Personal Musings

The Music of Blizzard - Echoes of War

Indelible — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:26:11 GMT

I am out of work at the moment, so I thought I would return to blogging briefly whilst I wait for a job to pop up in the void that is mid Wales.

The first thing I'd like to blog about is a new musical compilation that has been released by orchestral gaming veterans Eminence. These guys have done the music to a wide array of games and have become fairly prominent in Asia for this very act. Sadly, it takes a while for good ideas to take off in the West. Eventually however, good things come to those who wait.

Featuring an array of musical pieces from games spanning right across Blizzards' three top franchises, Echoes of War is what can only be described as a long awaited classic to add to your CD collection. I picked this up thinking that we were dealing with yet another game soundtrack but I was sorely mistaken. Echoes of War delivers the classic Blizzard music from the classic Blizzard games in a new and interesting way.

For the most part, the tracks have not changed much in their basic layout. We'll still hear those bits that stood out whilst we were playing Diablo, StarCraft or Warcraft games and they should bring a little nostalgia to your life, which is always pleasant. Added to that basic formula is a new level of passion that previously was unattainable. When you put a large group of talented people behind instruments, with some of the top composers in the world at the head and give them tracks that had previously been performed by sophisticated computer software and small groups of musicians, there is bound to be a whole new level of passion to the music and that is just what Eminence delivers. The best example of this is the rendition of The Eternal Conflict from Diablo. Those of you who remember the Tristram theme will surely want to listen to this new rendition, which delivers so much more than the original ever could, despite the fact that the original was a classic piece of gaming music.

The voices behind this brilliant work of fiction deserve to earn from this, so I think it is only right that you head on over to the Echoes of War website to check out the three preview tracks they have on the site.

If Echoes of War succeeds, we may well see some other classic game music being put forward in this new way - from the music of Neverwinter Nights to Warhammer Online. I can only hope that this picks up.

What Not To Wear

Indelible — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 03:55:51 GMT

Now... I'm not too sure if I really want to do this but after seeing the display of bravery from the Curse Crew (You should trademark that :o) I decided that this is as good an oppertunity as ever to show you the face behind the red-legs...

In true nerd style - a WoW player in a Star Trek unifrom. I don't think it get's anymore sterotypical... -_-

I'll be pestering Matticus and Celathil to get pictures up, irrespective of what they wore :-)

Note the pale complextion, wild hair and dire dress sense - a true sign of someone who sits at his computer far, far too much.

Co-operation for Raiding

Indelible — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 03:42:53 GMT

On my server Bronzebeard, there is very much a lwo population of people fighting for spots in some of the few guilds that actually raid on Horde side. Since the server was set up, we've got ourselves into a mess when it comes to guilds and raiding. There are a hell of a lot of smaller, "casual," guilds and only 5 major raiding guilds on Horde side. With only 25-man raids available, people literally fight over the spots in these raiding guilds when they become available.

Now those of you who read my blog will know that I am in the process of converting one of these small guilds into a casual raiding guild. We are still waiting for 2.2 to be implemented so that we can start raiding but when we realised that players aren't going to join a guild that has little to know end game progression under our belts, we decided to explore somethign very, very risky - co-operation.

I am an ex-member of a couple of the oldest guilds on Bronzebeard and one of these guilds is a casual guild called Blueshadow Cult. I left BSC due to internal politics created by the then GM but since then things have changed and a new GM has stepped up to take over.

Now a lot of you will be about ready to tell me how stupid I am but when me, my GM and other officers discussed the idea of a co-operation, guild drama ensued. I was sharing a job with another player who claimed ot have led raids through SSC. I didn't believe him due to the fact that in two weeks of setting up for raiding, he managed to make a few posts on the website and that was about it. He left the guild in the end and that's where the politics ended but nobody, to my knowledge was sad to see him go. The reason he left is because he wanted a merger, which we weren't happy to look at. Mergers are nasty, horrible things and they tend to end up with nasty, horrible arguements. We down sized this merger idea to a co-operation and we all agreed, as most of us were ex-member and ex-officers of BSC, that BSC was the only guild we would approach with this idea.

What we offered Blueshadow Cult was the following:

- Organised and casual raiding on two days of the week.
- No forced specs of forced raid attendance.
- Officer access to our forums.
- Fair chance at items as if they were Merc Crew guild members.

This seems fair enough and they thought so too. Last night, after speaking to the GM of BSC in a little more detail, the plan was accepted and so with the implementation begins a new relationship between these two guilds.

