Guild o' the Week!

I hear these guys are really cool.

Did something big happen today?

I can't help but feel I've missed something big happening today. Oh well, couldn't of been that important.

History

Congrats to Obama. He won a fair fight.

Obama won because he wasn't the standard politician. All I ask is that governs fairly and honestly towards his campaign promises, or he will become just another politician. That is the last thing America needs.

Book Thoughts: Elantris

Title: Elantris
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Tor Fantasy (May 30, 2006)
Quick-Hit Thought: A one volume epic fantasy worth reading.

I have to admit the only reason I picked up Elantris was due to the announcement that Brandon Sanderson would be writing the twelfth, and final, book in the Wheel of Time series. Along with favorable reviews, and the fact that the story begins and ends in a single book, really sold it to me as a book worth reading to get a measure of Sanderson’s abilities.

The main point to understand about Elantris is that it is an epic fantasy tale wrapped up in under a thousand pages. It covers the gambit as far as epic fantasy goes. There is the hero, the villain, the princess, a story, and most of all, the fantastical world.

Elantris, located in the nation of Arelon, is more than the title of the book, it is the name of a magical city that ten years prior stopped being magical. Outside of Elantris is the smaller, non-magical city of Kae, newly revitalized in the wake of the downfall of Elantris and now the center of Arelon’s monarchy.

Elantris serves as a prison, housing those unfortunate enough to be afflicted by the magic that once made the city and the Elantrians great. The book begins as Raoden, the prince of Arelon, becomes afflicted with this magic and is cast into the crumbling city of Elantris. The story excels from that point forwad. Every chapter spent in Elantris is well worth the reader’s time.

Outside of Elantris, two other points of view are followed: Raoden’s widowed-before-the-wedding wife, Sarene, and Hrathen, priest sent to convert the non-believers of Arelon. While Raoden struggles within Elantris, Sarene and Hrathen battle politically in the city of Kae.

I thoroughly enjoyed the chapters involving Raoden and the overall story line of the book. However, the chapters involving Sarene and Hrathen take a while to become enjoyable. Sarene is just too much of a stereotypical feminist, while Hrathen is the obvious conflicted bad guy. I did enjoy Hrathen overall, but the most interesting aspect of Hrathen was his back-story which I would not have minded more of.

Fortunately, towards the end of the book, the three characters become entwined together in the chapters and the pace picks up significantly. The plot spins down quickly and an expected, but well-executed, ending unfolds.

Overall, the book serves its purpose as a one-book epic fantasy tale. More back story on Hrathen would have been nice and the pacing could have been smoother. It was refreshing to read a book without having to worry about the next book in the series. Elantris tells a great story that begins and ends within a thousand pages. Quite a feat in an otherwise bloated fantasy genre, especially for an author tagged with the responsibility to conclude one of the most bloated epic fantasy series out there.

Witching Night

Happy Witching Night! Hope everyone had fun. Unfortunately, I didn't get to participate in any of the RvR Public Quests, but I did win a roll on a mask drop!

Three Things to Keep Me Interested

In my previous post, I gave Mythic three months to get WAR straightened out. Now, I want to list the three things that MUST change in order for me to stick with WAR and not, sadly, go back to WoW.

1. Magus/Engineer "magnet" abilities removed from the game completely or limited to a single target only.

2. Open-world RvR zones populated with PvE content such as PQs and normal quest hubs.

3. Experience and renown gain reworked in scenarios. Scenarios should reward based on wins and losses ONLY, not upon how much damage or how many kills a player nets. Scenarios are fun, but due to how rewards are doled out, only the fastest-played and most-kills scenarios get played. This has to change.

Mythic already has a start on #2 with their upcoming Halloween event, but I am not impressed by their plans to have the Public Quests in open-world RvR zones respawn once every few hours instead of after two minutes like EVERY OTHER PQ IN THE GAME.

Epic Fail Mythic

Warhammer is getting on my nerves. A great game wasted by so many small, annoying bugs and inconsistencies that I won't argue with anyone who is leaving the game because of them.

This morning was a perfect example of how WAR can be a HORRIBLE MMO to play.

1. Morning kicks off with some Tier 3 scenarios. Not bad until an AOE farm group shows up and starts winning every single one 500 to 0, and on a Sunday morning, they are the only group playing.

2. Guild group forms up and heads off to take some Tier 3 objectives. No destruction show up to defend or attack back. Thanks, I'll take my free renown.

