Aside from having a cliche but fantastic story, this video proves that games are becoming more and more viable in media advertising. I wouldn't be surprised if more advertisements in future use Sims, Second Life, CoD etc to relay their messages.
In case you do not know what a Blackbird is, take a look here. Really overpowered and expensive PC right there.
O holy night the stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Savior's birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn
Fall on your knees
O hear the angels' voices
O night divine
O night when Christ was born
O night divine, O night
O night divine
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn
Fall on your knees
O hear the angels' voices
O night divine
O night when Christ was born
O night divine, O night divine
O yes it was
It is the night of our dear saviours birth
O night divine
Siguard
• Purifying Power (2 Points):
Reduces the chance your Cleanse and Purify abilities will fail by 5%/10% and allows your Cleanse and Purify spells to dispell an additional poison and disease/poison, disease, and magic effect.Cleanse is becoming closer and closer to being worthless. With most classes that apply debuffs having talents that prevent us from dispelling them, our ability to remove them has diminished. Not to mention the additional misc. debuffs classes don't actively apply - Winter's Chill, Misery, Shadow Weaving, Shadow Embrace, Stacking Wound Poison, Snake Trap/Scorpid Poison. This talent gives Paladins a chance at actually removing debuffs again.
• Improved Judgement (2 Points):
Decreases the cooldown of your Judgement spell by 1/2 seconds. It also allows your Judgement spell to interrupt spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 1/2 sec.This change basically gives Retribution Paladins a spell interrupt similar to Earth Shock. This is actually less effective, because it requires a seal to be active and requires 7 points in Retribution. Holy Paladins wouldn't be able to pick this up unless they lose Improved Conc. Aura, Stoicism, and Imp Righteous Fury. This change also helps Protection Paladins.
• Improved Blessing of Might (5 Points):
Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Blessing of Might by 6%/12%/18%/24%/30%.Just giving Blessing of Might a little bit of love. Increased max additional AP from 44 to 66.
• Avenging Wrath:
Increases all damage caused by 30% and all healing done by 15% for 20 sec. Causes Forebearance, preventing the use of Divine Shield, Divine Protection, Blessing of Protection again for 1 min.Currently, Avenging Wrath is next to useless for a Healing Paladin, especially in a raid. Sacrificing survivability for extra healing power - just as other paladins do for extra damage, doesn't seem like an over-the-top idea.
• Sanctity Aura (1 Point):
Increases the critical strike damage of your party members by 5%.Here's our Raid Viability. Currently, Sanctity Aura effected us in the group, and only increased ~30% of our damage by 10% (Seals/Judgements/Consecration etc). Our damage shouldn't go down, and we've gained some useful group utility.
• Valorous Judgements (from Improved Seal of the Crusader):
In addition to the normal effects, your Judgements that leave a debuff will also increase the critical strike chance of all attacks made against that target by an additional 1%/2%/3%.I felt having the 3% crit tied just to JotC was harmful, especially with the change to Crusader Strike since the spell damage isn't as useful. That, coupled with the fact JotC isn't always the best Judgement to have up (an example is a 10-man, or farming/leveling if you want Wisdom).
• Seal of Command:
6% Base Mana (~177 mana at level 70). Gives the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage equal to 80% of normal weapon damage. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. Lasts 30 sec. Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing [AP*0.2] Holy damage, [AP*0.4] if the target is stunned or incapacitated.Judgement of Command now scales! Because of this, there are no longer different ranks of Seal of Command and the ability was changed to 6% Base Mana. Neither the proc nor the Judgement benefit from spell damage anymore.
• Repentance made Baseline. Duration reduced to 4 seconds:Let's face it - Repentance didn't work as the 31 point Protection Talent and it doesn't fit well as the 31 point Retribution Talent, especially when compared to other abilities of the same tier. Making it baseline helps all specs, mainly in PvP. The ranged, 1 minute cooldown gouge isn't incredibly powerful, but it could allow Holy Paladins a chance to get a heal off in smaller arenas.
• Fist of the Heavens (1 Point), to replace Repentence
10% of Base Mana (~295 at 70) 1 min cooldown. Calls down the power of the Light on a target you have Judged, granting an effect.Judgement of Wisdom - Grants [JudgementEffect*10] mana to your party members.
Judgement of Light - Instantly heals party members for [JudgementEffect*10].
Judgement of the Crusader - Increases your party's melee, ranged, and spell casting speed by 10% for 15 sec.
Judgement of Justice - Immobilizes the enemy for 5 sec.I wanted 4 different things from this talent, which I think I've succeeded in doing. First, I wanted it to be viable in PvE, which it is. Second, I wanted it to give group utility, which it does. Third, I wanted to make it useful for PvP, which it does. Lastly, and what I felt was a key thing, I wanted to make it useful for leveling. The mana back option really feels like I did it. The thing to remember is this ability requires a Judgement to be on the mob and has a 1 minute cooldown. You're not getting 740 mana, 950 healing, 10% speed increase, and an immobilize each minute - you have to choose. I don't feel any of the uses make the spell overpowered.
Bravo!
My love
There's only you in my life
The only thing that's right
My first love
You're every breath that I take
You're every step I make
And I
I want to share
All my love with you
No one else will do
And your eyes
They tell me how much you care
Oh yes
You will always be
My endless love
Two hearts
Two hearts that beat as one
Our lives have just begun
And forever
I'll hold you close in my arms
I can't resist your charms
And love
I'll be the fool
For you
I'm sure
You know I don't mind
'Cause baby
You mean the world to me
I know I've found in you
My endless love
And love
I'll be that fool
For you
I'm sure
That you know I don't mind
No yeah yeah yes
You'll be the only one
'Cause no, no one can deny
This love I have inside
And I'll give it all to you
My love My love, my love
My endless love
My love
It's been a pretty scary start to the Christmas Holidays really. For a short period of time, I stopped caring about my internship because I kept getting rejected. Sometime last Tuesday, I went for an interview with Ksatria Gameworks. They are currently working on a single-player FPS RPG based on the world renowned gamebook Lonewolf. You can actually read the gamebook for free at ProjectAon.
