Browserfield 3

Got BF3 for Christmas. Yes, it is a great game, and there is nothing like watching two buffoons in fighter jets collide in mid-air that makes you feel like part of a sprawling, epic battle. The game produces a lot of epic battle moments and the squad system really seems to get people working together. Overall, great game, though I don't know why they focussed so much on the graphics of a title released for a 64 player multiplayer (the single player might as well not exist). The frames per second i get, even on low graphical settings, are terrible sometimes.

Oh, and it has a browser page for a main menu. That is a bit annoying too.

Skyrim... SKYRIM!

Got Skyrim last saturday. Since then I have clocked about 35 hours on the damn thing and haven't touched any other games. I'm sure my WoW guild won't mind since they have been on a recuritment drive lately and now the guild is brimming with trial members to test out.

I have to say, the game is amazing! I haven't had this much fun with an RPG since, well, Oblivion. I can't say that my school work has suffered. This week, I've been getting comparatively little work, which has given me even more time to play this beast.

The addition of dragons initially makes wandering the game world quite tense; as a level six pretty much dressed in rags, I was pure dragon fodder. But now as a level 33 dressed in armour made from bits of dead dragon, they had started to become much less of a challenge. The biggest improvement in the game for me is the skill system. While one could argue that the simplified number of skills (now culled to 18, paling in comparison to the gloriously ludicrous number in morrowind - Four different skills for armour), the fact is that you specialise within each skill through the perk tree system. Most perk trees give you multiple routes to the final ability and pretty much all of them give you multiple directions to take. Unlike the other games also, there is no specialisation at the start whatsoever; you are completely free to mould your character to whatever playstyle you desire; you could even turn your axe swinging fighter into a mage if you wanted. but don't do that or you will probably screw yourself over in the late game, given that the game world levels up with you like it did in Oblivion (only it seems to work a bit better this time). The gameworld also feels much less lonely, even if your chosen companion doesn't say much. Oh, and there is the new adition of choices! Some quests now have multiple outcomes based on what you do. I'm definately going to be replaying the game to see different outcomes.

Anyway, the upshot is, Skyrim is great, and I'm going to be losing a lot ore of my life to it in all probability.

On a roll

Since my last post, Ragnaros has been downed by DNS at least twice. And my luck has indeed changed! (more on that later).

Yesterday, we attempted to put together a 25 man raid but ended up going five men short. Despite this handicap we downed Shannox and Ryolith (a testament to how hard the whole instance has been nerfed really). The other bosses were too troublesome for our plucky band so we ended the night with 2/7.

This night, I was not able to raid, As I was at my girlfriend's birthday dinner (yes, I fell in love! Never felt better!) so I was unable to join my friends, who cleared all the way up to Raggy (who looks set to go down again this week). Still, wouldn't have missed a chance to be with my love for the world.

My real life has been pretty hectic this week, even though I'm off school. Got loads of friends to meet up with, as well as studying to do. It's a miracle I have any time to raid/game at all. Overall, my life has been VERY busy.

Re-rolling

It's been far too long since the last update. Exams kind of got in the way. A lot has happened since my last post.

I'm back on good terms with my guild leader and raiding regularly. DNS has been raiding in firelands since not long after patch 4.2 was released and has now (with the help of the recent nerf) cleared six out of the seven bosses that firelands has to offer and has them effectively on farm. Only Ragnaros seems to be causing a problem, and we've cracked most of the fight (It's a looong encounter).

I signed up to raid yesterday, but because of the volume of people wanting to join, I was forced to roll off against another guildie. A rogue called Listeta. Listeta rolled a 24. "Easy enough to beat" I think, and promply roll a 17.

After a brief mocking of my abysmal dice luck, the raid departs and I'm left to do bog standard dungeons for the next couple of hours with a couple of others who had been denied a raid spot (and do some skinning in the mean time). Dungeons go fairly abysmally. The random dungeon finder throws up some terrible people (and some of the more grueling dungeons to boot) and after a 2 and a half hour slog, I've only cleared 2, having abandonned 3 seemingly lost causes (and the deadmines. Lord, I hate that place).

Then, Paindk, the officer leading the raid, declares in guild chat that he needs a DPSer. "sign me up, bro", I reply. He promptly does so. To my initial dismay, instead of firelands, I am transported to an older raid, Obsidian Sanctum. Having cleared the first six bosses with no hinderance, the raid had decided to go to OS for a mount run. The boss goes down in 46 seconds and drops the mount. Which I lose with an even more dreadfull roll of 9.

