Minecraft Update!

Minecraft 1.5 Beta was recently released and a few interesting things were added to the game:

* Weather (rain, snow, thunder)
* Statistics
* Achievements
* Detector rail
* Booster rail
* Performance improvements

Chris's Sky City

So yesterday I showed you the ground level of Chris's castle and this preview of the sky portion; today I'll take a full look at the sky city.

Here is the staircase leading up to it.

Once you are up there he has some nice fountains and a tree growing in the center.

Each of the four corners has a building with some bookcases and chairs.

There is quite a nice view from up here as well. You can see far off in all directions.

Chris got mad because right on the edge of his territory some guy put up a tower overlooking the castle. Chris said he was destroying it but the guy told a mod and now the tower is protected, heh.

I spotted this huge stadium like thing off in the distance and it intrigued me; I'll take a look at it and feature it in a future blog post. I saw a guy working on it so it is still in construction.

Chris Has Been Busy...

It's been a while since I played on the Sincraft server so I'm a bit behind on events there. My friend Chris still plays there and asked me to come check out his new area and holy crap he has been really busy. In this post I'll show off the ground level of his huge castle. Above is the main entrance to the ground area.

Here's a small living area inside the middle building.

The bank is on the right and the greenhouse is on the left, he modeled this castle after the one I built on the Sincraft server.

Down at the bottom of his bank is his protected nether portal which I seemed to be able to hear from anyplace in the castle which is pretty creepy, the noise disturbs me.

In my next post I'll show off his above ground developing sky-city. For now I'll treat you with this little preview of a part of it.

Nice Minecraft House

This house was constructed on my small Minecraft server over the course of a few days and it turned out pretty nice, nice enough to share on the blog. Most of the credit goes to Krazy_Kow for his design
work.

I'm Back! Here's Some WoW News

To start off I'd like to say sorry for the lack of posts over the past days; my internet connection was borked and my ISP took their time getting out here. They put in a new line and everything is fine now so the daily posts will continue!

While I was gone a bunch of cool WoW news has popped up on my favorite source mmo-champion so let's dive into it. Blizzard is still adding more and more to the 4.1 content patch which should hit live servers by the end of the month (hopefully).

Nice piece of fan art that could serve as a wallpaper.

Minecraft Pyramid

I don't have much time today so I'll just show off this pyramid I made out of lightstone in Minecraft. I'm a big fan of Egyptian style architecture so my first project was this pyramid which took me about four or five hours total to construct. The wooden walkway that goes to the top is just part of our tram system.

There is a closer up picture of the pyramid. I was going to make it a bit taller but it just would have taken too much time and I was ready to move onto somthing else.

 It has a pretty nice view from the very top. Sometime I wish to create a tunnel system inside the pyramid full of crypts and traps. I think that would be pretty cool.

Situation Report: Patch 1.3 (Starcraft)

David Kim, Starcraft game balance designer.

The new 1.3 patch for Starcraft implemented a good deal of balance changes to the game and, as always, caused some heated discussion among players. In a recent post by David Kim they relayed their reasoning behind the changes to the community. I'll pick out the parts I found most interesting to discuss. The entire post can be found here.

Firstly Blizzard killed the archon toilet, which I explained how to do in an earlier blog post, calling it a bug fix rather than a balance change; vortex was meant to be a lockdown and not a wipe out their entire force move. Units leaving the vortex are now immune to all damage and untargetable for 1.5 seconds.

Next, the Khaydarin Amulet upgrade for High Templar was removed; this means that Templar can no longer cast psi-storm immediately after being warped in. The biggest reason they did this was because they felt that Protoss AoE was a bit overpowered. Instead of nerfing collosi they decided to adjust Templar.

Blizzard apparently also thinks that Terran rush capabilities were overpowered. Bunker build time was increased to make offensive bunkering (bunker rushes) more difficult. Also, stim pack research time was increased by 30 seconds to give opponents more time to scout and prepare for early stim pushes.

Ghost EMP was also nerfed to only drain 100 energy instead of all energy which is a very good change for protoss. EMP was just too strong against sentries, infestors, and high templar which I agree with.

Perhaps my favorite change (at least the most fun change) is that Battlecruisers got a movement speed buff! Blizzard thought cruisers were underused so they buffed their weakest point. I love Battlecruisers so I may start trying to incorporate them into builds more.

Battlecruisers are now coming for you! At a slightly faster pace...