Basically, my lecturer said they were looking for a Level Designer to replace someone who "quit" a while ago. So whoever gets the job not only needs to be as good as the previous guy, needs to pick-up from where the guy dropped and deal with easing into the production team. Very stressful situation there. It didn't take more than 10mins into the interview (including introduction) to realize that I was something they might not be looking for at all. But I played along with the interview nonetheless, tried to be as verbal as possible and tried to be creative. Well, after the interview I thought I did pretty well but the truth remains that I wasn't cut out to be a level designer for the industry, in part because Hubertus did not cover the necessary module components... As a note, I've been informed that Ksatria wasn't looking for level design interns *flame from Chi Yong inc.*
So I went to Jack's Place with Mike, Wei Song and Kang Ning that night and had a $180 meal that pretty much ate through all our pockets. During the meal Yitting SMSed us to check our emails. So I went to the nearest McDonalds to check my email (woo wireless@sg) and there it was, the undoable test. I wouldn't be surprised if people start asking me how I got the job, seeing that I was probably incapable of doing the test in every shape and form. No cocksucking was involved alright, just pure documentation. I love Microsoft Word tables, period. Fortunately, I've been contacted by Ksatria and I wouldn't be in the level design department. I haven't been told what design area I would be placed in, but I'm sure I have a lot to offer. Maybe I'll get to do lots of documentation, because I'm really good at that ;) Anyway, I do expect a lot of hard work to be put in because the company though being relatively new, aims to be a top game developer in Singapore.
I know this a long post, I've been trying to insert images here and there to excite your tired eyes. But can you please pity paladins? They are so bad for 3v3. I mean, playing warrior/lock/pal against RMP and RWP was an absolute nightmare. Granted the setup is considered to be above average, it simply accentuates the fact that Paladins are HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, did I say HORRIBLE oh my god. Do not even start about me being bad. I have 304 days played, 148k HKs and probably more duelling experience than ym. Let's just say, if you replace the Paladin with a Druid, not only are the problems with getting CCed solved it immediately makes the team one of the 2 best setups known to humankind. It's that gamebreaking; that much of a difference, that much contrast.
A lot can be done to fix Paladins in a situation like that. Being immune to most CC because of being able to bosac spam was overpowered at times, but look at Druids? 1min CD on bosac is ridiculous, 30s might still be bad bad. Put it this way, I usually haves mages on Focus. If they start casting poly on me I bosac a team member. That takes skill. In fact I've done it for so many years that I still bosac subconsciously even though I just casted it 10s ago and seeing it getting dispelled by a dwarf priest who has a cc called IF****YourCastWithARacial.
I could go on in melodramatic fashion, but I'll prolly put all my suggestions on a new upcoming post. I get some inspiration from the Paladin forums. Tbh it contains some good suggestions in its deep recesses. Like most forums, it's filled with holy tears. But hey I don't hate retribution paladins, in fact I've done quite a bit of research regarding the possibility of running ret. It's a huge transition in terms of playstyle if I do make a switch, but gear and talent wise it's actually quite playable now. Spell damage was poo, I still don't get why Deviate liked the Avenger 5/5 set bonus back in the AQ40 days. Either way, right now it's easy to get 430 or so resilience as Ret, and with Divine Purpose you can stack 30% crit damage mitigation.
Anyway I'm trying to setup Facebook. Myspace and its likes have certainly made significant contributions to social experimentation in the 21st century, and will very likely continue to do so. Having said that, virtual networks such as online games have and will continue to outperform web-based social networks.
So we've been instructed to compose a resume for our work attachment. As of now, approx 14 companies have been shortlisted, and only 30 or so students in my class of 38 will be selected and assigned. The unlucky 8 will be siphoned into lmao jobs such as promoters for nokia (which isnt all too bad), charity work etc. We have been told to rank our preferences, and I placed Rapture Gaming and AsiaSoft as my top 2 choices. I really hope I get into either, but this would mean I have to fight for it. Basically, the drums of war have begun.
Anyway epic aside, I tried to dump as much relevant stuff into my resume, and to be honest it's not looking too bad, especially considering it's my first time doing one. To make up for the fact that I have literally no work experience, I put in every MMO I have had alpha/beta tested. Reason being I would like my employer to know that this is what I've been doing my entire life, and this is something that I cherish and love. It's a big deal to me =\. What's really interesting for myself was recalling all the dates I played all of them, up to 20 mmos. Fortunately, I could easily check my e-mail for my subscription dates. Quite an impressive and nostalgic feat really.
I'd be putting my resume up as soon as I'm confident it's good enough for public view. Adios
P.S Been really busy lately.
The size of ZA is actually small. The level designers obviously tried to make it as comprehensive to players as possible. Normally, an idiot like myself would take 2 months to learn the map. This time I didn't get lost at all when soloing one of the exploration quest lines. In a way that's really nice. I really appreciate the instance as a whole. From someone who is about to enter the games industry, the quality of texturing and artwork is subpar, but that's the way the game is and it's no doubt that WoW has made a revolutionary statement regarding the artistic stereotype.
Difficulty-wise ZA is easy for geared players. I imagine 1-2 fights being challenging for undergeared players, but otherwise wipes should be minimal for any guild in BT/hyjal. It's quite an issue. I wouldn't expect being able to learn and kill Zul'jin witin 15minutes? Quite lame, but it's largely because we were too geared and the fact that the instance had to be released so late into the game. At some level, Blizzard did intend the instance to be for more casual players, but making a fool out of Zul'jin has been amusing to say the least.
Malacrass is easily the best fight imo. It takes some coordination and common sense to get it right, something like Moroes. A holy priest effectively makes the fight a complete joke, and a couple of resto shamans can be silly fun. Concentration aura for casters is also vital. You can read the strat here.
Anyway if you're a healer looking for loot, I highly recommend Tome of Diabolic Remedy. Quite imbalanced for PVE and PVP. The other loot I want quite badly is Enamelled Disc of Mojo but it appears every healer wants it, even prot pallies!
Seven years and fifty days
The time is passing by
Nothing in this world could be
As nice as you and I
And how could we break up like this
And how could we be wrong
So many years, so many days
And I still sing my song
Now I run to you
Like I always do
When I close my eyes
I think of you
Such a lonely girl
Such a lonely world
When I close my eyes
I dream
I'll return to you
Like I always do
When I close my eyes
I think of you
Such a lonely girl
Such a lonely world
When I close my eyes
I dream of you
Seven years and fifty days
Now just look at me
Another girl I used to be
So then what do you see
And how could we break up like this
And how could we be wrong
So many years, so many days
And I still sing my song
Now I run to you
Like I always do
When I close my eyes
I think of you
Such a lonely girl
Such a lonely world
When I close my eyes
I dream
I'll return to you
Like I always do
When I close my eyes
I think of you
Such a lonely girl
Such a lonely world
When I close my eyes
I dream of you
Serennia, the highest ranked warrior in the world (no.1 in all 3 PVP categories on Bloodlust) has been defeated 4-0 by a prodigious and no less controversial HSH (hemo-shadowstep) rogue on PTR. Ultimus, with the PTR alias Silk, posted his recollections on how he has performed so:
"So I’m on the PTR getting my duels on, and there is this gnome warrior sitting on his mount talking **** to everyone instead of dueling. His name is Serae. I challenge him, he declines. This guy is clearly a pompous asshole, so I decide to rile him up a bit. Besides, its nice to duel someone who isn’t a rogue, paladin, or hunter once in a while. So I say something to the effect of:
“Serae won’t duel me because he is afraid of being dominated like a petite woman.”