Maybe my luck will change...

Old Poison

I'm finally back after exam season. And back on the videogames again.
 only just recently moved into a new house and was able to set up my gaming rig. I decided to go back to some of the older games on my hard drive.

I went for CoD4 first. The playerbase, though diminished, is still going fairly strong. It's hardly suprising, given what a great game it is. Its sequels might have new features and more gimmicks (bayonets, throwing knives and crossbows), but none since have captured the same feeling and atmosphere as CoD4, forsaking it instead for even more over-the-top hollywood action vibes.

And then, I returned to an old favorite. World of Warcraft. my initial experience was poor; in my first dungeon, I was kicked from the group because the warlock decided to pull a group from behind while I was focussing on one already, causing us to wipe. I was then promptly ignored by my guild leader when I clumsily appologised for being away for so long. It looks like I'm going to have to start from scratch.

Jaded

Oh dear, oh dear. I haven't updated in far too long. Since my last update, Rift has already gone cold for me. All I can do while I play is think back to how much better World of Warcraft was. I've decided to take a break from MMOs; just recently, my friends tried to rope me into playing Runescape again, claiming that it had changed. I declined their invitation.

Meanwhile, I've been playing Empire: Total War, using the Darth Mod. Despite its theme, it has nothing to do with starwars, but It is an amazing mod for an already brilliant game which you can download from here: http://www.moddb.com/mods/darthmod-empire/downloads/darthmod-ultimate-commander-v62. It has a variety of campaigns, including a custom campaign with all factions unlocked. It also has dozens of great, new units for most of the factions, particularly Russia. If you have E:TW, i suggest you give it a go.

MMOving on

Recently, I got a new online game called Rift.
I was hoping for a nice break from World of Warcraft but just a couple of weeks in and already its starting to bore me. The quests are too grindy and although you can make a class pretty much yourself (in the rough template of Warrior, Cleric, Mage or Rogue), the fun doesn't seem to be coming for me. Everything they do has been done before and Rift doesn't excell particularly in any area for me. I might have been able to see it differently had I not played WoW before, but everything i seem to do in Rift makes me nostalgic for WoW and to make matters worse, the friends that I started playing it with have gotten bored and moved back to an old game we used to play, City of Heroes, which I no longer have a subscription for.

Extract From My Novel

Here is an extract from my novel. Its cheesier than a wine and cheese party without the wine (The working title is "Champion of Time". THE CHEESE!), but here goes. The group of adventurers have reached the Capital City of the Genian League (An Oligarchy run by a council of Elves, Humans and Dwarfs in a region called Genia). There have been a series of assassinations in the City (prompting a tightening of security) and Harken, the titular Champion of time, is trying to persuade the Captain of the guard to let them into the City. Harken's position as Champion of time is significant; he is immortal while he holds the title thanks to a trinket around his neck and he has emergency powers to take command of the army and even (with consent) the council.

'A guard armed with a crossbow appeared at a narrow window above the gate itself. “Hail,” he called “have your identity papers ready, the captain of the guard will meet you shortly.”

“Papers?” Teutorian and Joanne both looked to Harken.

Harken’s expression didn’t change “Let me handle this, the weight that I and Clarrisa carry in the City should be enough to get everyone inside.” He added quickly “I had not accounted for a raise in security; the gates are usually open so that people may travel freely.”

“A dozen republic officials have been murdered – assassinated – in the last month and many other important figures have gone missing.” Clarrisa explained “when I was last in the City, the guard was in uproar. No one knows for sure who is behind these killings, but the Council has put the blame on Gothan assassins, ‘sent to sow chaos in our midst’.”

The gate began to open. A grizzled, haggard man with a stubbly grey beard and an eye patch over his left eye followed by a troop of nine city guards strode through the gate and assembled in front of the group. The grizzled man – evidently the captain – leered at them through his good eye “Your papers please” he said coolly, extending a hand.

Harken handed over his papers and Clarrisa did the same. The captain scanned them and handed them back. “Welcome back to the City, Lady Clarrisa and Lord Harken.”

He turned to Joanne and Teutorian, who stood sheepishly next to each other.

“They have no papers, but they are with me.”

“M’lord” the guard captain protested “I must see their identification, I can make no exceptions.”

