Fuck Yeah – Account-wide Achievements

No, this isn’t another dig at @Rayfyst from @theSundering podcast even though that’s always a fun time for me. Simply put, I wanted to express how much I really, really LOVE the account wide achievements, mounts and pets that were implemented in patch 5.0.4.

Anyone who listens to my podcast knows I’ve been playing World of Warcraft since Vanilla. Over all that time, I’ve had one main toon, my paladin Janaelle who currently resides on the server Twisting Nether. That’s not to say I don’t have alts; my shaman Luthvien was my main raiding toon during Cata, my DK Orest was my main pvp toon during Cata, and for the last quarter of BC I played a warlock when my guild exploded with healers. Always, though, I’ve been drawn back to my paladin to take names, kick ass, and gather EVERYTHING of Jan. I hoarded items, clothes, crafting mats, achievements, mounts, and pets all on that one toon. After so much work was put into her, so many hours, such a high play time value, why would I ever waist all that time spent and choose a new main? I had invested in Janaelle.

Thanks to patch 5.0.4, I am now invested in my entire account! All my achievements (well most of them) from her are shown on all my other toons. All the mounts, pets, etc. that I’ve gathered can be shown off on any of the four servers I currently inhabit. No longer will I feel like an alt is lacking because all that time, all those accomplishments, can’t be seen. No longer will I feel like one of those “Oh, I’ve done that but can’t prove it” jackasses. GG Blizzard.

Oh, and Ray, you’re not a special pony. Hmm, guess I lied.

Ouya Update

Now at $5,000,000 in donations and with 22 days left in their campaign, Ouya is off to a great start in getting out to the public and helping shape the course of games and consoles for the next decade. I’ve been keeping up with all things Ouya, and compiled a short list of new information to pass along.

Here are the Specifications (which I didn’t list before) for the Ouya:

• Tegra3 quad-core processor
• 1GB RAM
• 8GB of internal flash storage
• HDMI connection to the TV, with support for up to 1080p HD
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth LE 4.0
• USB 2.0 (one)
• Wireless controller with standard controls (two analog sticks, d-pad, eight action buttons, a system button), a touchpad
• Android 4.0

The big announcement is that the Ouya will be ready to ship in March and will be usable in other countries (so long as those users purchase of an adapter). At the beginning, though, the Ouya will only be available in English.

Now for what everyone really wants to know about, the games.

Oh How I Miss Thee, Internet

THIS FUCKING SUCKS

No, I don’t live in the area hit by that giant black out, I just moved into a new house whose only access to the Internet is through a company called SuddenLink. They’ve told me they’ll hook me up with internet at the end of the month because they have the worst customer service I have ever experienced. I just know that when TimeWarner and/or AT&T moves into the area, nearly everyone is going to switch.

The Hackable Console Ouya – Wait, it’s done already?

UPDATE: Two days after launch (7/12), the kickstarter campaign is up to $4,000,000 with 30,000 backers. There’s still plenty of $100+ pledges available which gives you a console before they hit store shelves.

UPDATE: The day AFTER the launch of the kickstarter campaign, they have raised $3,000,000. That’s TWO MILLION DOLLARS over what they were asking for. They’ve also upped the amount of units purchasable right now so as of 7/11, there are 30,000 still purchasable.

What. The. Fuck.

So today (7/10), a Kickstarter campaign launched to bring gamers an all new console, the Ouya (“ooh-yuh”). A fully hackable console that is designed for indie developers. Julie Uhrma and her team (including early Xbox pioneer Ed Fries and One Laptop Per Child designer Yves Behar) think it’s high time Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo rethink how they make consoles.

“I just think closed is the wrong way of doing things,” Julie Uhrma said. “I see unbelievable indie content out there, and watching ‘Indie Game the Movie’ and watching their faces as they wait for Microsoft to approve [their game], it just didn’t make any sense.”

Jan Does Minecraft

So I’ve been working on this  mockery of a Asian village for a while now on the Slash 2 severs run by @frak_you. It started from a picture of a Chinese wall next to a river. From that I built a wall, then a church and it just continued from there.

My villagers worship the man in black. He has a cane, so I also believe he’s a pimp. The rest of the village sprang up around this church.

Ramblings on Fears, Future, and Life

I’ve been wanting to write something to explain who I am, what I do and, most importantly, why I do it for some time now. I haven’t because the answers aren’t pretty, easy to ready, let alone write. Do I really want to create something intimate and personal, then put it on the internet?