This drew some attention (apparently he’s a big deal around here, I didn’t know of him). So he says he will duel me, but only for 5k gold. I agree because:
1) I want to duel this warrior.
2) Who the **** cares about gold on the PTR (even though I didn’t actually have any).
3) I’m not going to lose, maybe he will really give me 5k gold even though I doubt it.
So we duel, he gets worked, people laugh, he doesn’t pay. This is when I realize it’s Serennia “Best warrior in the world”. I could see why nobody likes this ****** bag. Anyway he bitches and makes excuses and tells me I will never beat him again. I didn’t expect him to actually pay me the gold, but I made him give me bandages before I would fight him again (I had none for the 1st fight). Duel number 2 goes even smoother than the first and Serae is ready to cry.
By now Serae is spamming me with the duel flag, desperate to reclaim his manhood. I prefer to have prep against a decent warrior, but I like dueling while I wait for it rather than just sitting for 10 minutes. So I fight him without prep, it’s close but I lose. I saw this coming when I accepted this duel, he jumps all over his chance to tell me how horrible I am. I congratulate him for beating me while I’m at 50% effectiveness and he calls me a liar, claiming I “definitely used prep”. Since I really hadn’t, I tell him I’m ready for another real duel. I beat him 4-0 when all was said and done.
In the last fight, I had about 45% hp left and all he had to say was “Yeah dude, AR/Prep is totally hard.” To which I reply, “Yeah dude, AR/Prep is totally my spec. I’m shadowstep hemo.”
Serae is not a likeable person, but people are kidding themselves when they say he’s a bad player. A gnome warrior with his gear can kill an average rogue by accident, so I will explain how I beat him consistently with my shadowstep hemo build (which I play because it is fun, not because it is better than AR/Prep).
I open with sap, even if he is in berzerker stance, and quickly move away. He will zerker rage out of the disorient (most warriors do this and serennia did every time). It is no problem, because sap diminishing returns don’t last as long as his cool down.
So after 15 seconds or so, I re-sap to set up my opener: sprint, premed->shadowstep garrote -> rupture -> vanish. I quickly get out of range and watch his shouts. Then as soon as he starts to eat I move back in for cheapshot into kidney shot. If he trinkets the kidney shot I blind immediately and restart. If he eats the full kidneyshot, I put a rupture on the end of it and move out to 5-8 kite until my energy is back.
Once I my energy has gone back to full, I move in for my evasion/ghostly strike rush. Whenever I am going toe to toe with him, I use my globals almost exclusively when I am at his back to avoid the retarded amount of dodge/parry. As soon as evasion ends, I try to land a 5 point kidney shot on him. If it gets resisted, I dump my combo points and blind.
If his trinket is up, I stand on top of him during blind and shiv as soon as I see him use it, then move back out to 5-8 until any bleeds wear off so I can use my 2nd vanish. Getting this 2nd vanish off is easier said than done, but if I get away the fight is over because I am free to repeat everything I have done until now, and he will die. If I can’t vanish, I just go in for my 2nd evasion rush at full energy and that is usually enough to comfortably get the job done anyway."
- Ultimus (aka Sleek/Silks on PTR)
So it's been roughly a week since 2.3 and I've been thinking hard about new possibilities. Retribution has been buffed very VERY significantly in PVE, no joke about it. Grant from Blood Legion already tops DPS on select encounters, and fairs very well in general, but of course his gear is ridiculous. However, you require Seal of Blood to get that kind of DPS... in other words if you're not a blood elf you should remain a healbot or you could be an Avelynn. Some on the pally forums have suggested adding a quest-line that rewards SoV and SoB, but what kind of retard will want SoV lol
Oh I just want to off-rant about how priests/druids are getting a 40-50mp5 buff in 2.3. If you do not already know, super mana potions equate to 100mp5 (2400/120*5). On the other hand paladins get a significant nerf punch on blessing of light scaling, which is pretty disgusting. Either ways, I'm actually beginning to appreciate the new T5 2p bonus:
(2) Set: Each time you cast a Judgement, your party members gain 50 mana.
(note: The old bonus which gives 350 additional armor to devo is far from shit)
imp. SOTC 2.3:
The new imp SOTC increases melee and spell critical strike on the target by 1%/2%3%. I'm actually serious about getting it - alongside with imp BOM. You could simply use rank1 sotc since holy dmg is virtually useless and the new 2p T5 bonus actually makes casting judgements beneficial to the entire group.
imp. BOW:
I remember Milynn dissing me off for not getting imp bow when Ascendancy was still around. I have included it in my new concept build. 20% on bow means 41mp5 to 49mp5 - 8mp5 gain. It's very significant. In my previous thread I debated that 1mp5:9healing, in other words, imp bow essentially increases healing power of the healers by 72!
Precision 2.3:
I actually got Precision for Season 1. It wasn't shit but definitely not as useful as 8% more armor. But now with Precision having 3% spell hit as well, it's indispensible for PVP. HOJ resists are seriously fucked up. I just don't get why Blizzard made stun resist mechanics so prevalent, HOJ is almost not even worth casting against priests, warriors, rogues and especially orcs (hence you dont see any decent paladin with imp hoj). Also, lvl 70 PVP allows for at most 3% hit mitigation, which makes Precision almost too perfect!
imp. LOH:
Is it good? Yes, it's hella good but unfortunately 40mins on LOH is still too severe. I don't know why 1 hour cooldowns are still in the game. It doesn't really makes sense. It's probably more convenient to wipe a raid and redo the fight than letting a paladin cast LoH and lose 8k mana just to save an unlucky tank. If anything, imp LOH should reduce the mana lost. Right now, imp LOH only seems remotely useful when you cast it before a fight starts just to keep the AC buff up. I still included it in my upcoming concept PVE build.
