was immediately put off the idea of killing innocent fauna in an environment I was clearly invading. Then, using their various organs and limbs as decorations was somewhat psychotic and just a little disturbing. For a clearly Japanese made game, it perhaps explains why they still have no problem with mass whaling.<br />
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The combat mechanics of MHW I also initially found frustrating. Depending on weapon type, you get locked into ludicrously long animation swing times that you cannot cancel, usually resulting in a whiff followed up by getting hit by the monster in question. Against certain larger foes, this process can prove fatal, resulting in gameplay that is very hit and run and timing based that I found far too slow and static for my liking. It is perhaps no wonder that I locked onto and stuck with Dual Blades, the most free flowing and fastest weapon type in the game. It has its downsides, but lack of boredom and keeping of sanity are easily its best perks.<br />
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Anyways, long story short, I managed to punch through the gameâs story and eventually hit endgame which I can honestly say is also a little disappointing. Unlike games such as Diablo 3, Path of Exile and even Skyrim, there is very little to do besides farming the gameâs âbossesâ - Tempered Elder Dragons. For me, running a rather predictable tanky and sustain build, this was not overly challenging, despite people on the internet claiming it to be. This leads to another thing âŚ<br />
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The online console community is crap. There is little to no consensus on what is good or what works and how best to play the game. Some may think this is a good thing, but when people donât know or care about basic game mechanics or zealously believe that whatever dumb, stupid thing they are doing is the only way to play, it becomes a serious problem. There is an elitist perspective of âjust dodge everythingâ which is just terrible advice for newcomers. My tempered elder dragon kill times are almost as fast as people stacking full damage, the difference being I clear them 100% of the time without dying. Often forum posts asking legitimate game mechanics questions will be answered by idiots telling them about irrelevant information with no definite answer. Compared to the almost scientific approach that players use in games like D3 and PoE, testing, evaluating and comparing models with room for debate, MHW discussions are a cesspool of ignorance and elitism which makes no sense considering the kind of game that it is.<br />
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Perhaps I am just getting old and bitter, but such things I have little time and patience for. I will probably fire up MHW again if considerable endgame content comes out and maybe even again if it comes out on PC. The latter will make the game incredibly faceroll â aiming with a controller is non-existent â but we shall see. Until then.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-75242801323158618822018-02-12T20:02:00.000-08:002018-02-12T20:03:45.062-08:00We are Legion!Hello. It's been awhile. Let's begin.<br />
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I randomly decided to play WoW again for a month. I don't really remember why. Boredom most likely. I mean, in the same month I also started reading <a href="https://www.blacklibrary.com/horus-heresy-reading-order.html">The Horus Heresy</a> 40k novels, some of which are actually pretty damn good, and found that I enjoyed reading them more than playing WoW. Funny old world aint it?<br />
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I guess the reason for this was twofold. Firstly, the lack of community really did not keep me interested for long. I seemingly am the only person I know who was playing it at the time (at least on Horde/Frostmourne), so having no real reason to stick around was very much a thing. The second reason was really the issues with World PvP on Frostmourne, now that it is almost a 5:1 Alliance population dominated server.<br />
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Pretty much every world quest you will do will require you to contest with an Alliance player (or two ... or three) in some way. Due to the new leveling and daily mechanics, this most often than not puts you in the cross-hairs of a max-level/geared raiding no-lifer who literally kills you in 1 hit and can fly. I am not exaggerating here. So, this somewhat staggered leveling experience of "disconnecting randomly" becomes quite a chore for someone late to the game.<br />
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World PvP is also incredibly broken with scaling mechanisms heavily favouring the more geared player, especially with legendary perks active. Not having any legendaries puts you at a huge disadvantage, so even in a 1v1 encounter, you are going to struggle. But its never just a 1v1 encounter on Frostmourne as Horde.<br />
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Well, screw world activities you might say. I certainly always have, always favouring the much more controlled and interesting battleground encounters. Here at least things were vaguely resembling something balanced, particularly regarding the gearing process, even if I thought the PvP talents system was stupid. Although I never obtained a single Legendary during my journey, I still managed to have a bit of fun with the game, even making a short PvP compilation of some of my more laughable encounters against classes that really should have beat me (e.g. Frost Death Knight).<br />
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While I wouldn't say my playtime in Legion was a waste of time, I can confidently say it was the least interesting and gutted WoW experience I have played thus far. Some of that charm from earlier iterations of the game is definitely gone with the rather watered down talent trees and class choices to make. Hopefully Battle for Azeroth brings back some of that old Warcraft energy.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-65060939619202317712017-10-18T20:08:00.002-07:002017-10-18T20:10:20.586-07:00QUT - Evolving one's PedagogySince coming back to work at QUT, I have worked hard to evolve my teaching pedagogy further to make the learning processes I employ as efficient and worthwhile for my students as possible. Perhaps inspired by events at my previous employment, a place that emphasized the concept somewhat ridiculously (to it's own detriment), I have noticed gaps in the current curriculum offered at QUT that I feel I am capable of addressing in my own way.<br />
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Over the course of 2017, this evolution has come in several forms. First and foremost, I have returned to developing Unity game/genre specific tutorials for preliminary Unity units (e.g. IGB100 - Game Studio 1) taught at QUT. These units line up with other units running alongside the curriculum that I do not directly teach into, with the idea being that students can comfortably walk into these video tutorials with some prior knowledge of the software. The videos are similar to work I undertook several years ago (2013), from which I won a Vice Chancellor's Performance Award for significant contribution to University teaching. Developing them requires careful pre-planning and actual game production, often following a script and scheduling of tasks. One cannot simply wing it and hope that what is recorded is a timely and efficient production.<br />
