Another Milestone!

Well, to see where I was on google's imprtance list, I googled the word "Sapper". Imagine my surprise when about halfway down, where it shows "images for sapper", I found that the first 4 pics to be of my run with my hunter through Molten Core! So, I hit the "images" button, and the first row are more pics of my run.

Now, google might just know that I put those pics there, and so it is showing me my pics. But I'd like to think that I am moving up in the world.

   - Woody

The Art of Kiting

   To people who play World of Warcraft, especially hunters, the term “kiting” is no stranger. However, I have found in many games (especially RPGs) that kiting can be used to great effect. I have recently used it in Lord of the Rings: War in the North; Dragons Age: Origins; Skyrim; and even in Gears of War 3 (horde mode).

   While the concept of kiting is simple, it can take a bit of practice to master. Also, different classes in different games make it easier or harder to kite. For instance, a pure melee character will find it extremely difficult to kite. Possibly even impossible. However, a class focused on ranged will kite with ease.

   Kiting, at its core concept, is simply hitting an enemy while staying out of range of its attacks. Simple, right? Well, like I said, it’s a simple concept. But in my experience, people think it’s too simple and don’t execute very well. Obviously, we are assuming that the enemy is either pure melee, or its strongest attacks come from melee, and is weaker at range. Kiting doesn’t work very well against ranged. That’s when you get into LOS (Line of Sight) pulling. But that’s another strategy.

   There are a few considerations to kiting. First, is obstacles. The easiest way to kite an enemy is to play “ring around the rosy” with an obstacle. If the enemy is on the other side of the obstacle, he can’t hit you. So, if there’s an obstacle between you, simply hit him with ranged and keep running around the obstacle. This method is not used very much surprisingly, but is the easiest to implement. Even a melee focused character can usually pull out a ranged weapon and use it here. It just takes longer to beat the enemy that way.

   The second thing to consider is the movement speed of the enemy. In WoW, the hunter has traps he can place to freeze or slow the enemy. He also has a pet that can take agro off of him. In other games, you might have abilities that slow the enemy. In an area without obstacles, slowing effects are the way to go. Sometimes you can literally run circles around the enemy while pelting him with ranged abilities. I had to do this on the first ogre in the beacon tower of Dragons Age: Origins. My party had all died, and my mage was all that was left. So I simply ran around the outer perimeter of the circle and hit him with the DoT (Damage over Time) that I had any time it was off cooldown.

   Along with the movement speed of the enemy, is your ability to dodge the enemy. In wave 30 in Gears of War 3 (Horde mode) on hardcore difficulty, I found myself to be the only person left against the final creature, a savage corpser. It was pretty easy to shoot at him, roll out of the way, and run. (I will be posting strategies for beating all the Gears of War 3 (Horde Mode) bosses later on, so see the full strategy there.)

  Last thing to consider while kiting is adds (any little enemies running around). If you can successfully kite them, too, then go ahead. However, there are two strategies to beating them depending on which type of adds they are.

   The three types of adds are infinite, wave, and finite. On finite adds, the easiest thing to do is to get the adds out of the way before focusing on the boss. On infinite adds, focus on the boss, only killing enough adds to stay alive. On waves, if you have time between each wave, kill the adds then focus on the boss between waves. If you don’t have enough time, it’s a race against the clock to beat the boss before the adds overwhelm you.

   Hopefully these little tips will help you in your kiting efforts. If you have a specific boss in a game that you’d like help with, you can shoot me a comment below, and I’ll see what I can do. Of course, with all the tips and tricks out there, it’d be quicker to just google it. But, give me a chance. Who else offers personalized strategies?

   - Woody

Weird Links to My Site

So, I was doing some research on the sites that bring people to my blog. Most people who come here (over 25%, actually) come to visit my Skyrim Death Knight page. In fact, if you google "Skyrim Death Knight", my blog is on the first page of google now! I have received almost 20% of my total pageviews since posting that page.

What was interesting to me though, is that sometimes I get refers from websites that are totally unrelated to my blog. My latest was from babybackpack.com. Interestingly (thought unsurprisingly) enough, there are no links to my site on that webpage. I am pretty sure it is some type of linking campaign through automated programming. But, if it brings me visitors and gets my website higher on the google rankings, I'm fine with it. It's just odd sometimes. I've even had links from weightlifting websites.

Well, I'm working on a new strategy guide, the art of "kiting". Seems to be a lost art, although very effective when used correctly. Look for it later this week, or even later on today.