“You know who I am. Any friend of mine is a friend of the Republic. These people are not outlaws, nor are they spies.” Harken said calmly. “I venture to think they have saved my life on at least one occasion.”

“I don’t make the laws, M’lord” The Captain argued. “No papers, no entry, or the commander will have my hide.”

“You Craven fool!” Harken fumed, anger beginning to break through his calm façade. He took a step forward. The captain’s men all reached for their swords. The watchman in the window raised his crossbow.

A brief flash of battle lust flickered through Harken’s eyes. “Have your men stay their blades” he warned. “if I see an inch of steel, I will cut them down before their swords are drawn. You know who I am; an attack against me is an attack against the very Council itself.”

The captain leered through his good eye and nodded reluctantly “Very well, we will do things your way this time” he added coldly “M’lord.”

His guards parted and allowed the party through into the city.'

And there is the first extract. I hope it made sense; this is the first time i've done something like this.

A War Between Brothers

  Had a Clan War in Black Ops today. My Clan, Virtual Brothers Vs The enemy, No Named Brothers.

The setup was less than simple: First would be two maps of Capture the Flag, each map had two halves. The score limit for each half was three. Then there would be three maps of Search and Destroy, each with 12 rounds. NNB went first, opting for Array as their CTF map. VB got off to a flying start, winning each half three nil and ending the game quickly. Our clan leader, Sidesh0w, chose another Snowy map, Grid, for us. NNB were suddenly awake, capturing two flags in quick succession and making a mockery of our defence. We clawwed back two with Wardy, one of our flag runners, who landed both of them. Sadly, this was not enough and we lost the first half 2-3. Over the next half, we struggled on with grim determination. Dousy, one of the defence team, mowwed down all who came to try and grab our flag, while wardy brought another two home. As the game drew to its close, we were neck and neck. Sidesh0w sprinted with their flag to land it, but was caught by a grenade, which brought down both him and his escort. The Flag was taken by Wardy, who was gunned down inches from glory. In the kerfuffle that ensued, we managed to claim victory over that half, bringing the game into overtime. One more "half" where the first capture would win. NNB were relentless in their assault but so were we. Maverick managed to snatch their flag and ran through an office building, where he confronted and crucially defeated the enemy carrier and his escort single handedly. He ran triumphantly to victory overall in the capture the flag section.

The search and destroy section was just as hotly contested. The first map, cracked, proved a moderate challenge. VB won 8-4. However, the second map (Radiation), showed two equal teams. We drew 6-6 on both occassions, giving us an overall victory in the Clan War, however.

Sadly, i was unable to record the match, so instead I'm posting a video of the best and brightest in Virtual Brothers in action! sorry for the quality.

A Novel Idea

I haven't mentioned it in any of my previous posts, but I am currently in the process of writing a book. There's nothing quite like writing a full blown novel. If you enjoy reading, you'll know what I mean. There is an unrivalled ammount of satisfaction to be gained from dictating every aspect of the plot and every character. While my story has become somewhat formulaic, it still has an infinite possibility of plot directions (I do have a plan by the way, but plans were made to be broken, right?). Even if it never gets published, its something I can look back on in a few years time and say "I did that."

In other news, I've been invited by my gaming clan, Virtual Brothers, to take part in a Clan Friendly this week in Black Ops. This will be the first time I've played in a Clan War with these guys in a good two to three years and it should be a blast. Things seem to be working out for me in my gaming life for now, but things could indeed change.

Making a Mockery of Things

I haven't had much time to game recently. It's because I have been studying for my AS level Mock Examinations. I got through the ordeal on Monday and Tuesday and am now eagerly awaiting results. I'm not expecting the world, even though i put in quite a bit of work for these ones. All I can do for now is wait and see what results I get.

On Wednesday, I visited Cambridge university. I was relieved to learn that grades weren't the be all and end all of their admission system, and I still hold out some hope for a place there, although on the trip, which was run by my school, I had the lowest GCSE results.

Review: League of Legends

Since I play videogames a lot, and this blog is about videogaming, I think that its time that I turn my attention to reviewing games, so here goes: my review of Riot Games' free to play "League of Legends", the link in the title is to the game's official website.