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In addition to this, I have also put considerable effort into the assignment bases I use for more advanced scripting units. In particular, IGB383 - AI for Games is a unit I spent a great deal of time reworking the workshops and assignments for. The assignments themselves originate from semi-complete mini-games that I developed from scratch, complete with working mechanics, artificial intelligence and dynamic environments. I believe putting the effort into these works gives students the opportunity to focus on what is important (in this case, implementation of game AI) but also a platform for emulating game play elements in other subjects. Sometimes learning via example is the only way you can approach a topic, and giving students a smorgasbord of mechanics to harvest and evaluate is often beneficial.<br />
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Finally, I have undertaken an additional development task, producing globally applicable, degree wide videos regarding game design and implementation. These videos tackle not just technical Unity/C# topics, but project management and development life-cycle skills as well. It also affords me the opportunity to discuss certain topics which I consider to be very important game design skills and knowledge that are either taught degree wide or not necessarily covered at all during study at QUT. Some of these videos have been an absolute pleasure to make, especially ones where I can communicate some of the more nuanced aspects of game design. I hope to expand on this library, discussing source control, advanced
game mechanics and scripting as well as more exploratory topics
regarding modern day games. <br />
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Overall I have been rather enjoying my teaching run at QUT and hope I am kept on board to continue my work. I still have so much to do and many improvements to make regarding the evolution of my pedagogy. David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-58667647951975688872017-08-08T17:51:00.001-07:002017-08-08T18:05:34.836-07:00None Shall Pass!Season 11 in Diablo 3 has been an interesting one, bringing back many friends far and wide to witness the debut season for the 'new' Necromancer class. Having briefly tried the Necromancer pre-season and getting to GR80, I realised that, while the class is certainly enjoyable, the lack of gearing options severely dampens my interest in the class at endgame. Hopefully it is something that is addressed in the future.<br />
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Besides this, I have been rocking a <a href="https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Tinman-1822/hero/43686286">Crusader</a> this season, jumping back on the horse to figure out a comfortable playstyle, something I never did in the past. While I originally intended to gear towards running a thorns (i.e. damage reflect) build, I found that gearing for Roland's was quite akin to the old Hammer of the Ancients playstyle I became fond of playing as a Barbarian. As Barbarians have truly been left by the wayside for the last 4-5 seasons in favour of classes that, quite literally, are 10x more effective, jumping ship to a slightly better class employing a similar play philosophy has been advantageous. A lot of the 'tech' and realizations I made playing a Barbarian still work relatively well for a Crusader.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-jntm8kMJfPQVFEPR8wektswOKUjqP8xiTH3QUM-SuRkrCAQs3RBOIV5Au_1wtrdEbY9xR4LShnosb3bUam3DiUZ-VB20WM5Lv-0ZRJSK_ndMCKcpxPJXPtwdaTs_ErHGpOflGprqe3Kt/s1600/crusader.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-jntm8kMJfPQVFEPR8wektswOKUjqP8xiTH3QUM-SuRkrCAQs3RBOIV5Au_1wtrdEbY9xR4LShnosb3bUam3DiUZ-VB20WM5Lv-0ZRJSK_ndMCKcpxPJXPtwdaTs_ErHGpOflGprqe3Kt/s400/crusader.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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While a Crusader is certainly more cooldown/active defense dependant, similar passives and skills exist that give you strong defensive and, more importantly, sustain options, much like the Barbarian. I have started dubbing this playstyle "fish-tanking", simply because it attempts to maintain an adequate balance between the dimensions of your damage x mitigation x sustain fish-tank. If the dimensions of said fish-tank are inversely proportioned to the scaling of the other dimensions, then the sensible route is to maintain a balance between them to optimize your fish tank's volume. This concept certainly exists in a game like Diablo 3: stacking one type of stat reduces the capacity to stack another.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi40Rfr_SaN78wlBhRNjMvQihKr9QpSJuDAhl4jwSuu9XvHrcm7hTtXhgjnyJuV2Z5UcWEexn4DVQeWIftOyhJ5dR6tO6FgLLU9t_6Z7mTw_Cfjxm9m_LkIBDpw6V-kwVv0WLijAE8OOXjr/s1600/fishtanking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="658" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi40Rfr_SaN78wlBhRNjMvQihKr9QpSJuDAhl4jwSuu9XvHrcm7hTtXhgjnyJuV2Z5UcWEexn4DVQeWIftOyhJ5dR6tO6FgLLU9t_6Z7mTw_Cfjxm9m_LkIBDpw6V-kwVv0WLijAE8OOXjr/s400/fishtanking.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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If your fish-tank's dimensions are 10 x 1 x 1, you will do some extraordinary damage, but you will die as soon as a mob touches you and won't even have the chance to sustain yourself. Your volume (or effectiveness) for handling content is 10. However, if you dial that damage back somewhat, take some time to consider your options in contrast to mindlessly stacking "MOAR DOMAGE!!", you might end up with a more balanced fish-tank of dimensions 5 x 5 x 5. Your volume (effectiveness) jumps all the way to 125. As you can see, that is a huge difference from 10.<br />
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Of course, the game's mechanics are not as simple as maximizing a fish-tank's volume. There are things that still kill me in 2-3 hits and bosses that are an absolute nightmare to fight. Additionally, the classes have varying degrees of sustain options, some more than others. The recent Necromancer addition probably having the strongest and most interesting. This philosophy does not work for everyone. However, it has allowed me to climb up to the relative power level of my much better geared Barbarian on live, clearing a GR85 in about as much time as my Barb would. I imagine that by the end of the season I will have eclipsed my Barbarian's power level and may have a new class/build to enjoy as much as HotA, LeapQuake and Whirlwind.<br />
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Fun times. David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-48991683219481977662017-04-28T23:22:00.001-07:002017-04-29T15:33:34.173-07:00ShrektI havn't posted in awhile, so I thought it was about time to shitpost about some random epeen nonsense.<br />
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In Season 10 of Diablo III, Blizzard decided not to listen to the enormous library of constructive posts regarding class balance changes and instead decided to do their own thing yet again. This included buffing the highest performing classes even further and introducing Primal Ancient Legendaries.<br />