   - Woody

Saint's Row: The Third Review

   I just beat Saint's Row: The Third, and boy was it a wild ride. This game review will be solely about the gameplay. This game is not a game for children, and is not "family friendly" in any way. There is intense language, and while there is no actual nudity, there is blurred out nudity.
   The game follows the leader of the gang "Third Street Saints" on a journey through a new city. The Saints start off on top of the world, with movie deals and sponsorships. But, when they run into an international gang called "The Syndicate", they lose everything and have to start from the bottom and work their way up. Along the way there is a lot of gang-on-gang violence, rescues, flying helicopters, and even some zombies.
   The graphhics aren't all that great, but there is a comic "over the top" feel throughout the game. The voice acting is ok, again staying with the comic theme.
   If you've ver played any of the Grand Theft Auto games, you've played this game. While playing this game, I had about 4 people ask me if I was playing GTA. I ended up putting about 35 hours into this game, and got an 87% completion rate. I could easily keep playing and get 100% (especially since I hit max level and am now impervious to all forms of damage), but I had no interest in repeating the same activities over and over again.
   At first, having enough cash to buy items was a problem. But once I took over most of the town, it became irrelevent. In fact, when I finished the game, I had $1.2 million. Eventually, you no longer need to worry about cash, and just need to worry about buying upgrades as they become available.
   The game plays as a FPS for most of the game, with the rest basically being a driving game. Aiming is easy, and fairly accurate. I found myself hardly ever actually "aiming" with the left trigger, and just firing. The driving controls are easy, and it was fun to zip around on a motorcycle trying to see how far I could jump or ride a wheelie.
   All in all, the game is a blast to play; just keep in mind that it is NOT a family friendly game at all.

   - Woody

Gears of War 3 Horde Mode

   I bought Gears of War 3 about a month ago. I hadn't played GOW or GOW2, but it came highly recommended, so I decided to pick it up. I have yet to play very much of the campaign, but I got sucked into the Horde Mode pretty quickly.
   Horde mode is a survival type mode in which you fight waves upon waves of enemies. Each wave is a little harder than the last.
   This mode consists of 50 waves of enemies, with basically 5 sections consisting of 9 waves then a boss wave. After you beat the first boss (wave 10) the enemies get a boost of 2x health. After the second boss (wave 20) they get a boost of 2x accuracy, in addition to the 2x health. After the third boss (wave 30 (get the pattern?)) your party begins to take 2x damage, in addition to the other handicaps. After the fourth boss, all three of those handicaps bump up to 2.5x.
   Once you start the game, you have to decide where to build your command post. The great thing about this game is that there are different fortifications that you can build, and later upgrade. At first you can only build caltrops (little spikes that slow enemies down and hurt them as they pass through), but eventually you can build auto-sentries, manned turrets, decoys, and finally buy the coveted Silverback (which we've found to not be worth the amount of money you spend on it; it's better to buy other fortifications and leave the Silverback alone). You can eventually upgrade all of these fortifications to be stronger, more accurate, etc.
   After working on "normal" difficulty for a couple weeks, me and 3 others finally beat wave 50. We started on Hardcore difficulty tonight, but only made it to wave 10 after about 2 hours of play. We'll continue trying tomorrow. I hope to get another player, as you can have a total of five people playing cooperatively on this mode.

   - Woody

What Gets Me: Impatience While Driving

   We've all seen it. The drivers who are so impatient that they do stupid things, like edge forward at stop lights, or cut people off in traffic. What amazes me is how little the gains these drivers actually make for such risks that they take. This type of thinking would make for horrible investors.
   Take, for example, someone traveling 10 miles. If the speed limit is 60mph, they'd get there (barring lights, etc) in 10 minutes. If they speed and travel 75mph, risking a nice ticket that will cost money for a ticket, and also insurance premiums, they'd get there in eight minutes. Wow, risking hundreds of dollars for two minutes of time? Where are you going that two minutes are going to make a difference?
   Another example that I have seen over and over is when someone is waiting to pull out into traffic. I'll be the last car. No one behind me. Yet this person will cut me off to get in front of me. How much sense does that make? Risking an accident to get in front of one car.
   Again, this is bad investment strategy. It'd be like risking hundreds of dollars in the hopes of making 10 dollars. I just don't get it.

   - Woody

Lord of the Rings: War in the North Review

         After being burned on past Lord of the Rings games, I was hesitant to pick this one up. But it was $30 at my local PX (that’s Post Exchange, for all you non-military out there), so I decided to give it a chance. I wasn’t disappointed at all.

          This game follows a different group of warriors during the time of the Lord of the Rings when Frodo is taking the ring to Mount Doom to be destroyed. Unlike other LOTR games however, this group doesn’t follow behind the Fellowship, and it doesn’t exactly copy the Fellowship’s standard party. Close, but not quite.