Of course, we are still recruiting raiders into Mercenary Crew but I have a feeling that at some point in the future, the ones who don't wish to raid will begin to become angered at the way the guild is going and with the GM of Merc Crew becoming increasingly worried that he has lost control of his guild, we may have to face other problems in the near future.

If you are interested in seeing how Mercenary Crew are progressing, or even if you are interested in joining us, our website is at.

Starting a Raiding Guild

Indelible — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 03:40:40 GMT

Starting a Raiding Guild

Well that isn’t exactly the case. I’m not starting a raiding guild. I’m overseeing the transition of a casual guild into a casual raiding guild. When I started, I didn’t quite know what I was in for but I thought it would be fun. Having been a raid leader in previous guilds, I thought that actually organising the new structure of the guild would be easy as pie. I was wrong.

There were steps to be taken before I could start implementing any raiding plans and questions to be asked. What are our aims? Where do we start? When do we start? Who leads the raids? I answered those questions fairly quickly. Our aims are to clear as much end game content as possible before Wrath of the Lich King. We start in Kara and move on to ZA when it is released. We start after the 2.2 patch and I lead the raids until other experienced members join up. Ok. Simple enough. Now to start reshaping the guild.

The first thing I did was to redo the ranking system of my guild. Previously, we had a ranking system based upon the level of the player but this wouldn’t do for a casual raiding guild so we replaced it with a simple system, which looks like the following:

Trial Member
Member
Elite
Class Champion (1 per class)
Raid Leader (Me)
Deputy GM (2)
Guild Master (1)

The next thing I did was to slightly change our recruitment policy. We want to come across as a casual raiding guild that not only supports end game content but also supports medium level content. So I decided to raise the level cap on recruitment to level 40. High enough but not too low. I also decided to give those players who wanted to raid a format to follow when they apply. That would allow me to see what they can do when directed to follow instructions as this is a key element of a raider.

So we have the ranks and the requirements. Now onto the juicy stuff – DKP. I decided up a zero-sum DKP system. For those of you unfamiliar with zero-sum DKP, it basically works by applying a value to items that drop. This value is then deducted from the player who wins the item. The value is then divided amongst the total number of raiders. For example:

Item value = 50 DKP
Players = 10
50/10 = 5
5 DKP is awarded to all members of the raid.

Seems like a fair enough system. I’ll be using WebDKP to admin it and as I am leading the raids, I shall be the only one really touching it.

Until we start raiding, that is as far as I can go. We have the members, the system and the leaders. All we need now is VoIP and that comes with patch 2.2.

I’ll keep a blog of my guilds raiding efforts here on The Daily Quest.

You can view my guild via this link.

Tom "Kalgan" Chilton Labeled, "moron."

Indelible — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 03:28:45 GMT

If people have been keeping an eye on the US general forums you would have seen Tom "Kalgan" Chilton single handedly battle PvP players from all over the the US regarding comments he may or may no thave made at Blizzcon 2007 regarding the balance of Warlocks in PvP.

Some would say that Kalgan acted in an entirely unprofessional and downright disrespectful way to the people that pay his wages but I say that the guy did exactly what needed to be done - trolled the competition into submission. Yes, I did just say a Blizzard poster trolled the forums. That isn't an insult - I supposrt trolling in the right context and by hell was this the right context.

The OP posted a borderline insulting post (on an alt) claiming that Mr. Chiilton had effectively said, "devs roll lock," and that he also said that Warlocks should be dominant in 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 situations but are under-represented in 5v5 so that is ok. I don't recall hearing this in anything he said but the OP was adament that Kalgan. Agelena, the offending priest (level 25 troll priest - Gurubashi US) decided it was perfectly appropriate ot misquote and twist Kalgans words to create bad publicity for the guy that is only a fraction of the dev team.

As far as I can see, Agelena wasn't making any valid points and merely attempting to not only dishearten the playerbase who would listen to his/her rubbish. Why? Well this we shall never know but needless to say some of the stuff she said was outragoues.

Tom Chilton basically said, it's OK warlocks are OP in 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3, as long as they aren't over represented in 5v5, we have no plans of fixing them.

Tom Chilton said Warlocks are "supposed to be the most powerful class in duels and 1v1 pvp, but WoW pvp is not about dueling".