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Primal Ancient Legendaries (or PALs) are basically ancient legendaries that have rolled perfectly. They drop at an extremely low drop rate and are usually pretty crap. This is mainly because a) legendaries usually roll with terrible affixes, and b) terrible legendaries drop most of the time. Getting a well rolled PAL <a href="https://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/the-furnace">Furnace</a> is extremely unlikely.<br />
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They also introduced a requirement prior to them dropping on normal/seasons. You need to clear a GR70 first.<br />
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This aspect of PALs has created enormous controversy within the Diablo III community, revealing some interesting aspects about the majority of people who play it. For most players, this 'gateway' is ridiculously unfair, requiring insane amounts of playtime to get thousands of paragon levels, perfectly rolled Ancient gear and leveling your gems as high as possible, not to mention a build that is different from what they are playing. This dismay has been expressed adamantly on the forums, with many people complaining that GR70 is far too high. For example, <a href="https://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/20754446778?page=1">this post</a> containing the following:<br />
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<i>"... I can hardly do T13 let alone GR 70 with my DH. Now I know some will say, ''change this skill'', ''add this item'', blah, blah, blah. But the point I shouldn't have to min max that much! I have level 60 gems, 6 pc set, Ancient items, even Augments. I'm not an idiot or new to the DH either. It's just that GR 70 is a insane Gateway. Make the gateway 50 or 60 or take it away completely."</i><br />
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I had not realized this would even be a concern and initially interpreted the complaints as people joking/trolling. Admittedly my best geared D3 character farted at and completed a GR70 while <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Epztb7DIJWQ">I pushed to GR90 and beyond</a>. Reading through the comments, it seems the community is very much split on just how easy a GR70 actually is. While I would calmly place my token on the 'is' side of the argument, it seems many, many players would disagree.<br />
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So I decided to conduct an experiment: How long would it take me to get to GR70 in Season 10 from scratch?<br />
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I decided to play a Demon Hunter, a class I had not invested time in since Season 1 and therefore have no understanding of their current meta. To be fair, I have played every other class in a season prior to this one at some point. Additionally, the Demon Hunter still appears to be the squishiest class in the game (at least on paper), so it would provide an additional challenge.<br />
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The end result is as follows...<br />
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I attempted a so-so GR70 about 15 hours in after completely solo leveling to paragon 463. I had no ancients, no augments, non-ideal gear rolls, level 50 gems and no prior attempts. I had 4 minutes to spare. What is annoying is that I know I could have done it much sooner if I had not screwed around trying to get Elemental Arrow to work better with the Marauder's set. Probably around the 13 hour mark.<br />
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So, in conclusion, people complaining on Diablo forums is nothing new and the GR70 gateway controversy is just further proof that some people don't know how to play the game. Which, for a game going on 5 years old is pretty sad.<br />
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I shall patiently await the Necromancer.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-67913179276455203302016-11-10T20:23:00.002-08:002016-11-25T16:56:09.765-08:00Retaliated<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguUO_U7sntqdDOgl5jKPjgM2IXOfuzfMDyL78lwkKSS22HQ0GQPOqCFmUXdUXsliXKO6fs_xKvVRaJBmc4ecIAI1Q7Y1nEy8GK_ONfxmrAf6nipVcoBPdxwF0G3wODFxX7cAbvFzLzAHXN/s1600/Pic+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguUO_U7sntqdDOgl5jKPjgM2IXOfuzfMDyL78lwkKSS22HQ0GQPOqCFmUXdUXsliXKO6fs_xKvVRaJBmc4ecIAI1Q7Y1nEy8GK_ONfxmrAf6nipVcoBPdxwF0G3wODFxX7cAbvFzLzAHXN/s400/Pic+10.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Retaliator's Main Menu</td></tr>
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Well, I guess I should make a post about the latest news. I have severely neglected this blog due to work and other commitments, but as this most closely relates to what this blog was originally for, it is perhaps necessary. As some may know, I left my most recent job for a variety of reasons. Probably the biggest reason was the massive difference in work culture from my previous job at QUT, and how some aspects of it (e.g. staff constantly complaining about students) go completely against my own morals and ethics. There are other reasons too, but that is a story for another day...<br />
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Hilariously, I acquired a position (starting next year) at QUT within weeks of leaving my job, which was great! However, I needed something to do in the interim, lest I go insane from boredom. So, I decided to finish my game. On a completely shoestring budget of around $1000 and a full-time development cycle of about 3.5 months, I present to you my solo game project, and first real standalone portfolio piece: Retaliator. It is currently on <a href="https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=796715259">Steam Greenlight</a>.<br />
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I guess you could say I am slightly proud of it. It has been a project I have wanted to complete for years, but just never found the time or inspiration to do so. The reason being, there is a lot of work that goes in to finishing a game, even one with as small goals and deadlines as Retaliator. Retaliator is a top down SHMUP (Shoot Em Up) inspired by the classics of an era where game mechanics and explosions were more important than storylines. Having said that, there is one where you are retaliating against alien invaders who are destroying Earth, venturing across the galaxy to make waste to their home world. Working on it over the past few months has been an interesting experience.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrvu70KsBQxA_mnJN8IfCLR3G8z4pztwqN6wyrzCIcQQBTCJcjvjqHl8UTS96a0hSfbre9mfOeTUEzjk3ZA1YxbWGqYOZj9uzlRiYVnrseJh2WGs3lIR3lLTuSKCK8Rinv7VoVNC4LZJPb/s1600/Pic+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrvu70KsBQxA_mnJN8IfCLR3G8z4pztwqN6wyrzCIcQQBTCJcjvjqHl8UTS96a0hSfbre9mfOeTUEzjk3ZA1YxbWGqYOZj9uzlRiYVnrseJh2WGs3lIR3lLTuSKCK8Rinv7VoVNC4LZJPb/s400/Pic+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mission 2 - The Dark Side</td></tr>