League of Legends

First impressions of the game were good; I logged in and found that the game was not in fullscreen mode untill an actual match initiated, making it easy to do other things on your computer while you are waiting in the admittedly inconsistent matchmaking system. Once into a game lobby, you have a choice of 10 free heroes, who rotate each week with a different free hero lineup to keep things fresh. To have access to heroes permanently, you must purchase them. This is where the micro-transaction system comes in. Whats brilliant is that the heroes can be purchased for either real money, which is converted into "Riot Points", or the currency obtained by completing games, "Influence Points". All of the non-aesthetic features of the game, excluding a few item bundles, are purchasable with Influence points. Alternate character skins can be bought with Riot Points only. although the important stuff can be gotten with no actual money (It will take you a LOT of grinding though), Riot points, for what they buy, are a bit on the steep side; you can expect to spend £5 worth of Riot points aproximately to buy one of the more expensive heroes and just as much for one of the high end skins!

What is important though is the gameplay. While It is in some ways more simple than Heroes of Newerth; you can't deny creeps or towers for example, it is in other ways more complex. You can pick two summoner spells to bring with you into the game, which can go with any champion. There is also a rune system and a "Masteries" system, which is comparable to World of Warcraft's talent system, only masteries can be reselected at any time, which is just as well since you will have to repick them each time you want to use a different hero or even just a different summoner spell. The gameplay itself is quite similar to other Dota-esque games, but the feel is slightly different for the melee type characters in particular. This is because most of them seem to have very satisfying initiator abilities that mean that ranged enemy heroes arent as much of a threat as they were in games like HoN and don't have quite the same harrassing power in the early game. The heroes also seem a little more balanced in some ways, with only a few feeling overpowered to me.

The game looks great so far, free to play, an absolute Riot blast to play, so what's the catch?
Well, the servers are as often busy as they are available, and there is an awful lot of bile on the forums about excessive server maintainance. The game's chat system, which is used for chat outside games and forming premade teams, is often down or "experiencing technical issues", which seems to happen almost every other day, cripples my ability to play with friends too. I wouldn't for a moment accept this in a game that i had to pay for; Companies such as NCSoft and Blizzard seem to be able to control their maintainance and keep their extended maintainance periods to a minimum, keeping them well within periods that one would expect people to be sleeping (even me).

In conclusion, i can look past the poor levels of server availability the flakey chat system and the rip-off riot points to an extent, and see the great game that Riot has made. Get it and play it now, assuming the servers are available.

8.4/10

I LoL'd

A friend recently persuaded me to download the free-to-play Defence of the Ancients-a-like League of Legends. Was unable to play an actual game with him though because my internet was downloading the whole thing so slowly. At about 23:15, i got into my first game.
I choose Bitzcrank, a robotic champion. His abilities remind me of the Electrician somewhat and he has the "C'mere you!" grab ability of the Devourer (both heroes from Heroes of Newerth). Im in love with him instantly, as soon as the 3v3 starts.
The game itself though, goes poorly; one of my team quits straight away. Its left to me and another player, playing a character called Fiddlesticks, to face the other team's three. On my lane, I am outnumbered two to one by another Fiddlesticks and Ashe. A deadly duo capable of Stun/fear locking me to death. Surely enough, as soon as I over extend, I'm dog food. When I respawn however, things change. I instantly get a double kill on the bottom lane, giving me enough money to afford some good gear. I rack up five kills to no death, but they are bearing down on my tower as I am simply unable to push. When I do finally try, I am beaten to within an inch of my healthbar and I run through the jungle as fast as I can, using the speed boost from my overdrive to get away from Ashe, my persuer. Ashe is on half health, and catching up with me fast. I reach the middle lane and make for the tower. Ashe Persues, hungry for a kill. I execute a massive 'Dick move' and use the ranged grab ability to pull the greedy bugger into the tower. I am killed quickly, but so is my opponent, as he tries to flee from the punishing attacks of the defensive building. I am credited with the kill.

Shortly after this, my other ally leaves, leaving me three against one. Most of my towers have been destroyed and I can't cover all my bases. I decide to just sit in my base and make life as hard as possible for attackers. Soon its over though. I end my first game with a loss, but 21 kills to 5 deaths.

Sleepy Days and Sleepless Nights

I was so shattered when I got home from school yesterday that I hit the sack at about seven and woke up again at three. Unable to get back to sleep, I estimated that I had an hour to play WoW before server maintainance kicked in.