I told myself no, that this was too much and no one would care. That, more than anything, held my hand as it would be painful to find out no one really gives a shit. The more I write, though, the more I realize I do this for me. Sure, the post views are nice, but I create for me.

For the first time in my life, I am proud of something that I’ve accomplished. That’s why I never want to stop blogging, or podcasting. That’s why I am going back to school for a journalism degree.

Surface, the new Microsoft Tablet

Once again I’ve scoured the news releases to bring you all of the information I can find, this time about the new Microsoft Tablet, Surface. Announced in Los Angeles this Monday, it’s made a splash in the hardware market, but there’s more speculation than real facts out there.

So what do we know? There will be be two versions of the Surface, consumer and enterprise. The later is for consumers and the former for the workplace and is called the Surface Pro. The consumer version will release first and the Pro version about 3 months later. There were no prices given for either version, but we’re told they will be priced “comparably” to other devices on the market. The Surface could therefore be priced anywhere from $499 to $829 as Apple’s most basic version of the iPad retails for that much, depending on the model. The Surface Pro will run around $1,000 as that’s what ultrabooks typically run for. Unfortunately for Microsoft, most annalists are saying the same thing, “Microsoft will need to significantly undercut the iPad to be competitive.” (Peter Misek, Jason North, and Billy Kim of Jefferies & Company, Inc)

Sidenorna on How to Teach Magic: The Gathering

About a month ago on the podcast I co-host (5wowthings), we had @OriginalOestrus as a guest and discussed Magic: The Gathering (linked here if you want to listen). @thebiggameover wanted to know how magic worked, and we explained to him it is a very difficult game to learn.

If you don’t know, Magic: The Gathering is a trading card game created by Wizard’s of the Coast, the same guys who make the Dungeons and Dragons table top game. A game of Magic represents a battle between planeswalkers, who employ the magical spells, items, and creatures (depicted on individual Magic cards) to defeat their opponents. It has a very organized tournament system from which a community of professional Magic players has developed.

While a lot of people have heard of Magic, not many know how to get into the game. Some who have tried have found the rule set daunting because, let’s face it, there are hundreds of rules to learn and only hard core players know them all. After listening to that episode, Sidenorna, one of our newer listeners, wrote me on a good way to teach someone. So if you know someone who would like to learn, or would like to learn and know someone who plays, direct them here as she has written up a great teacher’s guide.

Controller Breaking Nerd Rage

Abric, the guest from Episode 52 of 5wowthings, sent me a link to a blog about throwing controllers. Some of you may know, as I finished Mass Effect 3 a week after it came out, I threw my controller across the room and it broke. This is the controller:

Doesn’t look very broken, now does it? I figure one of the little bits and bobs on the inside that they make in Japan and I don’t understand at all broke off and can be fixed by being soldered back on. I don’t have any idea how to do that, so I just use the other controller I own and this sits around as a paper weight.

No big deal. Well, there is this spot:

That’s where the paint tore when this got ripped off the wall by the flying controller:

It’s just a hook I use to hang stuff on. I have several and there’s about a foot of space between each so it’s damn good aim on my part. But to be honest, this isn’t the first time I’ve thrown a controller, or anything that is immensely pissing me off. I broke a flute once and my steering wheel receives a lot of abuse.

Jan Rage – Jii Firepaw and Insensitive Hypocrites

of·fend

Cause to feel upset, annoyed, or resentful.

hyp·o·crite

A person who indulges in hypocrisy.

hy·poc·ri·sy

The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.

Definitions for those who decide to argue with me in the comments. Let’s be at least on the same page to start out with.

For those World of Warcraft players living under a rock, there was a large “scandal” involving Blizzard and a character named Jii Firepaw. He said some shit and it made people upset, so blizzard changed it. I didn’t care. I didn’t care it was offensive and I didn’t care that it was changed to be less offensive. What I do care about is the backlash to these women’s opinion; the people who were offended that they were offended.

As always when a minority speaks out, whether that be transgender, homosexuals or feminists, those more concerned with their own comfort than the message being presented flipped their shit. Messages like the following popped up everywhere:

I see some of these same players tweeting that someone harassed them in RL while walking down the street, at work, said something rude, made a grab at them, etc. I have never personally done this, nor ever witnessed any male or female in my presence ever do anything beyond give a “check them out” look. I bet if I merely walked by some of these people perhaps held the door for them and said “Hi, nice day isn’t it” they’d scream “PERV WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO MARGINALIZE ME?!” Um, I was being nice and making conversation…but ok.