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Part of this experience has been diving into world crafting. As I am not a 3D modeller, texture artist or animator, simplifying the game's potential environmental design has been challenging. Additionally, as I am the sole developer of the game, I have had to rely on various free and paid for assets to get the job done, some of which don't always match the vision I had intended. Having these elements out of your control makes you study and research other people's work with inane levels of scrutiny. Spending your money on assets that do not fit the theme of your game is something to be avoided, particularly if said assets are unlikely to be replaced in the near future. Additionally, the challenges of integrating said content smoothly has been enlightening, often requiring you to reconfigure meshes, swap polygon normals, realign UV maps or just find something better. It is time consuming work, and I now have an even greater respect and appreciation for game artists and the work that they do.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6j1PE8tGnm4gwDEzMWmn2-s-KxfVt8YVM4v9N5bW5Aa7WBKIGFuxRkI-OvokQMNPPxKkOnmsqXs0hc3nprQj9JiBYsSXIr9rNCQLGXt8k4o6fueHFlgj4PLE-X26CTsKXniFDKmjOJTph/s1600/pic1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6j1PE8tGnm4gwDEzMWmn2-s-KxfVt8YVM4v9N5bW5Aa7WBKIGFuxRkI-OvokQMNPPxKkOnmsqXs0hc3nprQj9JiBYsSXIr9rNCQLGXt8k4o6fueHFlgj4PLE-X26CTsKXniFDKmjOJTph/s400/pic1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Zeus under attack</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL9A7Ah1qDTj4Nl8MKgDWxZXg2NmY7cNz3kheyi9hWf3EzYnsVVkJkG89vb2s4UPtQvK8KXu3AoANUX8zVXPpbip0txbd5odx98WZJseZypIC0z3YY3BZrvouFWE_su1AkUkkNoV1CQCKA/s1600/pic2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL9A7Ah1qDTj4Nl8MKgDWxZXg2NmY7cNz3kheyi9hWf3EzYnsVVkJkG89vb2s4UPtQvK8KXu3AoANUX8zVXPpbip0txbd5odx98WZJseZypIC0z3YY3BZrvouFWE_su1AkUkkNoV1CQCKA/s400/pic2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Early township environment</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alien homeworld shipyard</td></tr>
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Another time consuming endeavor has been finding the right tune for my game. I originally had my pre-alpha version loaded up with samples from Homeworld and a remixed Nine Inch Nails track. This was ok for testing purposes, but for the final release I needed to find something both free/cheap and akin. This took a long time. There is a plethora of fantastic compositional work out there by artists all around the world, and I spent days lost in various genres, searching for that magical balance of ambience and action. I also learned about the various models of audio copyright, and how royalty free means very different things to different audio hosts. Eventually I stumbled upon the excellent samples hosted at MachinimaSound.com. It suited my purposes perfectly, and was royalty free in the truest sense (i.e. just provide attribution).<br />
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Getting people to playtest my game was also an interesting experience. While the two major pre-alpha playtest periods certainly inspired me to develop my game ever further, the level of playtesting provided by folks varied significantly. Some playtesters I barely knew provided extremely deep levels of analysis, providing their thoughts on mechanics, balance tweaks and aesthetic changes that I never would have considered. This surprised me and was very useful in the long run. On the other hand, other people I had known for years provided extremely surface level comments, not even bothering to submit them in the requested format. This disappointed me somewhat, particularly as they knew my passion for game development and my expectation for theirs to be just as high based on their study/occupation. I think playtesting really just boils down to the playtester. If it is not something they take seriously then I should not be expecting serious playtesting. I won't make this mistake in the future.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLiiIdYEreZnaORYXFCEVWIszbx6wNP0uJQ22ToU8WpcYKlskE6mWZjPIqkZB_ltpx1-JPEz9sdzsDqUCpPdxKheCWWmm7vexccxe0XReBuQQ77lY8yM0TB5sv0Tf6h5sfAaI9-NnR8mnR/s1600/pic6.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLiiIdYEreZnaORYXFCEVWIszbx6wNP0uJQ22ToU8WpcYKlskE6mWZjPIqkZB_ltpx1-JPEz9sdzsDqUCpPdxKheCWWmm7vexccxe0XReBuQQ77lY8yM0TB5sv0Tf6h5sfAaI9-NnR8mnR/s400/pic6.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Special thanks to playtesters so far!</td></tr>
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I have also realised that I probably have OCD. There are things, small things, that I will tweak and tweak until they are as close to perfect as I can fathom. Amusingly, some of these are unrelated to code. Visual/particle effects I will happily spend hours on, as well as adjusting sound effects until that echo/reverb/pitch is just right. The balancing of weapons and enemies is something I probably spent far too much time on, to the point where I unconsciously know how good or bad something is, have a bias for it, and don't realise how broken other aspects of it are. I have learned and have witnessed first hand that the creators of the game are often the worst testers and tweakers of the content as they are burdened by scope. Sometimes a simplistic, ignorant view of the world is more useful.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSS3kt1oVY97528oHQrkdwd7by3UxnjfE9qTSnfy5x0jQXmrjYJWp4WkWgItJQ81E52Iuhr2b9JcUfNTy0QC7ehJjH3W1QuDPgzhhG9NTOW0D0PS-mFIFG3Z_-fTXxyfFq8SzPrYDYr7A2/s1600/pic4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSS3kt1oVY97528oHQrkdwd7by3UxnjfE9qTSnfy5x0jQXmrjYJWp4WkWgItJQ81E52Iuhr2b9JcUfNTy0QC7ehJjH3W1QuDPgzhhG9NTOW0D0PS-mFIFG3Z_-fTXxyfFq8SzPrYDYr7A2/s400/pic4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tweaking this scene induced epileptic symptoms :(</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Finally, the endless scripting. It is what I do after all, but somehow I value it the least these days, despite it being 70% of the game. I have had my head in code for nearly 3 months. I have no idea how many lines of code I have written. Probably over 10000. Everything is just a blur of loops, conditionals and vector math at the moment. While I had most of the core mechanics completed the year before (3 week's work), much of it required re-tuning and rewriting. Overall, it is probably not the best code I have written, and I am sure I could have saved a few lines in several places. However, it is not important. It is a fallacy of the programmer to think that their code needs to be completely perfect and efficient, and how this will automatically translate into amazing game play. I have seen this mistake in my own work and in the work of students, and it is illogical. You could spend all your time designing a funky algorithm or a system of complex co-routines to handle your state switching and then watch it all fall apart as unexpected complications arise. Never over-design something that should be simple. Use what you are comfortable with, especially when it makes sense to. Code is invisible for the most part, and as long as your game's frame rate does not tank because of your code, then your solution is appropriate. Mostly.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimPkLrz0zXxEI0NnCa5Wjb3NuSBbRxLtXHstyCW5Yo2_u0GmMrmGGpDaeYM4VDWqCnNmFWmxLzdw7WgXZvi8lpnF8PCszn4z0f6a5gpsHYAJAoEXkP6-B6JEUlWgtzxbqHa3buOwcm-Lkb/s1600/pic5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimPkLrz0zXxEI0NnCa5Wjb3NuSBbRxLtXHstyCW5Yo2_u0GmMrmGGpDaeYM4VDWqCnNmFWmxLzdw7WgXZvi8lpnF8PCszn4z0f6a5gpsHYAJAoEXkP6-B6JEUlWgtzxbqHa3buOwcm-Lkb/s400/pic5.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See? Lightning bolts!