I loaded it up.
"Fuck..." I muttered as i saw the "breaking news" panel on the login screen. "Maintainance from 03:00 to 11:00 CET". It had been extended by two hours. I twiddled my thumbs for a few minutes before settling with Civilisation 5. Two hours into the game, everything felt the same. The world map didn't hold the wonder that Civ 4 did and the AI didn't do anything bastardly or interesting. Playing as Russia though, it did occur to me that my situation sort of mirrored reality (during the cold war at least). I had a tense relationship with Siam, who were suspicious of me for some reason I couldn't fathom (Civ 5 has AI that works in mysterious ways; once a faction whose borders were ten tiles away on a different continent confronted me, claiming that I was moving troops near his borders) and war seemed fairly likely. I did, however, have three city states, which effectively formed a wall between myself and Siam. Meanwhile, I shared borders with an Amicable China on the eastern side, whom I formed many research and border agreements with. None of this could save me from the grinding boredom, though.

I've been feeling really weird lately. Yesterday, I lashed out at my friend for no good reason. I wanted to break things. I don't have a good reason for feeling like that, I don't have any reason at all and I can't explain it. Today, I just feel resigned and low. More on this later i guess.

Guild Drama

Logged on WoW on Wednesday, ready for raiding, to find that all raids had been scrubbed off the calendar. One of the Mages is in an autocation with the guild leader and is shortly kicked from the guild. Another person leaves of their own accord.
"WTF is happening????" I type in guildchat.
"Dropveter (The guild leader) has stopped all raiding cuz no one is turning up 2 Rated BGs." Comes the reply from Calastor, one of the guild's top healers.
"So no raids ever?"
"nope"
So it came to be that my guild, which had been performig pretty well in the rankings on the server in terms of PvE, decided to forsake all the progress it had made in Raid clearance and persue a broken game mechanic.
"Fuck this" I type in disgust and quit the guild on the spot. I organise a faction change and go to join an Alliance guild that I had raided with in Lich King. I am met with a nasty shock.

Turns out that the alliance guild, DNS, had a rule about having a main character outside the guild. The officer i Spoke to, Gracegrace, claimed that I had been "Jerking the guild around for quite some time". These allegations frightened me a bit. DNS are a nice bunch and I didn't want to find myself unceremoniously ejected from their ranks. I try the arrogant approach: "What if i told you that my paladin had 154k HP unbuffed?" I also flash some achievement progess on the raids. Gracegrace isn't impressed. Realising the future of my raiding career is at stake, I promise to level up what the guild percieved to be my main, my Deathknight, to 85 and get it raidworthy.
"You better" GG replies. I thank him for the second chance and log my Deathknight, where I am contacted by another officer, a nice guy called Pete, who invites me for a little chat on ventrilo and tells me that the other officers are pretty pissed off with me, and that my place in the guild is only secured by the fact that i spent £20 transfering my paladin across to be with them, a gesture that they find amicable. I guess my guild drama is over for now, but only time will tell. They resolve to let my paladin in the guild, but that I cant raid with it as a main, despite having superior gear and experience to everyone else. I accept this because they have bent the rules enough to keep me in, and see this logic-defying limitation as a punishment for my infraction on the rules. The core raiders though, who I raided with during WotLK, are happy to see me.

Raid-ey Days

I sent a text to the raid leader on sunday telling him I was going to be slightly late. Instead of waiting for me, the bugger when right ahead and found a replacement. After an hour or so of raiding though, he came back, cap in hand, and I accepted the invite to go to Bastion of Twilight.

We get an easy setup for Halfus. I handle the two drakes released while Blackopal, the other tank, tackles Halfus himself. Halfus begins to stack a healing recieved debuff on Blackopal, so we switch tanking duties briefly untill it wears off. There is, however, no cause for concern as the drakes die quickly. Halfus soon follows with minimal effort.

On Valiona and Theralion, we initially have a couple of problems but these are soon sorted and the boss dies quickly. A tanking helmet drops. I roll 13. "gz" I type, in anticipation of a higher roll from Blackopal. Surely enough, he rolls a 54. One of the healers, Calastor, pipes up on ventrilo "hang on a moment, Black, aren't you rolling DPS gear now?"
"Oh yeah," Blackopal replies "didn't see it was tanking, sorry."
Another epic for me.

The trash on the way to the Twilight Council is cleared without much fuss, but Blackopal is forced to leave the raid due to a "Really bad family issue" that cropped up. We decide to head for Throne of the Four Winds with a random tank we picked up in trade chat. The first boss encounter is complete after two wipes (one of them partially my fault) and I lose a brilliant looking offspec belt to Infinitelife, one of the other healers.