          This story takes place in the northern part of Middle Earth (go figure) and follows a human ranger, elven lore master, and dwarven warrior as they chase down Sauron’s right hand man who is trying to conquer the northern territories of Middle Earth. Along the way, many characters from the main storyline make cameo appearances, but they do not fight alongside you.

          You get your choice of character, and then AI (or a friend or two if you’re lucky) take control of the other two. So you always have three characters fighting at any time. Along the way, you are occasionally helped out by other NPCs, including Elrond Halfelven’s sons and a couple of Dwarfs trying to use a weapon to destroy some Orcs. The problem with the AI is that they aren't all that bright. They are like hunter's pets win WoW on aggressive. They see a mob, they fight it. No discretion in targeting at all. Also, they aren't smart enough to stay behind cover. When the elf makes a protective sphere that enemy arrows can't penetrate, and that also heals the party, they don't stay in it. They walk towards the enemy instead of using ranged attacks.

          The game isn’t quite “visually stunning”, but the graphics are definitely not sub-par. The worlds are beautiful, just not breath-taking. The maps are familiar to any LOTR fan. Even though they are new locations, they are very similar to locations played over and over again. A city under attack takes the place of Gondor. A dwarven city besieged by Orcs takes the place of the mines of Moria. Mirkwood is a beautiful location, home to a wizard and also a spider queen. All in all, the areas were refreshing in that they weren’t exact copies of former LOTR games, but yet they still had that LOTR feel, and followed the pattern of other LOTR games.

          The characters, like I said, don’t exactly follow the old mold. But they are close. The ability to spec your characters using talent points in different trees really helps there. There is a human ranger whose main ability is his bow. But he can also use dual weapons, a two-hander, or a sword and shield. He has the capability of going into stealth and dealing massive damage from the shadows. He’s kind of a mix of a hunter (with no pet) and a rogue.

The dwarf warrior is the “tank” of the game (complete with a taunt), but he can also use two-handers (like any good dwarf) and can use crossbows to great effect. He can instantly revive others in the group (if specced right) and can add armor bonuses. Think a Paladin/Warrior mix.

The most perplexing of the 3 is the elven lore master though. She is supposed to be a support caster with healing capabilities. But I found out that if you spec her right, she is an amazing tank with the most armor, and is capable of dealing massive melee damage. The way I played her was basically a battlemage.

The game is beset with minor glitches that don’t affect gameplay, and a couple big ones that do. Snowblind has released patches to fix these, however. The one I ran into most was some text staying onscreen instead of fading off. It was out of the way, so it didn’t bother me much. Another one was actually useful, and kind of funny. While I was playing the caster, the dwarf would either teleport or run really, really fast towards the enemy to hit them. A major glitch that I am glad I didn’t run into is definitely a game breaker. It happens when you complete a quest but the game doesn’t recognize that you did, and so you can’t move forward. Only thing to do in this case is start over.

The game took me about 20 hours to finish on Normal difficulty. I made it to character level 22. Once you beat it on normal, you unlock a second playthrough on heroic, and then legendary. Each time you start a new playthrough you keep your level and gear, allowing for many repeated playthroughs. There is gear to collect, and sets to be matched. So the gear-whore in me wants to play it through over and over to get the best sets for each character. Higher level playthroughs also grant better gear.

The gear is color coded into what has become the standard. White for regular common gear, green for good quality, blue for rare gear, and purple for epic gear. In the normal playthrough I believe that I only received two pieces of blue gear, a lot of green, and a ton of white. In the beginning of the heroic playthrough I got lucky and found a purple piece for my hands, and then got a purple bow for the ranger. But other than that, the best gear is obviously reserved for the legendary playthrough. Reading online, many people play the legendary over and over to achieve their sets; which as I said, I can easily see myself doing. Especially to help my friends play.

Gameplay is your basic hack-n-slash. One button deals your regular attack, while a second deals a strong, slower attack. What was nice was the addition of a “Hero Mode”. As you deal damage, an invisible meter is filling up. Once it’s full, a visual indicator tells you to use your strong attack. Once you do, you are in hero mode, and deal extra damage. You stay in hero mode until you are staggered, as long as you keep hitting things. While in hero mode each hit adds to a multiplier, and if you are in hero mode at the end of the fight, you get a huge xp boost. I managed to get my multiplier up to 127 while fighting spiders in Mirkwood.

This game isn’t exactly a must have, but it’s fun. All in all, it’s a good game that either LOTR fans, or loot-based RPG fans will enjoy.

- Woody