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It has been a lot of fun working on Retaliator and it is still a project I will revisit in the future. However, for the moment, it is a project I will be taking a break from. While I would like the game to become popular enough for it to be sold (providing additional polish), it was honestly never the goal of the project. I finally have a portfolio piece, a game I can point in the vague direction of Steam and say "that" and "this is what I can do" without being embarrassed. It is a good feeling, and a life goal that I would never have accomplished if certain circumstances persisted. Leaving my work to sort it all out might just be the most sensible thing I have ever done.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-87118371876739041792016-07-03T03:23:00.000-07:002016-07-03T03:23:06.813-07:00All of teh videos!Well, that is interesting. Despite working full-time now, I still seem to be video editing as much as I used to. What I have not been doing is using those videos as my standard excuse to write some dribble on this blog. In the last few months I have edited and uploaded more videos than I can sensibly discuss, so I might just describe the few that are more interesting and leave <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/Tinman4368/videos">the rest for people to explore themselves</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXWMga6Il0CbKtCCxBKwN8I8Jkj_yw-MACcmJjpe6-_TXgQW-OwfMCyazYNfrjjS1Cj_k0Lm6y_kNH-_ToA5gGwT04HdnsCCnadgdRaSeTBBHYg8Y46baGIrZ5YcYRmJPPvKkM431jlrx/s1600/kill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXWMga6Il0CbKtCCxBKwN8I8Jkj_yw-MACcmJjpe6-_TXgQW-OwfMCyazYNfrjjS1Cj_k0Lm6y_kNH-_ToA5gGwT04HdnsCCnadgdRaSeTBBHYg8Y46baGIrZ5YcYRmJPPvKkM431jlrx/s400/kill.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yeah, that,</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Anyways, thing. Doom. Doom was a video game released in 1993. Doom was also released in 2016. Funny how that works. Seriously though, Doom (2016) was pretty darn good. It seems that after years and years of the same, stale COD style shooters, the industry is finally turning its head back and looking to the past for inspiration. As far as the single-player goes, Doom pays decent homage to its roots, but is not afraid to inject it with a degree of modern shooter jazz. Not the ironsights, health-regenerating, cover system crap. Interesting stuff like weapon enhancements and different movement speed options. It is at least refreshing and provides you with some choice as you duck, weave, rip and tear through the hordes of hell. It is a fast game. It is a gory game. It is a game with serious attitude. But perhaps most importantly ... it is a AAA game, and a markedly successful one at that. Hopefully this bodes well for the return of the arcade/arena shooter to popular mainstream.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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Interestingly, Blizzard also seem to be dipping their toes into similar waters. Overwatch, a game resurrected from the corpse of Titan, Blizzard's next MMORPG, is also a multiplayer FPS game that goes against the grain of mainstream. Like Doom, it is arcade-like, moderately paced, colourful and, in typical Blizzard fashion, very addictive. Riding on the shoulders of Team Fortress 2, it is very much the evolution of the class-based shooter. Perhaps the most noticeable aspect of Overwatch is just how polished the game feels, from the environmental design to the minor nicks and scratches on the heroes armour. The heros themselves are quite varied and it is easy to find yourself gelling with several of them over the course of play. There is likely a heroes play style for everyone, although it is best if your familiarise yourself with several, between role types if possible. As enjoyable as the game can be, most of my losses can be attributed to poor team composition. There is nothing more annoying than having 3 sniper heroes, 2 defense heroes and a tank (me) trying to assault an objective. Very few people are interested in playing a healer, which gets tedious when you have to play as one every second game.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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Anyways, that might do for the immediate moment. I shall do another post in the near future involving the other videos I have edited. David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-20568180690179607942016-04-25T18:55:00.000-07:002016-05-01T23:21:39.602-07:00Struggler IndeedBerserk is ⌠interesting. Simply put, it is a dark fantasy consisting of a manâs struggle against evil. As a manga, the story of Berserk is particularly shocking, consisting of some of the most horrific and grim storytelling to ever grace a medium. It is perhaps this reason that I find it intriguing, as itâs particularly serious but fantastical aesthetic is one that I find appealing for a variety of reasons. Not to mention, the main protagonist and the name of the manga are absolutely badass!<br />
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I originally experienced Berserk in the form of the anime series, many, many years ago, I think in my first year of university. The original anime series seemed more like a low production adaptation of the manga, but a relatively accurate one as I discovered later. The Berserk manga is one of the longest running manga in the history of the medium, starting in 1989 and still running to this day. It is one of the few manga I read and stay up to date on. So much more has happened since the original story arc, depicted in the anime. Even now, I still find the ongoing story fresh, brutal and exciting.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibwUJJMrr5FhYwPkK3i56C99vguJMYKw4haZIVx-pn6Yyu_MZDpLTKMNJkQccQ6Mek4e3GZc6UR6gmj0A3IsWJoatUaRecYEkWToPfMfHSMPk8mFyDJNPeCXOa7TOiRbyEXB4yn-8_qIOM/s1600/a-Berserk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibwUJJMrr5FhYwPkK3i56C99vguJMYKw4haZIVx-pn6Yyu_MZDpLTKMNJkQccQ6Mek4e3GZc6UR6gmj0A3IsWJoatUaRecYEkWToPfMfHSMPk8mFyDJNPeCXOa7TOiRbyEXB4yn-8_qIOM/s400/a-Berserk.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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It is not surprising that the Berserk manga turned anime received a movie series adaptation, that of which was done quite well. Injecting an additional degree of humanity into the story, the Golden Age Arc (2012-2013) tells the initial phase of the Berserk exceptionally well, and in a much more digestable format than the manga or anime. It is one of the few anime movie adaptations I recommend to people not fans of the medium as although it is probably difficult to understand, it is paced well enough to be an entertaining watch nonetheless. In fact, a friend of mine watched only the final movie and said he thoroughly enjoyed it, despite having no clue what was going on.<br />
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So, not having internet for over a month (long story) I have managed to find the time to edit another anime trailer AMV for another of my favourite anime movie series. This one has been in the conceptual phase for a long time, brewing in the back of my mind ever since I discovered a suitable musical track for it. Taking over 6 hours to edit, it was markedly easier to compile than the Evangelion trailer AMV I did last year.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<object height="371" width="595"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/X3VwUzRavBE?fs=1&color1=0xAD0D0D&color2=0xAD0D0D;hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1">