Over Aggrovation

Got pulled into a Black Wing Descent 10 man raid today. Things started off great; Magmaw goes down after a brief hickup from the half-asleep ranged DPS and I win a nice tanking trinket, to replace the Lvl 78 rare that I have been lumping about since my first dungeon crawl. Omnitron doesn't go quite so well, however. One of the DPS in the group is a Paladin, who dishes out such massive burst damage at the start of the fight that the other tank is losing agro. The Paladin, who happens to be a good friend of mine in real life, rips into the tank for a short time, before donning his own tanking gear to prove a point.

From this moment, there are no agro problems, but another one arises. The infighting begins to build up in Raid chat and people are no longer giving their full attention to the Raid Leader's directions and to the fight. We wipe again as a consequence. The Paladin goes AFK for a bit and the disgruntled raid leaders decided to remove him from the raid and replace him with a hunter. The old tank takes his position back and we ready up. The Paladin sends me a whisper. "Back" he says. I tell the raid, unaware that we are full (another AFKer was kicked also). "I had permition to AFK" The Paladin whispers again. Uneasily, and knowing there is little I can do, I ready up and we pull. Thanks to a newly drafted in hunter, we are able to bring down the boss mostly mess free. We kill the trash between Omnitron and the next boss without issue, The name of this boss constantly escapes me (Arachamedes or something), but many in the raid fail on the wipe mechanic and we are unable to down him. Raid is called. I leave with a concerned mind.

I move on to Starcraft with Valcry, we play a Defence of the Ancients-a-like custom mode and I generally get my arse handed to me. The Paladin whispers me. Apparently its my fault that he is about to be kicked from the guild. Oh boy...

Hopefully I can clear things up tommorow. Things are slowly melting dooown.

Tech Rush

My Internet is reconnected, allowing me to make this update from the comfort of my own home.
There is no denying that my excessive videogaming habit has had a negative impact on my schoolwork. A flurry of C and D grade essays attest to this. Regardless, I keep on playing and playing. My parents are fairly angry with me; Not only was I out of the house for literally the entire weekend (leaving Friday afternoon, Returning Sunday Evening), but this evening, I am yet to complete the History work that my tutor (who teaches me for a few hours a week outside of school) has given me. Actually, I'm supposed to be doing that now. Oh well.

Anyhow, I've been playing Starcraft 2 with a few mates from school who go under the screen names of Marhalla and Valcry. We generally recieve a good thrashing (later to find out that our placement matches pitted us against players from much higher leagues than us), but our last match of the night was a victory. Here's a battle report.

We were against a Terran player and two Zerg players. Their early zergling rushes were large enough to cause concern, but they broke against our wall-in like water against a cliff. At face value, their attacks were in vain, but this gave them the chance to dominate the map. Although they gained a stranglehold on most of the available resources, we fought off most attacks against us as, with just one well co-ordinated strike out of the dozen they hurled at us smashing its way into my base area briefly. Despite this,  prospects of winning looked grim; the other team was able to out produce us with ease and although we were fighting a conservative battle, repairs and replacements bit into our limited resource pools. I began to amass a sizable airforce with my last mineral and Vespene reserves. I have two ravens, half a dozen banshees and the same number of vikings, topped off with seven battlecruisers, outfitted with the Yamato Cannon and moderate tech upgrades. Valcry has a large ground army of upgraded hellions, a smattering of marines and a solid core of siege tanks. Marhalla has a formidable looking blob of Marines and marauders, under the vigil of at least ten medivacs. He also has a few vikings, which he puts into assault walker mode.