Unfortunately, I don't have enough time just yet to complete a full post on it. Expect me to complete a list of emperical equations so that you can itemize the best possible set for you (aka don't steal items that don't belong to you!).
Fundamentally, there are loop-holes in Blizzard's itemization process; for example Royal Shadowsong Amethyst is 11healing 2mp5, while Lustrous Empyrean Sapphire is 4mp5. Which would you choose? A smart player would easily take 4mp5. Reason being, 2mp5 is emperically more useful than 11healing. Blizzard's internal values peg 1mp5 at 9healing. So you effectively gain 7 more healing by taking Lustrous Empyrean Sapphire.
Spellsurge
One of the hardest decisions a healer has to make when it comes to high-end raiding is to choose between 81heal or Spellsurge for their main hand. I don't blame them because the difference between both enchants is noticeable, and therefore some players 'choose' by personal preference. One of the major reasons why Spellsurge is rarely seen is because most use their PVP weapon for PVE. I have tried both Spellsurge and 81heal for arena and have to agree that 81heal is more useful in PVP for various reasons, although it's not always true (2v2 vs warlocks). But what is the emperical value for Spellsurge? Spellsurge is 4.44 times /better/ than +81heal in PVE if your entire group enchants it. This is how I have derived the factorization:
1: Express Spellsurge in terms of mp5: 100 / 60 * 5 = 8.33~ 8mp5. (Note: Spellsurge has a 50second hidden cooldown but has a 15% chance of proccing. Hence, its maximum mana yield is pegged at 10mp5)
1.1: Total mp5 yield for party: 8mp5 * 5 = 40mp5. (Note: 5 caster group)
1.2: Convert mp5 to +heal: 40 * 9 = 360healing
1.3: Factorize difference: 360 / 81 = 4.44
Fun fact: Spellsurge had a 30 second hidden cd until Blizzard stealth nerfed it; only a handful of players exploited it in its full glory.
Paladin enigma: Spellcrit or mp5?
The saga continues. Paladins have been struggling to choose between spell crit and mp5 ever since Molten Core. The emperical ratio as far as I can tell is 8mp5:21 spellcrit. The most obvious place to obtain this ratio is by comparing the DPS caster and healer hyjal rings:
dps caster: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29302
healer: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29307
(Note: The ratio of dmg:heal is 0.5357:1. So indeed, the dmg and +heal ratios of the rings are consistent.)
In other words, Shard of the Scale for example is essentially 42spell crit.
Blizzard has done a great job in itemizing ZA. The new loots are diverse and allow a huge myriad of possibilities, effectively softening the pigeonhole issue. If you haven't seen the new paladin itemization you can view them all at http://www.mmo-champion.com. Basically there are 2 things that have taken a slightly different course:
1. More spell-haste itemization.
I received a couple of e-mails asking me whether spell haste was really that good. If you have ping it's absolutely essential imo. If you do have the chance, you should try to get on a local private server and see the difference latency makes (I'm not condoning such activity though). Effectively, you should try to get enough haste to make up for ping, that's probably all you need. In other words, I do need around 523 haste. Is this possible? Not yet.
This is how I do a quick calculation for haste effectiveness - I suck at math so there should be a better way.
I did a table (on paper) on how much spell haste a paladin can get, I might scan it and put it here another day. You could get 280~ spell haste with the 2 dawnsteel pieces atm. You would notice that the itemization around the BT/ZA loot has around 30-35 haste average per piece. Assuming all slots in the near future allow for spell haste, you could get 16 * 30 = 480 spell haste at least. So I'm not far away from my target.
2. Streamlining itemization.
Basically streamlining means that all perceived useful stats for the class are being integrated into their respective itemization per item. In other words, key stats are made more accessible and less concentrated. If you look at the T6 healing set (Lightbringer) for example, you would notice that the helm has heal and crit, but no mp5. On the other hand the gloves has heal and mp5 but no crit. At the same time the shoulders, chest and legs have heal, crit and mp5. Very unusual isnt it. The latest PTR gear has essentially integrated heal, mp5 and crit into each item. Also if you may have noticed, the gem slots are of very variant colors, to which I believe Blizzard wants to normalize favored stats. This can be a good thing for min-maxing, but bad for those who want to play differently, e.g:
I really don't know what to say. Focus was obviously imbalanced and inconsistent in terms of proc design, so putting the normal hCD on it is fine I guess. But a complete removal of the Crystalforge bonus is simply retarded. I don't get it. Yes I know .25s is reflectively permanent 224 spell haste on HL, but retroactively changing a bonus that players actually spend weeks if not months of consideration and DKP-earning on...? In case you do not know what I'm talking about:
2.3 ptr patch oct 10:
(2) Set: Each time you cast a Judgement, your party members gain 50 mana.
(4) Set: Your critical heals from Flash of Light and Holy Light reduces the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 0.50 sec for 10 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per minute.
I really don't know how to deal with it just yet. I might just cut myself or something. But anyway this means I have to re-plan my gear which will take a insurmountable amount of time. Anyhow let me introduce WoWEquip - it's quite useful and very functional but still some items are missing. Also not completed yet (0.8beta). Essentially you can track all your stats from profiles gear, except you have to do some manual calculations atm (talent unsupported)
Oh also I read Nessaj's article on Healing Tips on Nihilum's new site. It's quite informal but nevertheless sums up the main issues a healer has to deal with in raids. He didn't really talk about specialist healers - spell haste build, high crit, combined healing technique etc. Basically no one has done extensive research into topics like that (or at least no one has published relating articles), either way this was why I wanted to try the max spell haste build but it's pretty fkin dead now -.-
Carbine Studios, a team in Orange County comprised of a number of World of Warcraft veterans, is officially a part of the NCsoft family. The studio is looking to expand and is currently working on an unannounced MMO project for NCsoft.
Korean online games giant NCsoft today officially took the wraps off its latest studio acquisition, Carbine Studios. The Aliso Viejo, California-based studio was originally formed back in 2005 by ten former members of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft core development team. According to NCsoft, the team is now up to 17 former Blizzard employees. And some members have ties to hit games such as Starcraft and Fallout.
Carbine co-founder Kevin Beardslee, who serves as the vice president of design, was a lead developer on World of Warcraft. Tim Cain, Carbine's programming director, was the producer, lead programmer and designer on Fallout; he was also co-founder of Troika Games. In addition, Carbine's Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney previously worked as executive producer on City of Heroes, and established the product development group at NCsoft's Austin headquarters as VP of development. Previously Gaffney was the co-founder of Turbine, Inc., where he spearheaded development on the popular MMO Asheron's Call.