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true">
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/X3VwUzRavBE?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0xAD0D0D&color2=0xAD0D0D;hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="371" width="595"></embed></object></div>
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It is strange how much of my inspiration for video editing comes from finding the right sound for things. I donât even begin thinking about editing a video until the right tune comes along. Hopefully, when I find the time and the right jive, I will edit some of my more unusual ideas together. We shall see.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-33159165372637331912016-02-13T23:01:00.005-08:002016-02-13T23:01:30.869-08:00Prepare for the End - Paragon 1000I play a lot of Diablo III. Well, at least comparatively to the people I know. It is a reliable outlet for relaxation and on-demand game play that I use to escape some of the nonsense in the world. Especially in the last year or so.<br />
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Anyways, such an unconscious commitment puts me in a position where I am able to compete against some of the best Diablo III players around the world. I have pretty decent gear. Some would say best in slot. My augmentations (gear stat enchants) are reasonably high across the board, having put countless hours into slowly leveling gems. I don't play in groups often, nor do I have a high GR pushing team to get accelerated XP and substantially higher level gems (<=20 levels higher).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh83lUOPInYdckEerdZEmPcCkmw5oRoQbJXkhn8c1pgh7If7XzyCQ4drhhyhfpNoii4n21ABq_lCszKvlPCcwTc11f4bmjqX2jPO_3gx0XwQglhz0d5Deur5ORGfuSzacfbfhF88Yihcu6D/s1600/GR80.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh83lUOPInYdckEerdZEmPcCkmw5oRoQbJXkhn8c1pgh7If7XzyCQ4drhhyhfpNoii4n21ABq_lCszKvlPCcwTc11f4bmjqX2jPO_3gx0XwQglhz0d5Deur5ORGfuSzacfbfhF88Yihcu6D/s400/GR80.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Despite this, for the last 3 seasons in a row I have consistently placed in the top 50 of the Barbarian leader board at some point, and usually remain in the top 300 before the season ends. Mostly, this is unintentional as I do not fish for magical, planets aligned greater rifts nor do I push high level content overly frequently. In the few occasions that I do, I usually place somewhere that is respectable. Otherwise it generally doesn't concern me.<br />
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However, finally reaching Paragon level 1000 warrants at least some kind of attempt. I have been playing as a LeapQuake Barb for most of the season, a build that performs well across the board and requires some interesting stat balancing to achieve a comfortable spell rotation. Doing so will result in a lot of your damage mitigation achieved by simply being airborne, avoiding horrors with well placed/timed leaps. The following is a recording of the third, on-time attempt.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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Thankfully the GRift was nice enough to grant me a well placed power pylon and give me Hamelin as the final boss. This particular boss is a Barb's best friend, allowing one to maintain maximum rampage stacks for most of the fight, providing a considerable damage and tankiness boost.<br />
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It is interesting to note that, at the time of writing this, of the other 49 Barbarians in the top 50, 46 of them are Raekor Barbs - a Furious Charge glass cannon fishing build that makes me ill. The 4 of us who are LeapQuake Barbs are ranked with Paragon levels as follows: 16th (2063), 27th (1570), 46th (1065) and 49th (1001). By comparison, the number 1 position is held by a Raekor's Barb with Paragon level 3101! By comparison, it seems I play hardly any Diablo III at all.<br />
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I have also been playing Season 5 content on a monk with two good mates who have progressed very nicely for themselves. I will likely continue my Diablo III playtime with them.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-61204104438022195332015-12-19T17:05:00.002-08:002015-12-19T17:05:46.272-08:00Work hard. Fight hard.Damn, it's been awhile. Turns out working full-time and part time at two different places results in you having barely any free time. Who would have thought? This is especially true when you decide to supervise student projects at the same time. That is a story for another day though.<br />
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Anyways, while I havn't been doing as much gaming as I used to, I have been keeping pretty busy with video editing. While the discourse of those videos have not been about games, they are interesting projects in their own right. I will likely make a post about them in the new year, when I start doing more work related video editing too. Soon(tm). <br />
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So. Having a weekend to myself, randomly hosting a fight night, having a few people attend, playing some games and having some game footage to edit is a godsend these days, and something that I thoroughly enjoyed. The footage was mostly decent with some humorous elements patched in. Hosting a double-elimination tournament was also entertaining for me. I will need to figure out streamlining the recording process however, as transferring footage between rounds was not practical. However, the end result is as follows (recommended 720p fullscreen):<br />
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<object height="371" width="595"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/cPo1Oc-HdJs?fs=1&color1=0xAD0D0D&color2=0xAD0D0D;hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1">
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I am pretty happy with it, considering I cannot really expect much more these days. I look forward to hosting more Fight Nights, with more recent and future games like Street Fighter V, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat X and Super Smash Bros taking center stage. Oh yes, Fight Night will go on. For as long as it has to.David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-83985003835054263382015-09-06T03:22:00.003-07:002015-09-07T16:03:15.719-07:00HOTA!!!Hammer of the Ancients<br />
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Cost: 20 fury<br />
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"Call forth a massive hammer to smash enemies directly in front of you for 535% weapon damage. Hammer of the Ancients has a 1% increased Critical Hit Chance for every 5 Fury that you have".<br />
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There is something so unnaturally exhilarating about smashing something overhead repeatedly, with all your fury, until it ceases to exist. In Diablo 3, HotA, for the longest time, was the Barbarian's most reliable king-hit ability. With certain rune and elemental configurations, it packed an absolute whallop, as well as having an interesting crit chance mechanic for you to control, maintain and gear around. It was supremely satisfying to play with.<br />