3. Guild group goes off to a lair to see if its open. It is, and we head in, but the Hero owns our group.

4. We put out a call and formed a larger warband to go back into the lair.

5. While waiting on players to form up for the lair, we do a PQ at Grimbeard station. An hour of grinding 125 slowly spawning NPCs and the damn PQ drops only green bags. Not a single item that any of us will actually use. Some because the item is too high level, others because it is absolute crap compared to the E-Z mode gear we have from renown ranks.

6. After finishing the PQ we head back to the lair, wait a few minutes for bio breaks and the like.

7. We dominate the Hero in the lair. NO LOOT DROPS.

8. So we head back to retake objectives that were taken. No destruction defending. We take the objective easily. We jam up the door to the building with the flag. Destruction shows up with just over a full group. Chaos Magus up front who magnet pulls our entire warband out of the building into a nice little pile... AOE... and our entire warband wiped out in the time it takes to kill one player.

9. I figure I can do some apothecary to up my potion supply. Unfortunately, water drops slowly and rarely, and two are required to make every potion. On top of that, my skill and materials are too high, so all the potions I make are too high level for me to use. Plus, the potions strength is WEAKER than what I was making 100 skill points ago.

10. For all this trouble, I gained approximately 20,000 experience, 2,000 renown, and 5 apothecary skill points. That is four hours of play approximately. I could of gotten that in twenty minutes from scenarios.

Mythic, I subscribed for three months. This is my formal notification that I am done after that three months unless drastic changs are made to class balance, RvR zones, and the thousand other small bugs plaguing this game.

A True RvR Zone

I died a little bit inside when I thought about posting this, but I just have to do it.

Wingergrasp, a true RvR zone.

Sadly it is not found in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Wintergrasp will be part of World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion: Wrath of the Lich King. The notes on Wintergrasp are the things I expected out of WAR's RvR areas, but sadly have not found.

Now, just because Blizzard is beating Mythic at their own game with a single zone, does not mean WoW is suddenly a RvR game. Wintergrasp will suffer the same fate in WoW that other open world PvP objectives have suffered: Wintergrasp will not be worth anyone's time compared to battleground or arena grinding.

So, Blizzard gets a +1 for open world PvP, but a -1 for letting instanced content dominate open world content. Mythic, take notes, learn, and come December; patch 1.1 better do SOMETHING to open RvR zones other than giving more experience per kill. Give us a fucking reason to be there other than the keeps.

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Book Thoughts: Black Powder War (Temeraire, Book 3)

Title: Black Powder War
Author: Naomi Novik
Genre: Fantasy, Alternate History
Publisher: Del Rey (May 30, 2006)
Quick-Hit Thought: If you weren't sure after Book 2, don't continue. Worth reading if you've enjoyed the series.

I'm very conflicted about the third book in the Temeraire series. With a title such as Black Powder War, I thought I may finally see some dragons put to use in the massive battles of the Napoleonic era. Unfortunately, whether it be ship, sickness, cargo duty, or weather, dragons sit on the sidelines.

Once again, the strength of the book is Novik's ability to place dragons admirably into the time period. The way they operate in the military and society makes absolute sense. The difference between various countries and their dragons is well detailed and refreshing.

However, past the melding of dragons into the military and society of the time period, there isn't much to this book. Our hero and his dragon are on their way back from China (a far more interesting country in this alternate universe). They receive urgent news to detour and pick up some dragon eggs purchased from the government of Turkey. Some traveling ensues, blah, blah, blah.

Actually, there is only one thing that saved this book for me: Tharkay. Tharkay is by far the most interesting character in the book (maybe even the series) and is first introduced as a messenger delivering the orders that would eventually spur the journey into Istanbul, Turkey. Tharkay is a classic rogue character, remaining a mystery until the end of the book.

Unfortunately, the truth of Tharkay is wasted on a horribly trivial "save the day for people we don't even care about" ending. The entire end of the book is a let down. At least in Throne of Jade, the long painful journey lead up to a wonderful climatic ending. Not so in Black Powder War. I was absolutely bored by the scenario that ended up playing out, almost angered at the way Tharkay was brought back into the storyline.

Overall, the book reads as well as the first two, but is about as engaging as the paragraph noted on the back of the book. The story isn't what kept me reading through this series. It was the dragons, how they lived, and how people lived with them. However, by the third book I guess I expected some sort of story to conclude. Nothing concluded, and a true good vs. evil plot line just began to emerge. Unfortunately, not enough of one to spur me on to the next book in the series.

My honest opinion: this series is best finished at the end of Throne of Jade.