World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria

I have always been a huge fan of Blizzard and have always given their games and expansions a shot in proving themselves. After already having played the other expansions and having taken a year hiatus from the game, upon starting to play MoP some new features interested me right away.  For one, a new pet battling system has been unleashed on the world. Its really cool and operates much like a pokemon battle where you can have up to 3 pets in a party. I played around with this system for a while until I became bored with it.... which was about a few hours.
I then went to explore the new area of the game that opened up and began some quest chains.  While the MoP art and music is my favorite thus far in the game, I found myself bored once again. I was simply doing the same thing I did in the other expansions. The dungeons weren't much different, but then again, I didn't reach max level so I can't judge on all of the new features. Without any friends in my old world to play with, the game was simply uninteresting. The servers seem to have died down as well, with a lot less players than I orginally remember. I feel as though this game is slowly dying. The expansion doesn't appear to have brought in a lot of new blood and interest. Perhaps my interests have moved on, but I am bored with the repetetive grinding and questing and would much rather spend my time on a game where I can utilize more strategy. Its unfortunate I didn't reach the new level cap, the PvP and dungeons may have been more fun.

Christmas Eve! + DotA 2 Greevling Event!

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday sales and spirit! This blogging experience is finding itself to be enjoyable to me and I am thankful for those of you that have been keeping up to date with what I have been publishing thus far.

For those of you that have been playing DotA2, I hope you have had time to partake in the Greevling Event!  This has certainly been a fun distraction from the normal games played. In this version of DotA there is no gold, and player kills don't matter.  Your teams objective is to clear 11 greevil camps before the other team does. These Greevil camps spawn in the forests of both sides of the map. You can also transform into a greevil you have hatched, if you have one.

STRATEGY TIPS:

The most important part of this map is to pick heroes that will either allow you to quickly and effectively a) last hit the final greevil or b) kill the enemy team fast.  Since the credit of clearing a Greevil camp will go to the team that last hit the final greevil, heroes that have strong nuking abilities are favored.  This includes heroes like necrolyte, luna, lina, lion, and sniper.  Of course there are many more examples.  Other heroes such as magnus, pudge, and chen have abilities to clear enemies out of the way or even snag the last greevil from afar.

One effective combo and strategy I have seen is the Chen, Pudge combo.  In this combo, chen will use his skill to send pudge back to his fountain.  Before the timer goes off, however, the pudge will hook the greevil, pulling the greevil back to the base with the pudge.  This can result in easy greevil kills so long as there are only 2 greevils in a camp.  Mini greevils can also be converted to your side through Chen's ability. This results in another strategy where the big greevil will be killed first leaving the mini greevil for chen to use his ability on, effectively causing his converting ability to act much like a 2k damage nuke.

Another huge aspect of this mini game is the transforming into a greevil.  Having a stronger greevil allows you fight harder and longer.  When you are almost dead, you can transform into your other form and fight with full hp while your previous form has increased regen.  This switching back and forth between forms will allow you to fight longer without dying.

Lastly, I advise that you clear the greevil camps on your enemies side first, as these will be the harder camps to clear.  Once you kill off the enemies heroes, you should then proceed to clear the camps. You don't want to leave enemies around you while you try and clear the camp, as they will try to last hit the greevil when it is weakened.

If anyone would like advice on how to use essences on greevil eggs and how to create a strong greevil, please comment! Additionally, I have spare greevil eggs that I am willing to give away to anyone that needs them.

Happy Greevling and a merry Christmas Eve, everyone! :D

DayZ Standalone Game Likely Delayed

The DayZ standalone game looks like it is going to be delayed for now. The project leader, Rocket, has expressed how recent events and stresses (questions about WarZ, trying to complete the project in time for December) have been negatively affecting his health.  While he is still working on the project along with the rest of the DayZ team, he has mentioned that he is retreating from the public for now and will be "coming out when the dust has all settled."

The game stems from a mod developed by Rocket in a game called Arma II. This mod has been so damn successful that Bohemia Interactive (makers of Arma II) have gone hand in hand with Rocket and the DayZ team to create a standalone game from which they could forge an even brighter future together. DayZ is a MMORPG that aims to create a realistic zombie survival experience which allows the player to make his/her own decisions.  This standalone game will be released to the public using the Minecraft model where the game is sold for reduced prices during its production to help fund the completion of the project. Originally it was hoped that the game would be released in November of 2012, but now appears that it might be released early in 2013.

Regardless of its release date, Rocket plans on releasing a product that consumers will enjoy. Rocket and Bohemia Interactive have been known to listen to their players and work with them to create a better experience. I have high hopes for the future of this game and will keep you all updated as I hear more!

War Z Thoughts

Alright so I've been hearing a lot about a game called "War Z" recently. It is a zombie survival game where you are spawned into a map with 50 others with nothing more than a flashlight, granola bar, and can of soda.  Your objective is to go around the map and find food stuffs and weapons to keep yourself alive.

This game has been so controversial lately because it was made shortly after the release of the "Day Z" mod for Arma 2. Although the creators of War Z claim that War Z was in production BEFORE Day Z, it is not known for sure.

Now, from what I understand War Z is in alpha stages of development and can be bought through steam for $15.  This game also features micro transactions which allow you to buy a few melee weapons, helmets, ammo, and foodstuffs to give you that extra head-start in game. Looking through gameplay videos of this game, it looks REALLY rough.  I was looking forward towards the concept of a zombie survival for a very long time now, but this is not a finished game. From texture, to bugs, to lack of advertised content (skills, maps leading to resources, servers with 100+ players), I will NOT be buying this game until it becomes more polished.  It certainly has potential so don't discount the game yet, but it is nowhere near the finished game I want it to be.