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While it didn't exactly get nerfed, it became a significantly less useful ability in the Reaper of Souls expansion and follow up patches. Simply put, it hit like a wet noodle and was not useful for anything besides leveling. This was unfortunate for many Barbs, including myself, and resulted in many of us using more reliable but less gratifying Whirlwind builds to continue our journey of slaughtering hell's endless armies.<br />
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Join me now then as we see HotA return to form and enter the fray once more, bigger, better and more beasty than ever before in content patch 2.3. Open and rotate your eyes at the numbers that appear when gore splatters and monsters explode. Rip and fucking tear, motherfucker!<br />
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720p/1080p recommended viewing. <br />
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Update: GR65 Clear - 50th in World!<br />
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David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-75087843990465176312015-06-24T18:33:00.000-07:002015-06-24T18:35:28.391-07:00ScramblingSo I have kind of started work on my Unity 3D game Retaliator again, now that I have some proper time these days. I won't give too much away, but one of the more interesting components of the game will be simple, short, skippable cinematics throughout the intended campaign missions. This has required me to sit down and think about not only the composition and design of certain cinematics, but how to make a simple sequencer to handle said events.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUzg4hPkAlZOffz_JRhVfUnuUSZYqVCxWnwBZl-O1Yy9DPchYV7XqnGLd42GumLCglOEa1gRiji4COjbvZySzVdq3cZVr4HgdnHSNRRxUeCHax-y1johE2bmDVLbW-ukDf87DjMkdn8tQq/s1600/cs1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUzg4hPkAlZOffz_JRhVfUnuUSZYqVCxWnwBZl-O1Yy9DPchYV7XqnGLd42GumLCglOEa1gRiji4COjbvZySzVdq3cZVr4HgdnHSNRRxUeCHax-y1johE2bmDVLbW-ukDf87DjMkdn8tQq/s400/cs1.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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The end result of a couple of days work is something I am very happy with. Incredibly straightforward and elegant, and certainly not costing me ridiculous amounts of money on Unity's Asset Store. Basic functionality includes camera panning, focusing, tracking and orbiting, all the while communicating to other game objects. However, the latter could hardly be considered a feature once you know how it's done.<br />
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Nevertheless, the example test scene I have created is inspired heavily by Battlestar Galactica, and will seem familiar to any fan of the series. The scene is actually very similar to the final scene in Blood and Chrome, albeit lacking close-ups of the pilot's face. It is likely that I will have a similar scene or two in my final game. <br />
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Recommend watching in 720p+.<br />
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<br />David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-30544672805038503082015-05-08T23:53:00.000-07:002015-05-09T00:04:07.524-07:00BurntMy WoW subscription ends soon. Overall it's probably a good thing, as it will be one less distraction to worry about. Before it ends though, I decided to make one more PvP video on my warrior. Coming back after a brief hiatus, the most noticeable thing is just how geared everyone is now. Winning anything greater than a 1v1 seems much harder than before, especially with the insane numbers of hunters. It seems to be a more prevalent occurrence on Alliance than Horde. I guess those Human class + racial combos are too hard to pass on...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1P32WzyEL5UEFXFYpuMJBOygAhOAdaEkOrM81ustsZNVxHZ_2ZW0PM_mSaxXJathj6t0kMLTpajnpKsDYDEHa-WRVvzcI3V7aFfsq1yOaPToREGELpHMCFdjuQnz0ubo19G2a30zeO17n/s1600/seriously.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1P32WzyEL5UEFXFYpuMJBOygAhOAdaEkOrM81ustsZNVxHZ_2ZW0PM_mSaxXJathj6t0kMLTpajnpKsDYDEHa-WRVvzcI3V7aFfsq1yOaPToREGELpHMCFdjuQnz0ubo19G2a30zeO17n/s400/seriously.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">seriously?</td></tr>
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It makes for a particularly interesting BG combat experience though. Currently, most melee are fodder for a skilled hunter. So, with the increased number of them, you end up facing a LOT of hunters that enjoy picking off melee. This is incredibly frustrating and rage inducing, especially against more than one. Eventually you do end up trumping a few though, which is glorious. Observe (1080p fullscreen recommended).<br />
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I went a little crazy with the 'rage' effects in that video. There is sometimes such a huge gulf between what you observe and what you experience as a player. During several of the video clips, primarily against hunters, I was literally seething. Finding a way to bring back the blinding, burning, chaotic mindset of raging is somewhat difficult to edit back in. I hope I was successful to some degree.<br />
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So, with that, I depart from WoW once more. It was a fun few months, but one that had clearly run its course for me. Until next time. Maybe. David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-22411541154056624732015-04-19T01:24:00.000-07:002015-04-19T03:18:56.815-07:00Fighting games are funFighting games are fun. Lately I have been watching a <a href="http://www.twitch.tv/maximilian_dood">dood's stream</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOgaIuQYGr6ow_jbote4BKA">youtube channel</a> to do with fighting games. At the time, he was mainly playing Killer Instinct (2013). This is interesting as Killer Instinct is both a game I do not own and will never own, unless they release it on PC (i.e. its an XBone exclusive). Why I would watch someone play a game I have never played and possibly never will strikes me as a little unusual. The simple truth is that watching people play fighting games can be incredibly entertaining, especially if they are themselves an interesting person.<br />
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Fighting games are fun. However, why fighting games are not streamed or publicized more often is a bit of a mystery. Perhaps it can be better understood by the reaction of the general gaming community. Every now and then you will see a well constructed <a href="http://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/04/the-beauty-of-street-fighters-parry/">post about fighting games</a>. They usually don't pull much traffic and get very little attention. Sometimes, even negative attention. The fighting game genre, despite its prominence and significance in the history of video games, is not as popular a genre as you would expect. This is, in my opinion, incredibly unfortunate as fighting games are some of the best examples of ingenious game design and mechanics in games, even today. To some extent, lack of appreciation for the genre stems from general ignorance and inexperience. "Button mashers" could not be a more derogatory and inaccurate description of both the genre and the people who play them.<br />