"This is a dev team made in heaven," said Robert Garriott, CEO for NCsoft's North American business. "This group is as experienced as they come in the area of computer role playing and multiplayer game design. Making successful games is second nature to them. They are a very welcome addition to the NCsoft family. The gaming community should be excited to see what great things come out of Carbine Studios in the coming years."
"NCsoft's established global infrastructure, commitment to their development studios and passion for online gaming makes them an ideal partner," says Carbine co-founder Kevin Beardslee. "In the coming months Carbine Studios will continue to grow and we look forward to bringing many more talented industry professionals into our fold."
Details are scarce, but NCsoft said that Carbine is currently working on an unannounced project that "promises to break new ground in massively multiplayer gaming."
As Carbine is looking to expand, the studio is currently hiring. According to the jobs page, Carbine is searching for a lead level designer, a senior programmer, a senior tools engineer, and several others.
source: http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=17667
Laurelle gave me a tip-off on 2.2's release that Pendant of the Violet Eye apparently has a bug. I went nuts trying to confirm it because apparently Blizzard changed the way how mp5 works. According to Xinhuan, Blizzard immediately returns you mana on a mp5 change, which could possibly lead to the occurrence of this bug.
Basically, right now each heal you pull off grants the Enlightenment buff twice. As far as Paladin goes, HL/FOL/HS will apply 2 Enlightenment Buffs per cast, whereas non-heal spells such as Blessings, Dispel, Seals etc will apply 1 buff. Weird? I guess... My record number of Enlightenment buffs so far is 22, but this was with multiple focus procs along with 1 scarab. Let's do the math:
(22 x 21) / 120 * 5= 17.5mp5
However, you're only very likely to get 14-16 procs, which means you may end up receiving 12mp5 from it. Still rather good with the 40int tagged with it.
Anyhow I just wanted to share how I solved the mp5 problem. I noted down my in-combat mp5 tick (per 2s) which is displayed by SCT. Then I used the trinket and began casting. I noted down every mana tick till the 20 seconds ended. So on my notepad I ended up:
mana per tick while in-combat: 48-49
mana ticks during trinket use: 92, 96, 112, 137, 182, 207
So I solved it using algebra whereby: a=21, b=48-49,
92 = 2a + b
96 = 2b
112 = 3a + b
137 = 2a + 2b
182 = 4a + 2b
207 = 3a + 3b
Total: 14a + 11b
Therefore 14 Enlightenment procs, 294mana! Oh also, Illumination has been effectively detagged from the mp5 display on Character screen, which solves past issues!
I did learn some genuine cryptology theory in an elective module which I scored A btw. It was pertaining to PC security, like wireless networking (WAP). Yeh that's as much as I remember lol. Anyhow, I read Catherine's blog and found a Cryptic Test that is apparently certified by MENSA. If you don't know what MENSA is, you're an idiot. Anyway the test had some weird scoring sheet which, after evaluation, put me in the category "Intelligent" instead of "Genius". After looking up the answers on google I concluded that some of the questions were outright ridiculous - e.g. who in the blue world plays Cricket or reads temperature in Fahrenheit nowadays. After eliminating the useless questions and using the same ratio/proportion to edit the scoring system, I found myself in the Genius category hehe
So here are examples of how it works:
// 24 H in a D = 24 hours in a day
// 32 is the T in D F at which W F = 23 is the temperature in degrees farenheit at which water freezes
CT-LEVH (Cryptic Test-Leo's Edited Version hehe):
1. 26 L of the A =
2. 7 D of the W =
3. 7 W of the W =
4. 12 S of the Z =
5. 52 C in a P =
6. 13 S in the U S F =
7. 18 H on a G C =
8. 5 T on a F =
9. 90 D in a R A =
10. 3 B M =
11. 3 W on a T =
12. 100 C in a D =
13. 11 P in a S T =
14. 12 M in a Y =
15. 8 S of an O =
16. 28 D in F =
17. 365 D in a Y =
18. 52 W in a Y =
19. 9 L of a C =
20. 60 M in a H =
21. 23 P of C =
22. 64 S on a C =
23. 1000 Y in a M =
You may have heard of the site. They basically do a community vote annually to crown the best DJ of the Year. Of course to no surprise, Tiesto is still number 1, but I do believe that Armin will take the coveted title in no time. You can view the current list @ http://www.thedjlist.com/djs.
I do see many of my favorites there. Above & Beyond (aka Oceanlab, Dirt Devils, Jono Grant) is _exceptionally good_, so are Gabriel & Dresden (aka Motorcycle), Cosmic Gate, Marco V, Rank 1, Blank & Jones etc. Ferry is slightly overrated, he can produce good and bad tracks, but I do distaste Paul Oakenfold :s
I'm regularly asked why Tiesto is so easily hailed the best trance DJ in the world. Well to be really accurate, you simply can't say any one DJ is the best. In some way or another anyway, Tiesto has kinda deviated from his old style back from the Magik Muzik days, which kinda sucks because that was what created him, not the mainstream progressive mass-music you hear all the time now, which in all honesty, is frownalicious.
I do take a lot of attention to really /exotic/ types of trance, and Tiesto in particular is very good at producing ridiculous sounds. In My Memory was insane at its time, and it did (very characteristically) carry over to Love Comess Again. A range of vocabulary can really help express what you hear. Enrapturing? Enchanting? I dunno, I love something different, hence I've been listening to a lot of Russian techno-trance lately. Think TATU - All The Things She Said.
Pretty nice video with Cascada's acoustic remix of Everytime We Touch. Desperate Housewives died when Andrew and Justin broke up imo.
Cascada - Everytime We Touch
I still hear your voice, when you sleep next to me.
I still feel your touch in my dreams.
Forgive me my weakness, but I don't know why
Without you it's hard to survive.
'Cause every time we touch, I get this feeling.
And every time we kiss I swear I could fly.
Can't you feel my heart beat fast, I want this to last.
Need you by my side.
'Cause every time we touch, I feel this static.
And every time we kiss, I reach for the sky.
Can't you hear my heart beat so...
I can't let you go.
Want you in my life.
Your arms are my castle, your heart is my sky.
They wipe away tears that I cry.
The good and the bad times, we've been through them all.
You make me rise when I fall.
'Cause every time we touch, I get this feeling.