I'll update on this more as I find out more. Until then... SCREENSHOTS! :D

UPDATE########

The War Z has officially been removed off the market from Steam! Apparently there has been a lot of distaste among players that War Z has not been treating its customers right and that the makers have been falsely advertising/ selling an unfinished game.  Steam has heard these complaints and has taken the game off the market for now.

Rumors of the New Sim City having DRM from Origin

This was one of those titles I was truly looking forward to... Until I heard about the DRM (digital rights management) required to play the game. Even though this game will be single player, the DRM will require you to have an active internet connection in order to play. Additionally all games will be saved on the online server.

Why are they doing this? Well in order to prevent illegal copies from being spread around, they want you to log in through their online Origin service, much like how you were required to log on to Diablo 3 to play single player. This is just going to be a pain in the ass and prevent us from playing an amazing game while traveling or while internet outages are occuring. Additionally, EA wants to do this so that they can sell DLC (downloadable content) to the players.  This means that EA is not selling a full and complete game, requiring you to purchase their DLC in order to have access to the entire game.

Personally, I feel this is absolutely wrong -- EA only care about the money and have no qualms about treating their fanbase like shit in order to earn a pretty penny. I for one will NOT be buying this game.  If a cracked version comes out that allows you to play offline, I might actually download it.

EDIT**
Furthermore, I would like to add on about another disadvantageous aspect of this. Since the game requires the EA servers to be online, this means that there will eventually be an experation date for this game. In Sim City 2000, despite how old it is, you can still blow off the dust, install it, and play it however and whenever you would like. There will come a time for Sim City 2013 when the game gets old and EA will no longer want to pay to upkeep the servers.  They will shut down the servers and prevent the possibility of playing this game whenever we have nostalgia pangs for the past.

Comparison between League of Legends, DOTA 2, Warcraft III DOTA, Starcraft II DOTA, and Heroes of Newerth

I have been playing these tug of war maps ever since DOTA in warcraft 3.  These are a ton of fun and have great re-playability.  While I am not a top-tier League player, I am certainly no noob either.  I have been playing Heroes of Newerth, League of Legends, DOTA 2, Warcraft III Dota, and Starcraft II DOTA simultaneously since their existence. Now, there are a lot of similarities and differences between the various games, but I will start by listing the Pros and Cons for each of the games. Since warcraft III DOTA and Starcraft II DOTA are very similar and aren't games in themselves, I will not include these in the pros/cons list. If you feel something should be added or modified, please comment below! :D

PROS ==Heroes of Newerth:
- This game is very smooth and handles well.
- I enjoy the capability of being able to deny creeps to prevent the enemy team from obtaining experience and gold.
- Theres an all mid game mode
- Good system to keep track of statistics
- Free
-Autolevel builds
-Option to play a faster paced gamemode
-Couriers

CONS ==Heroes of Newerth:
- Biggest con is the lack of fanbase. Queue times can often take 10 minutes before a game is set up for you which leaves you minimized and waiting. This can be attributed to the cost of the game before they decided to make the game free to play.

PROS == League of Legends
- HUGE fan base. Queuing for matches never takes longer than a minute.  This is for all modes of play.
- Great statistics and ranking process
- Allows you to have a ranked team with your friends
- Free to play unless you wish to buy more skins and champions
- Great customization page in regards to runes and talent trees. Greatly increases customization of a hero.

CONS ==League of Legends
- Takes a long time to farm up the points required to play different champions for free.
- There seem to be a lot less mature players playing this game
- Game seems much simpler when compared to DOTA 2 or HoN (could also be considered a PRO depending on your play style)

PROS == DOTA 2
- Large fan base. Queues are really fast and the game is gaining more traction by the day
- Great graphics
- Ability to deny creeps
- Couriers
- Larger map

CONS ==DOTA 2
- Still in the making
- Still has a "rough" feel about it
- Ranked play and in depth statistics unavailable
- Still in Beta mode





I believe Heroes of Newerth performs the best out of the three, but if i had to choose one overall, League of Legends would have to take the cake.  It has a great fan-base and a few different map types which allow for all levels of gameplay and fast queues.

Tell me how you feel about all this! :)
- Rushing Fire

Introduction

Hey guys!!
I spend a lot of time playing games, so I figure I might as well create a blog about my experiences to share with you!  In this blog I will keep you up to date with what I have been playing, my experiences with the game, interesting stories, and upcoming games I look forward to playing! Hopefully this will raise awareness to you about other games on the market as well as give you an insiders perspective on the quality of the game!  I'm excited to finally start sharing my views and getting to know new people!  Additionally, I'm new to blogging, so please go easy on me as I learn the ropes of this process -- suggestions are appreciated :)

I primarily game through my Asus laptop.  It is about five years old now so the games are starting to become a little difficult to handle.  I am especially having problems with hard drive capacity and constantly find myself deleting less-used games so that I can fit on other games of interest. I have 150 gb to store my games, with an additional 100 gb on another partition that is used for backing up data.

While I am a competetive individual and strive to become the best in anything I do, I also know when to relax a little and have some fun!

Currently installed games are League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Dota 2, The Sims 3, Company of Heroes (with both expansions), World of Warcraft : MOP, Puzzle Pirates, Stronghold Kingdoms, and Saints Row 3.  I have access to a ton more games but certainly can't fit them all on my computer.  If you have any interest in playing with me online with any of these games, feel free to let me know! I'm always looking for more friends :)

My handle in most games is Rushing Fire -- I look forward to playing with you all ! :D