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So, if fighting games are fun ... why not play them yourself? At a recent fight night, some friends and I did exactly that, ripping and tearing flesh in Mortal Kombat X, slicing and skewering in Soul Calibur V and flinging plasma repeatedly in Ultra Street Fighter IV. The latter of these games was somewhat more interesting as it did not simply devolve into combatants rolling their face in hopeful desperation. This is primarily because Street Fighter is not a game you can really 'spam' well in as it is usually more effective and enjoyable to learn to play properly. Competently executing just a few simple moves is enough to make you competitive, and playing against someone of equivalent knowledge is perhaps the most fun of all. Even without having played for months and having plenty of cobwebs, two of us managed to provide a slightly more competitive match-up which was (imo) the highlight of the evening. This was complete of course with plenty of wake-up shoryus, wake-up ultras, botched inputs and general missed opportunities. Also, it's my first 60 FPS video. Woot!<br />
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Comparatively, we are not very good players. However, it is interesting to observe later how even relative noobs can employ a primitive footsies game in Street Fighter. Once you get past any reaction and mechanical input issues, fights seem to have a more dynamic, tactical flow to them. It is not hard to see why fighting games are taken very seriously by its somewhat niche community. Hype is a real thing. I am just happy to be able to experience it every now and then.<br />
<br />David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-15935364863341136572015-03-29T03:46:00.001-07:002015-03-29T03:46:30.098-07:00Window to your soulApparently my previous post and video spawned some minor interest from folks wanting to know about any other videos I make. Surprisingly, it turns out that I have actually made quite a large number of videos in the past few years. Even more surprisingly, not all of them are to do with video games. This short post reveals some of the other videos I have worked on regarding other jobs and interests I have.<br />
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So some people may know that I tutor for several units at QUT. The one unit that has allowed me the most educational and creative freedom would be Advanced Game Design where I teach students how to use Unity 3D. A colleague and I worked on a previous video series for this unit which, while certainly educational, was a little boring and drawn-out. The new format I am working on is much more straightforward and to the point. The following is the first video of a potential series of short Unity 3D tutorials relating directly to Advanced Game Design at QUT.<br />
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I was also contracted to create random videos for QUT's newish Digital Signage program. This program essentially consists of a various large screen displays around the campus showing news and information about uni courses. The original format was a little boring, so I was hired to jazz up the video feed somewhat. At the time, it was rather difficult as I would only be given a few instructions and some text with which I had to turn into several minutes of animated video. Unfortunately I am currently no longer doing Digital Signage work, which sucks because it was both good work experience and decent pocket money.<br />
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The last video in this post is somewhat more personal. An old friend of mine called it a "self-less act" but it was honestly quite a fun project to undertake. My high-school reunion was several months ago. I unfortunately could not attend said celebration due to having an important presentation at the time. However, as I had worked on the senior video/dvd, I had access to all the old footage from ten years ago. Getting 10 year old footage off of 15 year old technology was a painful task, but the end result was enough content to make a video to contribute to the reunion in some way. The video itself was an interesting edit, finding the right juxtaposition between happiness and sadness. Making it made me realise that I do miss high-school to some extent. It was a simpler time with good friends that forged the mould of traits I look for in people today. When did I get so old...<br />
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Honestly, I wouldn't mind doing video editing for a living if I could. Realistically though, the chances of that happening are even smaller than working in the games industry. I guess time will tell.
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David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7926654828286520217.post-75423597885630193952015-02-26T00:22:00.000-08:002015-02-26T15:53:15.198-08:00God's in his heaven, all's right with the worldI am not a religious person, by any means. While I think our Universe could very well have been instanced by a supreme being or intelligence, I am not naive or arrogant enough to believe that the human race has any understanding of said supposed deity. Especially not in the form of a book or societal system composed of stories and practices so overwhelmingly irrelevant in contrast to the nature of the Universe. The concept of 'God' is a quixotic ideal that humanity may never fully understand or realise, despite so many attempts.<br />
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It is uncanny, then, how significant Neon Genesis: Evangelion has been in my life. The series takes a slight nod towards the Catholic faith, using religious elements as set-pieces in a much grander scheme. While this is mainly focused just on the Genesis story and the Crucifixion, the borrowed elements allow for a much more ... believable story to take place. The irony in this is only further juxtaposed with the (original) ending to the series where the Human Instrumentality Project comes to fruition. Translation: the forced transcendence of humanity without the (direct) help of God.<br />
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That is probably a bit much to take in, so let's drop the tone a few notches. Evangelion is undoubtedly my favourite anime of all time, but not for the mentioned reasons. It is probably the first anime I watched religiously (ha!), evaluating its evolving maturity while undergoing my own. It has a great story and some rather unique character relationships. It is warm, funny, action-packed, violent, tragic and sometimes heartbreaking. The End is potentially the most fucked up and depressing but insanely logical conclusions to a franchise, ever. I can honestly say that Evangelion has taught me a thing or two about living and affected me on a personal level. For the better, of course.<br />
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So, as you would expect, I randomly made a video about it. Essentially it is a trailer for the franchise, paying tribute to its story and overall brilliant insanity. It was surprisingly difficult to fit so many hours of plot into just a few minutes. It is probably one of the tightest cuts I have ever produced. This process has given me an appreciation for people who edit (good) trailers as well as the companies who make quality anime. How like Evangelion to still be teaching me things even today.<br />
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Recommend watching at fullscreen, 1080p. <br />
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David Conroyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10555508897123891846noreply@blogger.com0