And every time we kiss I swear I could fly.
Can't you feel my heart beat fast, I want this to last.
Need you by my side.
'Cause every time we touch, I feel this static.
And every time we kiss, I reach for the sky.
Can't you hear my heart beat so...
I can't let you go.
Want you in my life.
'Cause every time we touch, I get this feeling.
And every time we kiss I swear I could fly.
Can't you feel my heart beat fast, I want this to last.
Need you by my side.
So I received another interesting email from Terence. Yes I read my e-mails daily and label them nicely (go labels!).
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.
Didn't actually think I would have gotten it today but I did. The bonus lives up to expectations - overpowered beyond theoretical examination. It really isn't easy for one to understand how much of a difference 0.25s (250ms) is until you try it. Well theoretically, 1.75/2.00 is a 14.3% speed increase, which essentially means you heal 14.3% more. Some may say so what, you may be overhealing, but in practice that speed increase is becomes even more critical when there are other stuff you have to do.
I'm not entirely sure what I should hoard for in BT/hyjal. It's very hard to say. The DKP system is also slightly different this time, whereby Xinhuan has created a 3-tiered factor cost system. For example, bracers/belt/boots etc cost 1x, neck/rings 2x, and set pieces 3x. Anyway, I'm most likely saving for the spell haste pieces and probably, if eventually, crystal spire. In other words, I may be going hard on spell haste, speaking of which, a Paladin could get 196 spell haste in plate-only.
With 4p T5 and 196 spell haste, holy light would have a 1.556 cast time, which is woo 50ms :D Maybe I could actually heal like gospel and kron now ^_^
One of the hottest YouTube videos in a long time, getting 600k views in less than a week. It's /real/, not a hoax. The early part of the video is softcore to what he (Jin8) can do at the master level!
Woo I got my 10mbit connection this week btw AND I had random spikes while doing Al'ar pretty fkin good ISP there. Anyway instead of mass downloading I worked on a siggy! So which one is nicer? I'm thinking the second one hoho...
This is from Volk's blog:
"Some of you may have heard already some of you may not have. The real reason Ming is currently in China is to meet his "3rd Eye" to his little sharingan or w/e the **** u call it.
Apparently the girl in question is the girl he has been speaking to on MSN for a while now and she is an avid WoW fan and loves Ming's blog. 1 thing lead to another and it turns out Ming has actually proposed marriage to her so she can get residency in the US, she has accepted the proposal and the 2 plan to get married in the next few days.
According to my sources it isn't "real" love but Ming has supposedly said hes going to try and make it work. Expect an incoming blog from him in the next few days. Just thought id spoil it."
A lot of people ask me what my UI looks like. On the contrary, I don't use that many mods. I like things to look pretty while being functional. Well here's a screenshot that I took during today's Vashj, which was a horror to do btw because we had 6 attempts before healers received a shadow priest wahwah? It looks a bit messed up because the screenshot automatically converts to jpg and suffers a quality knockout.
X-perl 2.3.5a
Grid
PallyPower
Eepanels
Bartender3
CyCircled
Quartz
TrinketMenu
ItemRack
I use CTra for arena only now because its debuff list is very prominent. I also use NECB for arena but not for PVE because of lag. I play on a laptop and it's aging so I don't want to stress it out.
I might want to get one before the holidays end. I'm not exactly afraid of dentists, I dunno the pain doesn't really bother me. I like being prepared so I did some research. Endodontic treatment, or root canal treatment, removes the unhealthy nerve cells (pulp tissue) in your molar and replaces it with endofile. It actually looks pretty interesting.
Looks yummy to me! I also found a video... looks like huge fun!
They're just reskinned T6, which is nice I guess. You should realize the lock one isnt there yet, it's too ridiculous to show. I've seen it somewhere but cbf looking for it.
Not really I haven't seen one in 8 years. It's the given name of an anonymous poem that is a masterpiece of ingenuity. I heard it in a ChannelNewsAsia TV ad and immediately gained interest. I never decoded it until I searched it up on Google.
Well it goes like this:
I saw a peacock with a fiery tail
I saw a blazing comet drop down hail
I saw a cloud with ivy circled round
I saw a sturdy oak creep on the ground
I saw a pismire swallow up a whale
I saw a raging sea brim full of ale
I saw a Venice glass sixteen foot deep
I saw a well full of men’s tears that weep
I saw their eyes all in a flame of fire
I saw a house as big as the moon and higher
I saw the sun even in the midst of night
I saw the man who saw this wondrous sight
Well when you first read this, you assume it to be figurative. For example, a peacock doesn't exactly have a fiery tail, neither can a pismire (an ant) swallow up a whale, or a house be as big as the moon. However, there is a round-around method to make complete sense of this poem. Scroll down a bit if you want to see it.
I saw a peacock,
with a fiery tail I saw a blazing comet,
drop down hail I saw a cloud,
with ivy circled round I saw a sturdy oak,
creep on the ground I saw a pismire,
swallow up a whale I saw a raging sea,
brim full of ale I saw a Venice glass,
sixteen foot deep I saw a well full of men’s tears that weep,
I saw their eyes,
all in a flame of fire I saw a house,
as big as the moon and higher I saw the sun,
even in the midst of night,
I saw the man who saw this wondrous sight,
Tada, amazing isn't it! Oh if you really didn't get it... basically what happens is that the end of the first clause is the end of the second clause... so you get...
I saw a peacock,
I saw a blazing comet with a fiery tail,
I saw a cloud drop down hail,
I saw a sturdy oak with ivy circled round,
I saw a pismire creep on the ground,
I saw a raging sea swallow up a whale,
I saw a Venice glass brim full of ale,
I saw a well sixteen foot deep,
I saw their eyes full of men’s tears that weep,
I saw a house all in a flame of fire,
I saw the sun as big as the moon and higher,
I saw the man even in the midst of night who saw this wondrous sight.
I was always a fan of them. I dunno, there's a divine harmony in Andrea's lead vocals, the instruments they use and sharon's/caroline's voices. Their lyrical style fits their amazing vocals and irish taint as well. Their lyrics are surprisingly simple though; rather narrative, very organized, with interesting rhyming couplets although you could tell that they're forced into place (very much like Blake).
One of my favorites is No Frontiers.