Even More Blizzard Store Items Incoming

A couple weeks ago in a post I talked about the up and coming Winged Lion mount that will be available for purchase with real money from the Blizzard store in 4.1. With the incredible amount of cash they made from the Celestial Steed I definitely saw this coming. However, now it seems that Blizzard is ramping up production of premium content, which to me is disturbing; it indicates the slippery slope effect. Here are the next two "mounts" that will be available from the store along with the lion:

You can individually purchase the wings for $19.99 or buy both of them for $29.99. To me this illustrates a disturbing trend. First Blizzard had a few in game pets that could be purchased, then one mount. Now it's a whole set of mounts along with the continued production of pets. I do not feel that in a subscription based game that development time should be spent on premium content, especially this amount of premium content. In the end Blizzard is a business and this kind of thing makes them money so they will continue with it and I don't blame them, expect to see a lot more of premium content in the future.

As an extra mmo-champion has a video up of the lion mount so here it is, no videos yet of the wings.

Starcraft....On Kinect!

In a revolutionary post today Blizzard announced their intent to return to the world of consoles! The once PC only developer will now be taking the step to consoles with an Xbox 360 version of Starcraft played with Kinect! Here is an excerpt from Blizzard's article.

"Combining advanced body tracking hardware of modern consoles with the exciting strategy gameplay of StarCraft II, StarCraft: Motion Overdrive will allow you to experience StarCraft like never before. Use gesture-based controls to direct your forces and out-move your enemies. Challenge your friends in intense multi-actor matches either locally via split screen or online. Wave your arms in the air like you do, in fact, care."

 

They also created an epic trailer depicting the intense action' it also relays the fact that, as always, Koreans will dominate every game they play!

Disclaimer: Before having either a nerdgasm or an intense fit of nerd rage please observe today's date and Blizzard's history of announcements on said date. 

Jinx Aquires Minecraft License!

Recently Jinx.com, a supplier of gamer and geek clothing items, launched a set of officially licensed Minecraft shirts and announced their plans to continue the creation of Minecraft merchandise. As far as I'm aware this is the first officially licensed by Notch Minecraft clothing which indicates a big step for the game. It means Notch is looking to expand Minecraft and make even more money off of it which in the end is good for us! The more money Minecraft makes the more effort Notch can / will put into it's development, at least I hope.

So those of you that are willing to express your inner geek and/or love of Minecraft in public rejoice! The rest of you just be glad that Notch is doing well, he deserves it for creating such a great game. Jinx even has an offer going right now where if you buy three or more shirts you get $5 off each, which makes it about $15 a shirt. Jinx is a great company and I'm glad that they are the ones that got the Minecraft license.

My personal favorite of the shirts that I will probably pick up is the creeper one.

Krazy_Kow's Floating Citadel

On my Minecraft server Krazy_Kow built himself a huge floating netherrock citadel with the assistance of me and Chris, so here is a look at this massive floating structure.

The Daily Blink's Updated Guild Finder Tool!

In 4.1 Blizzard is introducing their own looking for guild tool to help players find guilds, however, as you can see it is very lacking which may prove problematic:

Let's face it, Blizzard's tool is pathetic and no serious guilds will use it; so our friends at The Daily Blink have finished the guild finder for Blizz and posted a screenshot of their, far superior, guild finder tool!

As a raider that has experienced many different guilds I must say that this tool is fairly accurate and Blizzard should implement it immediately!

Awesome Valor Point Changes Incoming In WoW

In the upcoming 4.1 patch the valor point system will be receiving a very nice change. Currently, players receive 70 points for completing the first random heroic five man dungeon they do in a day; this means that a player must log in everyday and do a heroic if they wish to acquire the maximum amount of points to buy gear with. This can be quite a pain because some days I, and many others, just don't have any time to play. Anybody like that will be delighted with the upcoming changes!

In 4.1 players will receive 70 valor points for the first seven heroics they complete each week. This means that if you have a ton of time to play one day you could quite possibly get a guild group together, blaze through some heroics, and be done for the rest of the week! This is a great change that allows players more freedom of choice. For me this is especially good as some days I just don't feel like playing WoW but I feel I must in order to not fall behind in the gear race.

Creepy tiki mask in the revamped Zul'Gurub

In addition to this change Blizzard announced something pretty interesting; the new heroics, revamped Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman, will be considered tier 2 heroics. Not only do they drop better gear but completing them rewards 140 valor points, double that of tier 1 heroics. This means that if a player runs ZG and ZA seven times a weak they can get a maximum of 980 valor points in a week! This doesn't "stack" with tier 1 heroics though, players can only receive valors from seven heroics in a week.