Using the sight towers at the edge of our base area, we can see a large and varied army camped outside with the standard faire of zerglings and roaches, but the terran player among the enemy has eight or so thors towering over two-dozen marauders. A few banshees hover among them. There are two siege tanks just ahead of the army and a third behind, in siege mode, they are capable of decimating Marhalla's Infantry.  knowing full well that simply rushing all we had could be costly, Valcry formulated a plan.
"Francon" he said over his microphone "Hit the siege tanks with a Yamato blast and then pull back to us"
I comply and they duly explode into smithereens, stirring their owner into action. He charges his army at us. My unarmed ravens flee to the rear of the army. One is plucked out of the sky by a cluster of Javelin Missiles from a Thor. My banshees are obliterated but my vikings lose none of their number; our opponent is smart and targets only the units capable of harming his own. He types in chat "Attack you fucking idiots."
They lumber into the melee with zerg units a few moments later.
"Honestly," he types again "Two retards on my team".
My battle cruisers, largely and puzzlingly ignored at that stage of the battle begin to suffer damage from zerg hydralisks. With nothing left that they are able to attack, my vikings fly to the back of my army, just in time to combat a Broodlord flanking manuvre. Before the slow moving leviathans are able to close with Marhalla's dwindling infantry force, I see them off with missile fire. none of them escape my fast, long ranged vikings; they flap helplessly as I gun them down as their broodling attack cannot hit air units. Marhalla has precious few infantrymen left and Valcry's army is looking noticably smaller. I too have taken alarming casualties. Regardless, the time to push comesI send my squad of vikings over with Valcry and Marhalla's armies. My battlecruisers remain at my base for reinforcement and repair.

The complaints that they throw against this action are soon silenced by the advent of two nyddus worms errupting through the ground inside our compound. My battlecruisers quickly fry the zerg units that spew from its maw and then destroy the worms themselves, cutting off access to our base. My cruisers join the fight.

Meanwhile, My lone raven drops gun turrets to harrass enemy mineral collection. Soon I am awarded with the "auto-kill" achievement for my efforts. Elsewhere,  Valcry rushes his now redundant workers at an undefended enemy expansion, their drills slowly bring it down. His hellion army runs riot in the enemy base area and Marhalla is down to his last viking. It lands the killing shot on the final Zerg building and is promptly swarmed by the broodlings that burst from the heaps of dead biomass that streak the floor.
"Noooooo!" he cries into his mic. "My last unit!"
We win.

Cataclysmic Fail

Yesterday, I missed the first 25 man raid of my World of Warcraft guild because my damn internet connection is still down. To add insult to injury, one of the raiders, who is also a friend in real life (who goes under the screen name "Valcry"), told me that I would probably be cut out of the core raiding setup in the guild. I feel helpless and I am completely at the mercy of British Telecoms, who were unable to repair the problem sooner due to a seperate issue involving a gas pipe nearby.

Meanwhile, I have been playing Rome: Total War. I found a way, a long time ago, to unlock all the factions (Including Rebels, who are unplayable due to a doomed "economy"). To do this, go into the game directory and execute a search for a file called descr_strat . Open the file, which is a notepad document, and cut all the factions from unplayable and paste them in the playable section. The Rebels are difficult to play because they randomly spawn armies all over the map, which cripples economy, and the SPQR can be played, although the game will crash if you try to open the senate tab and so far, I have not seen a way to set missions for the other roman factions.

Life without an internet connection at my house is beggining to get really difficult to bear, not just for me, but for my father. While I'm getting cranky due to my inability to play online with my friends, my dad's website is suffering (I can only assume) because he can't get online to submit links or keep tabs on its performance. It just goes to show how important the internet is for modern life and how much we (well, my household at least) rely on it.

Severance

Ok, this is my first post, so I'll get started.
Been without an internet connection at home for the past week now so I am forced to do this during my study period today.
Without the internet, my ability to game has been severely curtailed; I am a social person (many of the games I play on the internet, I play them mainly because I have friends who play too) so 70% of my library of games has been neutralised for now. I settle for UFO:TTS (UFO: The Two Sides), a remake of the first game in the X-Com Series (arguably the best ever game ever made ever). It rocks, I'll just say that for now and come back to it later. If anyone at all happens to read this, you can download it here for free: http://ufotts.ninex.info/ , though some of the sprites are missing so you might want to get hold of the original game files and use the extractor that comes with it on them (or you will get big black or pink squares in the place of some of the sprites).

I have also been indulging in The Movies, which I don't think I have touched since around 2007. I really don't know why; it's an amazing game that gives you creative freedom (within reason, of course) to make just about any movie you want using a variety of scenes and a huge ammount of sets (again, within reason). The only downside is that the website that used to host just about every user made movie ever uploaded shut down a couple of years ago. Still, you can make your own movies for your own enjoyment, and there's always youtube :).

Hopefully next week, I will be able to say something a little more interesting, as I will hopefully have an internet connection back and be able to play my steam games (without the knowledge that any achievements that i qualify for count for nothing), World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2.