If life is a river and your heart is a boat
And just like a water baby, baby born to float
And if life is a wild wind that blows way on high
And your heart is Amelia dying to fly
Heaven knows no frontiers and I've seen heaven in your eyes
And if life is a bar room in which we must wait
'Round the man with his fingers on the ivory gates
Where we sing until dawn of our fears and our fates
And we stack all the dead men in self addressed crates
In your eyes faint as the singing of a lark
That somehow this black night
Feels warmer for the spark, warmer for the spark
To hold us 'til the day when fear will lose its grip
And heaven has its ways
Heaven knows, no frontiers
And I've seen heaven in your eyes
If your life is a rough bed of brambles and nails
And your spirit's a slave to man's whips and man's jails
Where you thirst and you hunger for justice and right
And your heart is a pure flame of man's constant night
In your eyes faint as the singing of a lark
That somehow this black night
Feels warmer for the spark, warmer for the spark
To hold us 'til the day when fear will lose its grip
And heaven has its ways, and heaven has its ways
When all will harmonise and you know what's in our hearts
The dream will realise
Heaven knows, no frontiers
And I've seen heaven in your eyes
Heaven knows, no frontiers
And I've seen heaven in your eyes...
Maxis games were always fun. You might consider them the God of simulation games 10 years ago, but there have been allegations of them copying ideas from Japan. I played most of their games though, SimCity, SimPark, SimTunes, SimTower, SimFarm etc. I wasn't a huge fan of Simcity per se, I preferred SimPark and SimTower; they were less intense and more creative.
I just downloaded SimTower and I'm just starting to realize all the diff mechanics I never found out as a kid. Very interesting indeed.
The guy who came up with the original concept and game for SimTower, Yoot Saito, had an interview with SEGA and this is what he said:
"I am a simulation game guy. I don't do RPGs. I don't do shooting games. So, in simulation [games], you have to tell stories without giving users one linear story, but by giving users a simulation model, so that users can select which way they want to go. In a role-playing game, at certain points, the game designer is going to provide two choices—go to the right or to the left. But in a simulation game, you have to provide an unlimited number of selections, because it's a simulation model. So this kind of framework… may I mention my last game, Sim Tower? It's a free-format game. You can build a skyscraper as you like, and it doesn't have a goal or an ending. It's like a sandbox, where you can create anything you like. Only, this game simulates elevators and [human] traffic, so it doesn't have any concept of air conditioning or earthquake protection. It didn't have any of those kinds of elements - only traffic. You have to decrease the stress of the people waiting for the [elevator] cars. So the mission of simulation game designers is to not add new things, but to remove things from reality, like a sculpture, so that only the required elements remain. So, first of all, to start designing a game, you have to get rid of things out of the chaos."
I mean seriously, this is getting out of hand lol. I'm going to rank the top Chocolate Rain remixes I've found on YouTube as an exclusive! (I might be getting a severe increase in hits this month).
There are more and more remixes of Chocolate Rain being loaded on YouTube and I've found the best 3!
1. Tay Zonday ft. Tupac - Chocolate Rain (Black Cotton Remix)
2. John Mayer ft. Sherrod Small - Chocolate Rain (Timbaland Nelly Furtado 'Say It Right' Remix)
3. Chocolate Rain (8bit Remix)
So horrible. I spilled 1 medium-sized drop of apple juice onto my keyboard and Left Shift and Left Ctrl keys are dead. Also for w/e reason Right Shift is dead as well. I am using "Key Remapper" atm so I'm slightly getting used to this.... I'm not too sure how Acer processes services since my laptop's warranty card has expired.
Well at least I finished AMG (Audio & Music for Games) if not I'd be beyond frustrated. The uncompressed .AVI is actually 884mb large but somehow I managed to compress it to 20~mb .WMV movie. I have uploaded it on Youtube so everyone can see it. I'm sure Mike and Shaun are a bit fanatic as I am for this final assignment because a lot of hardwork was put into it. Also the tracks are all WoW and TBC soundtracks, except for 1 which is from D2 =)
Anyway holidays are coming in 1.5 weeks so I can't wait... I know I did substandard assignments for this sem so I'm going to have to buck up next sem :s
Well so yes, there have been suggestions that Resilience does cap at around 500. Please do not misunderstand me like any other noob who goes "but I have 550 resilience!". Resilience appears to cap at 12.5% crit reduction and 25.0% crit damage reduction. Technically, this puts the Resilience cap at 494, but since Idejder (TAO priest and class designer) mentioned on IRC last night that 500 resil is the cap, that may be more accurate (12.67/25.35).
Someone on the forums did reply with a stat test but there are some issues with it atm. I might get someone to test it out soon.
Perhaps the importance of this discovery is whether it's a coding mishap or an intentional design feature. If let's say the programmers coded in such a way that 493 is the cap for ratings, then would this also apply to crit and hit rating? On the other hand why would Blizzard put caps on gear bonuses? I personally think it's a coding error but it's going to take a classic 12 months to get fixed...
I just don't get why people still get so turned on by NDP. It's almost the same thing over and over again, the songs are the same every year, the itinery is so bland and erm, notice the people in white are the same every year lol?
No, I'm not being excessively cynical or anarchist, the fact is NDP is B-O-R-I-N-G and it hurts the eyes, the ears, the spirit and most importantly your intelligence quotient. It's very much illegal (and socially unacceptable) to parade through orchard road screaming patriotic slogans even though it's National Day... how ironic. This nation is so unnecessarily authoritarian.
Ok I'm going to pull off a political stunt, but believe me I'm not trying to be a political columnist/dramatist. I hope I don't get into trouble, but if you belong to the KGB or whatever it's called here please regard this as satire. (sense my fear?)
But yeh........ just the mole and inverted hair colors i guess.
I think most Singaporeans have pondered on the degree of calamity facing the passing of the Minister Mentor. Would there be factionism amongst the PAP? Is there a possibility that the PAP will be wiped off the general elections soon after LKY's death? Would there be declassification of heinous secrets surrounding LKY's illustrious and dramatic life?
Well for one, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (his son) isn't meant to be treated like a transparent scarecrow. Wow I just noticed the fabulous planning. Anyway, I shouldn't be ranting about Singaporean politics on the day before my birthday, and definitely not when I have lovely chocolate cake in my mouth... :D
Yep you heard it. If you have friends who may be interested please get them to speak to me. Hopefully I'd be able to entertain well-geared well-experienced players.
Intending to get top 10 in 2v2 this season =)
It's a very good question really. Tbh, the whole thing about WoW dieing is overturning drastically. Blizzard has done extremely well over the past months in terms of marketing WoW and establishing partnerships with major gaming organizations. I think Blizzcon will solidify WoW's status as the MMORPG-to-reign for 2007 and probably 2008, especially when tips about Northrend have sufficed. So why am I even considering Warhammer?