Be prepared to fight this guy, over and over and over.

My only concern here, besides the whole raid level gear being more easily accessible from 5 mans problem, is that currently there are only two "tier 2" heroics, ZA and ZG. This means that players wanting the maximum valor points will be doing these two over and over and over with no variety. Hopefully in 4.2 more tier two dungeons will be added to ease the monotony a bit.

Minecraft Clay Making Machine

Something you could build with all that clay.

I had a few people asked me about the clay maker mentioned in a previous post so here is a quick guide on how to make one. Here is what it looks like, it's a very simple design.

Place the water spring in the back so it flows towards you, the pressure plates in the front are there to stop the water from advancing any further. To use it place a gravel block directly in front of the pressure plate, it will touch the water and turn to clay instantly.

Now stand on the pressure plate and destroy the clay block, the water current will push the clay into you to be collected! Now rinse and repeat and you can turn all of your gravel into clay!

This machine is very useful as it turns plentiful and nearly useless gravel into clay which can be used to make brick. I also like it's very simple design that requires few materials.

Blizzard is Printing More Money!

We all knew it would happen again, the question was not if, it was when, and that time has come. Last year Blizzard introduced, for the first time ever, an in game mount for all of your characters that was purchasable for 25 dollars. It was the celestial steed and God it had to be the ugliest, re-skinned piece of crap I've ever seen:

However, the playerbase proved their willingness to spend real life money on ugly in game mounts; if you will believe it Blizzard was making 500,000 dollars an hour for the first four to five hours. That huge pile of cash for a mount that essentially was the Algalon skin strapped onto the Invincible model. Of course they would do it again! They had to!

Recently mmo-champion datamined some screenshots of a flying lion thing and there was speculation of what it would be. Now Blizzard has released an official screenshot of it and said that it will be the next mount added to their store; it will probably cost $25 bucks like the star pony.

First I'd like to say that this mount looks way better than the star pony, at least they put some effort into it this time. I still won't be buying it though as I don't believe paying for in game items in a subscription based game is worth my money. But, I respect people's right to use their money however they see fit and Blizzard's right to do this as long as they don't start giving in game advantages through the store. And I'm sure thousands upon thousands of people will buy it and Blizzard will effectively print another truckload of money.

So I pose a question to you readers, would you pay $25 for an in game mount in a subscription based game and do you believe that it is "right" or "ok" for Blizzard to use development time on premium content only available to those that pay more?

Slightly Off Topic Music Post!

Just a few days ago Machinae Supremacy released a new video for their song, Force Feedback. I LOVE them and think they are an amazing band and figured I'd share their new video here; it is still slightly on topic because of the song's great meaning. It has to do with the many different incursions into the gaming and internet world by governments and other parties. I've included the powerful lyrics below as well.

Force Feedback - Machinae Supremacy

Take a look across this vast uncharted battlefield
You still don't know your enemy
A bunch of pissed off freaks with infinite mad skillz
And a new found taste for blood

We made this life
You have no place here
No right

[Chorus:]
This is the world you're in
And this is where ours begins
A borderless nation of thoughts to replace
Your walled-in existence in space

We are like sleepers we hide in plain sight
If you can't see you cannot fight
This is the war between our culture and your laws
With millions born into the cause

Now we're taking it back
You don't believe me?
Feedback

[Chorus:]
This is the world you're in
And this is where ours begins
A borderless nation of thoughts to replace
Your walled-in existence in space

[Female vocals:]
I don't think you understand
These are our shores and our land
You are a stranger here
And we won't be idle as you interfere

[Spoken Japanese - female]
"You don't want to understand our reality is free here
^{koko de jiyuu no genjitsu o rikaishiteinai you da na}
We are not your servants
^{watashitachi wa shimobe de wa naku}
This place doesn't belong to you
^{koko wa omaetachi no ryouiki de wa nai}
We are an assembly of countless individuals
^{watashitachi wa kazoekirenai kurai no koko no shuugou}
You should be aware
^{keikokusareta deshou}
If you intrude upon our lives
^{watashitachi no ikikata o jama suru nara}
You'll have to face an unimaginable enemy
^{souzou o zessuru you na teki ni tachimukau}
Prepare yourself"
^{kakugoshinasai}

[Chorus:]
This is the world you're in
And this is where ours begins
A borderless nation of thoughts to replace
Your walled-in existence in space

Sure you already know
That your age was long ago
We augment reality online
And you hail from ancient times

[Chorus:]
This is the world you're in
And this is where ours begins
A borderless nation of thoughts to replace
Your walled-in existence in space

My Home on the Sincraft Server

In this followup to my long post discussing the Singaming Minecraft multiplayer server I'll show you guys my group's work in progress home on the server. Also, if any of you are getting tired of the massive amount of Minecraft stuff recently I've got some non Minecraft posts planned this week, so stay tuned!