No he didn't. At least, I didn't here that. What I heard is exactly what Blizzard have maintained all through PvP developement. PvP is not balanced towards 1v1. There isn't a 1v1 arena ladder. There are no 1v1 situations in which anything matters. 1v1 is rock, paper, scissors and as much as this annoys me it has never been anything different. One or two classes have always shone above the rest. There has never been absolute balance. We'd all have to be warriros for that to occur.

Needless to say, this continues for a while and then the OP says something that makes me think, "you aren't here to prove a point. You are just here to discredit a guy for no reason."

Tom Chilton said "I tried the "HUTER THING", and just couldn't do it." This is solid evidence that the lead designers don't play the hunter class at all and has no idea how the core mechanism of the class is flawed and has no plans to look into it. Frankly this is a huge insult to the hunter class, even Blizzard lead designers think the class is a joke.

Firstly, Kalgan didn't say that. Another dev said that and anyone who watched the videos knows this. This is where I lost interest and just decided to go through Toms responces and by god were they the best responces ever.

...more fun with people attributing things to me that aren't even accurate (along with quite a few other random tidbits of misinformation in this thread). Gogo internet!

Let the conjecture and bs continue. It entertains.

If you are thinking about throwing somethng in a devs face, make it fact and not fiction!

Souce: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1134165636&sid=1...

My Time in Gaming

Indelible — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 03:20:55 GMT

A lot of bloggers give you their opinions and impressions on different aspects in the gaming world but very few tell you why they feel so much passion for such a mundane thing. Let's face it - gaming is just another form of escapism but what makes it different from any other form of escapism is the way in which it captivates your mind. Whether you play the games for the graphics or the varying stories out there you are playing it because it captivates you and makes us all sit back and think, "woah!"

When I was 4 or 5 I got my very first computer - the legendary BBC. Before this I had dabbled with Amstrads and the like but what made this machine better was the fact that it was the first computer system that was mine. I loved my BBC more than anything else I had but for the first few months, it was just a hunk of metal and plastic with no viewable benefits. I had no games you see and for a kid of 5, this detracted from my interest in it and so I spent most of my time in my imagination with lego and knex. Eventually, I got my very first PC game - Prince of Persia and for months I played it religiously. Next came games like Hocus Pocus and this captivated my interest in fantasy gaming and science fiction (along with my avid Star Trek viewing :-D).

When I was 6, I lost my BBC in one of the worst thunderstorms I have ever experienced. I cried for days until, out of the blue, an IBM Windows 3.1 PC appeared in my room along with Theme Park and Star Trek: A Final Unity. I loved it and for months and months I played not only these two new games but also ports of my old games, like Space Invader. This is how I got into PCs but not entirely what got me into gaming.

The first game to get me into gaming in a hardcore way was an RTS and a now legendary franchise, Warcraft. I played it all day and all night when I got it and even missed 3 days of school just to complete it. This still wasn't enough, however, and I was still looking for more. This went on for a few years, playing various games and mostly RTS titles until one day a company I have now come to love and respect released my very first addiction - Diablo.

Diablo captivated me in a way that no there game ever has or ever will. I was not only interested in the story but also immersed my immature mind in my character, often stepping away from my PC resiting lines and, "acting," out how I though my character would act if he were real. The Diablo franchise has always had a soft spot in my heart and I still revisit Diablo and Diablo 2 for nostalgia.

The next game to hook me on the RPG genre was Neverwinter Nights. I had a sorcerer and I was obsessed with the game, playing through 3 or 4 times before I'd even vaguely got bored. Along with the expansion packs I played this game for years and never moved away from it. I never got chance to join the online community however and this was something I regret to this day.

What made me want to sit here and share my opinions and evaluations of the gaming world was a desire to help shape the RPG genre. I have very little interest in other genres, apart from RTS games but I wanted to be a part of a new player-based gaming movement.

I became very passionate about not only what I felt but what those around me felt and I decided to use my small voice to add to the crowds of people calling out and giving feedback.

Until I came to Curse and started blogging here, I didn't really have a place to write down my thoughts and specualtion but now, I feel I have found a home and I hope it will be my home for a long time and I hope people will come to not only be interested in what I have to say but also respect my opinions. I understand this is something I have to earn but hopefully, overtime, I will be able to.

Eventually, I want to do this pro. I want to be at all the major gaming expos and events so that I can report back my thoughts and feelings to the world. With no journalism qualifications and not a lot of life experience, it is going to take a long time and lots of effort to get there but it is something that I want to do and I will achieve this.

So now you all know why I blog and I hope you all will come to respect and want my opinion on gaming.