Well for one, the very fact that WAR is made by Mythic Entertainment proves that it WILL hit; hard. Having produced DAOC and being the original designer of UO, they're not a random encounter at all.
The biggest advantage however would be the fact that EA acquired Mythic last year, hence EA Mythic. As far as I know, EA is moving their headquarters to Singapore, and I also confirmed that Warhammer is definitely opening its doors to Asia, specifically Singapore, but I'm not saying it's absolutely a positive thing to note... ya know :s Hey anyway, I might end up working for EA :O?
So yeh, it might actually be possible that I get to play a decent MMO with decent ping...
I couldn't find any source literature that had decent theorycraft regarding Pendant of the Violet Eye. Before getting it a couple of weeks ago and before testing out a key mechanic which no-one has bothered to figure out, it was easily the best trinket available. Here's a brief description:
Let's assume you get 2 casts for each 5 second bloc you get (this includes all spells that cost mana, except I realized Judgement doesn't proc it probably because it doesn't trigger a gcd) This will mean that you will get (2+4+6+8) * 21mp5, totalling 420 mana. 420 mana every 2 minutes equates to 420/24=17.5mp5, which is very good considering 40int implies that:
40 * 1.1 (divine intellect) * 1.1 (bok) = 48.4 int * 15 => 726 mana.
48.4 int * 0.35 (holy guidance) => ~17 healing.
48.4 int / 80 (int:crit) * 22.07 (rating:crit) = ~13 crit rating.
726 mana for a 10 minute fight is => 726 / (600) * 5 = ~6mp5 (12mp5 for 5min)
It's generally the best for the majority of fights imo. Unfortunately as I've tested out, you won't get the last mp5 proc due to the way the buff works...
When you use the trinket, the Trinket 20s expiry buff begins to count. After your first spell is cast, the 'Enlightenment' buff begins. The Enlightenment buff basically keeps track of how many casts have been casted, e.g Enlightenment (6). What happens is that the Enlightenment buff expires along with the expiry buff so it's not logically possible to get the last proc -_-'' This implies that it's only ideal to get 2+4+6 procs, which equates to 10.5mp5~
To be honest, I'm disappointed but relieved at the same time. I finished the assignment 1 hour before penalization, so whatever at least I got it done. It was definitely quite last minute, not absolutely considering I did make considerable advances 2 weeks before but yes, my classmates who've started on theirs 2-3 months before do change the standard (and of course their models were ridiculously imba). Speaking of which, Kenny did mention that DGDD was 'very intense' compared to other courses having the similar module. It's a motivating thing to hear because at least as a class and course we're doing exceptionally well, bar the ideological splits. This can be extremely important in the 3rd year in terms of team synergy and competition imo.
Here's a render of the "complete" version :s
It's not really a drake. Considering that the marking scheme has allotted 10-20% marks just on creativity and concept, it's sacrilege to call it a drake; a pseudo-drake at best. In my report I called it a "Drakirin" hehehe jesus what a lame name. It was a 5min concoction within 52 hours of sleep deprivation, so yeh alright!
Either way I learnt and enjoyed a lot this week, which is a good thing because I was worried that I might not end up liking Maya.
** I just wanted to add that one of the motivations I had this week to have been able to endure the pain was not wanting to see Kenny disappointed. I know it's a bit er-k-ew thing to say but he's too nice lol.
Terence also sent me this really funny email with pics, but I chose the best to post due to loading time (yes I care about YOUR loading time :)). I also think ive seen a few of the others somewhere before.
Also a really kiLLeR pic of Hero (from DBSK) to finish off the week hehe :D.
One day left and I'm stuffing myself with caffeine to make sure I make it across the river...
I actually never thought I would dedicate a post to her, but Yitting has kinda earned my respect. Aside from the Director, she's one of the few lecturers that genuinely care about her students' future prospects.
The ensuing drama following Jeremiah's petition letter to the Director is still set to brew, considering that Mr Lau said that indeed there were 'misconceptions while conceiving this course'. I was obviously very worried about the credibility of this diploma and secondly the relevancy of what I'm learning. Yitting helped alleviate some of my concerns with today's one-on-one dialogue session.
I asked her if I had to get a degree (in the Games Design field) to improve my employability, and she was nearly engulfed in disgust at the fact that I thought a degree was important. She felt that a degree was 99.8% unimportant in terms of employability, but crucial (if not mandatory) if applying for teaching or other government-related occupations. I really don't know if I want to take a degree still. I hope I could get one, not just for the sake of the degree, but learning other stuff and enjoying my youth more at the same time. However, Yitting mentioned that I should _only_ seek college in the US or Japan. I highly doubt Japan is viable considering I don't speak the language or am a FF/anime specialist. The US ends up being very viable but yeh the cost of a degree would be beyond ridiculous. My parents do say that they will pay for varsity, but I really don't want to waste that kind of money... Unless of course I get a scholarship somehow...
For one, at least we're doing Maya because that's _THE_ industry-standard. She expressed her extreme shock that the school actually fitted the PCs with Maya because the cost of each copy is a whopping US$3000.
To be honest, I don't exactly know what field I wish to spec into. The 6 main expertises according to Yitting are: Rigging (skeletonizing), Environment/Landscape design, Texturing, Animation, Storyboarding and Modelling. 4/6 of these specs are literally Maya and Maya only, and that's quite worrying because I'm still not good with Maya...
I'm most interested in Character Design and Development. I hope I can just specialize my efforts into character design, that is, a 2D digitalized sketch translated into a model. I'm most likely going to spam character design for my portfolio... Go Leo!!!!!!!!!!!!! keke ^_~
I have decided to press my alarm button tonight. I have 4 submissions that I can think of that are due within the next 2 weeks, the most immediate is on the 27th. My strategy is going to be quite simple; minimal TV and no battlegrounds at all these 2 weeks. I'm going to be very selective when it comes to attending raids, which might hurt guild progression x2 with our only shadow priest on a 10-day holiday.
I have a scripting test which scares me a lot because I haven't done shit for Hubert's module. The Acoustic paper should be OK since the lecturers gave us blatant hints and I typed every single word they said on notepad ha.
Right now I'm working on my Dragon, and I've done really only the portion of the head so far.
What I'm really really looking forward to in 2.2 are the new crafted-BOP gems. They work like the ring enchants.
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