Singaming Minecraft Server

You guys may have noticed the influx of Minecraft posts lately; that is because I have been playing a lot of Minecraft in my spare time recently. The reason for this is that I found a great multiplayer server with a cool community on it. Following is a pretty in depth look at Sincraft!

The Gerudoku Minecraft Texture Pack

 

Recently I checked out several texture packs because I was bored of the normal Minecraft textures; Gerudoku's has to be my favorite out of all of the ones I tried. It is an amazingly themed and complete texture pack.

Minecraft Clocktower

People seem to like the stuff me and my friends have built in Minecraft so I'll continue posting them; this is Chris's clock-tower that took him a couple days to build and then another to fix when Ryan TNT'd it. The random wood track is just our tram system that links all major creations together.

This is the main inside room and the stairs go up to several levels with some small rooms. There isn't much in the rooms however.

This is a view from the very top of the tower that looks out across our world; from here you can see a bunch of our creations some of which I may feature here in the future.

Magicka Vietnam

Arrowhead Studios has announced the first major DLC for their intuitive game Magicka, which if you do already own, I highly recommend you buy; hell it's only ten bucks and is loads of fun especially with friends. The original Magicka was set in a midevil period but the Magicka team, sticking to their wild and crazy side, have done a complete 180 by setting the DLC in...Vietnam! My guess is that they will use Vlad's time traveling powers to tie it into the story somehow.

If you have ever wondered what it would be like to be a wizard in Vietnam this game is for you! Check out the official trailer:

Minecraft Prison

On my Minecraft server I built a prison, partially for fun and partially for locking people up if I want; just demote the person to the prisoner rank and teleport them in! So here's a look at my prison.

Firelands Information Released!

Recently mmo-champion posted a Firelands preview with a bunch of pictures; Firelands will be the next raid instance and the second tier of raiding in Cataclysm. There will be seven bosses including Fandral Staghelm, former archdruid of Darnassus; Alysra, a green dragon; and of course Ragnaros the Firelord. In addition to the raid there will also be a new daily quest zone for more rep grinding, yay!

The Archon Toilet

I've seen this amazing trick pulled off more frequently recently and still many people do not know what it is; the archon toilet will destroy a pop capped army in 2-3 seconds if done correctly and it only requires some archons, a mothershop, and maybe some psi storms for added effect. Even if you aren't protoss you should know about this to make sure you don't let it happen.

If you want to go for a toilet build a mothership first and warp some of your high templar into 4-5 archons; then move out with your entire army keeping the mothership and archons in the back so they do not get sniped early. Try to catch your opponent's army when they are clustered up and drop a vortex in the middle of them. Hopefully the majority of their army gets sucked into the vortex and the stragglers get picked off.

An opponent's gut reaction is to run into the vortex so that the part of their army not caught in it doesn't get mowed down on their own, but if you are going for a toilet this is exactly what you want. Charge all of your archons into the vortex and position your high templar in a spot where they can drop storms on top of the vortex. As soon as the vortex fades drop some storms on it, they aren't necessary as the archons do a pretty good job of murdering everything but they help.

Presto, all that is left of your opponent's 200/200 army is a bunch of blood. I've watched replays of diamond and even master league players losing a game to this technique; it is amazing how fast the food count drops in a split second. So if you are playing against a mothership and you see archons, run away from the vortex for the love of God don't seek safety within it!

If you are wondering why this works it is in face quite simple. Archons have an area of effect attack that will hit all units within a small distance of their target. The vortex sucks all units together into a tight ball on the same exact spot. So for a second after the vortex breaks all the units inside are right on top of eachother allowing the archons to hit everything at once. The storms are there to finish off weakend units. Here is a short youtube video I found of the toilet but you do not need nearly as many archons as that guy had, around 4 will suffice in most cases. 

Here is another of some battlecruisers getting obliterated.