Whizzo Quality Assortment

Granted, this post doesn't have anything to do with chocolate, and the term "quality" isn't really applicable... but at least the "assortment" part is accurate!  Aspect of the Capricious: now with 33% accuracy!

Warning: long, rambling, disjointed post ahead.  Hmm... I should probably just put that at the top of the blog...

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So, Diablo III's in the works.  I probably wouldn't even have started playing WoW if I hadn't looked at it and thought "hey, this is kinda like Diablo II."

For me, Diablo was always a better multiplayer game than WoW has ever, or will ever be for one simple reason: people.  Y'see, WoW is filled with people ranging from the petty and stupid to outright immoral and evil.  Finding someone who is intelligent and nice is like shootin' at some food and up from the ground gettin' bubblin' crude: cause for making a long-running TV series.

But Diablo was different because you could play it on a local network.  So all of the multiplayer Diablo games I played were with my family.  My mum, my brother and myself would all fire up D2 and go around smashing stuff up; it was fantastic.  I'm really, really looking forward to doing that again.

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Well, it took them three months to change the labels and ship them over, but Australia finally has Super Smash Bros. Brawl.  I just want to make clear that the only reason I preordered it was that I was planning on getting it at some point, and they were giving away a free Classic Controller with preorders.

Honestly, I can't see what all the fuss is about.  Having played almost to the end, it's a very... underwhelming game.  I think the problem, in part, is that the game, the developers and the fans take it all far too seriously.  If you think I'm joking, you should see the intro sequence.  The music alone is more at home in something like Ben Hur than a cartoony fighting game.

Then there's the controls: it has way too many.  Every character has something like thirteen different attacks.  Not with combos like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter: just using the face buttons and sticks.  It doesn't help that while special attacks using the right stick allow you to change direction when attacking, normal attacks don't.  So half the time, I end up attacking in the wrong direction.

It doesn't help that the game's difficulty curve is implemented not by making the game more challenging, but by simply making it more unfair.  There's a miniboss that repeatedly crops up that you cannot attack without being hit yourself.  It has five times your reach, and no one seems to be able to move fast enough to hit and run.  There are sections of the game where I gave up on tactics and just ran up and mashed buttons until I either ran out of lives, or the thing died.

There's a "guard" defense, but that basically disappears after you take a single hit.  Only one character (Marth) can parry, but half the time I can't get it to go off properly.

But the worst part of all is that despite all the noise made about Sonic being in Brawl... you don't get access to him until during the cutscene before the final boss.  "Sonic joins the Brawl... really !@#$ing late."

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So I'm getting ready to transfer Its to a new server.  I'm pretty nervous about it; mostly because I've made a few friends on Hyjal that I'd really prefer not to leave behind.  That said, it's not every day you're told "come over; we'll get you geared up and raiding."  Well, OK, I don't hear that every day.  It's especially good to hear when you've been wanting to get into raiding for a while, but never seem to be able to find the right guild.

I'm leaving Porphyrria and my other characters behind, so I'm presently trying to grind up some money to leave behind; I want to get Por her epic flyer, and have 2k gold that I can split between her and Its.

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I dropped Mining on Por and picked up Enchanting on the idea that this would let me disenchant all those daily quest greens that I just cannot sell.  Plus, Its is a miner, so having two seemed redundant.

Of course, since Its is leaving, he's taking with him both Por's source of gems and ore, and her source of daily quest greens.

Hmm.  I might not have thought this through properly...  I've now got enough raw enchanting mats farmed from low-level instances to get Por up the first leg of enchanting (she only needs ~225 to DE Burning Crusade greens,) but I'm wondering if I should drop it and re-level mining.

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The problem with Its' new fire festival digs is that, well... he looks ridiculous in them, frankly.  So I kinda sorta went and got them for Por as well.

No brazier or pet, sadly.  It seems a bit stupid that she now has 150 blossoms and nothing to spend them on.  Hopefully the next time Blizzard revamps the holiday, they'll add a few more mid-range rewards.

On the subject, I need to see if I can find an Ahune group for Its today to give him one more shot at Ahune and his pet scorchling.

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I was really excited when I found out about the Blizzard Authenticator.  I was considerably less enthusiastic when I discovered that Blizzard won't ship them outside the US or Europe.  Which means that Aussies, Kiwis and Kanucks are screwed.  I suspect that Ben Croshaw may have been right.

I can only hope that one day I'll get to make a game that everyone is really, really anxious to play... and then deliberately make it unavailable in the US for six months.  You know, because I'm  vindictive.

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The UI post is probably going to be delayed somewhat.  I discovered that I could rig up a really nifty picture of my UI with interactive rollovers using SVG.  Except that Inkscape keeps crashing.  Which is slowing progress just slightly.  And then there's the whole "Internet Explorer doesn't support SVG" issue.  That said, it seems that only 30% of my readers are using IE, whilst the rest of you are using real web browsers that actually support a seven year old standard.

Can you tell I hate IE with the fury of a billion angry weasels?

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I usually try to post on Wednesdays and "the weekend" where "the weekend" qualifies as any point between 00:00 on Saturday to 04:00 on Monday.  I missed yesterday because I was kind of not entirely sane.  See, where I live it sometimes gets windy.  Very windy.  "Why is someone knocking on the door at 3am... oh wait, that's just the windows shaking" windy.  Stupid meteorology kept me up all night.  It kept coming in bursts every 2 or so minutes... so every time I'd be falling asleep, someone would shake the house violently.

It calmed down later in the day, and I decided to get some rest... about five minutes before it started again.

I was not exactly in the right frame of mind for writing coherently.

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I need a new pair of headphones.  The trouble is that they sell them in those "so hard to open you need a bansaw" plastic cocoons, so you can't try them on.  My old pair was fairly serviceable, except that after wearing them for a while, they made my ears feel like they were bleeding.  I'd really rather not repeat the experience, but I can't try any of them on, so I have no idea how they'll feel.

I'd preferably like a pair with big cushiony ear bits that surround my ears instead of resting on them, with a mic, that's USB.  I'm still looking...

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I've had an idea for a post on trapping.  I've read a lot of posts about trapping technique, but none on "how to do CC in Shadow Labyrinth with three hunters."

Let me tell you: it's harder than it looks.