Announcement Roundup

By Shamus Posted Thursday Dec 16, 2010

Filed under: Notices 60 comments

Rather than answer a dozen emails, let me do a kind of announcement roundup thing. And now that I think of it, I should make that the title to this post.

1) Our very own Mumbles has begun a blog, which she has thoughtfully placed on the internet where people can read it. People such as yourself. This means that 75% of the Spoiler Warning crew is now enbloggened. Mumbles does it. Rutskarn does it. I does it. But I have it on good authority that Josh will not be joining our proud cult of rambling blog-makers. But if he does start one, I strongly encourage him to name it “STOP SHOOTING ME DOT COM”. Just saying.

2) Gratitude and thanks to the benefactor who provided a graphics card for me. It’s a Radeon HD 5670. And for those of you who like the acronym stuff: 1GB 128-bit DDR5 PCIE 2.0 x16 HDCP with Crossfire who am I kidding nobody reads this crap. I was going to take some pictures of it, but I had work that needed to get done, and so I put it to work straight away. However, the card is red, which is what counts.

3) Stolen Pixels is on hiatus. This might be a long-ish one. I’ll come back to it when I can.

4) Work stopped on Project Hex while I worked on Drawn to Knowledge. We’ll hopefully get back to that after the holidays. For the last three years I’ve worked huge overtime over the holidays, and so I mean to make the most of this one.

5) Not so much an announcement as a question: I have discovered the fun of playing Horde side in WoW. I had the idea of leveling an Orc in the Blood Elf area, because that would be funny. But I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to get there. I thought I’d go take a zeppelin, but none seem to go to Silvermoon. I thought to run there, but the Western Plaguelands are basically impassible at level 1. I’m sure you can get there, but it would be hours of corpse-running. Now that I think of it, I hardly ever see any non-elves in Eversong Woods. I’m guessing that you just can’t get there until you’ve got the levels to make the run? Or am I missing some alternate route?

 


 

Spoiler Warning S4E11: And this is
my favorite [noun] on the Citadel

By Josh Posted Wednesday Dec 15, 2010

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 195 comments

It seems that we’ve finally gotten bored with all of the mindless shooting and awesome explosions, so with this episode we’re bringing you very special presentation:

Spoiler Warning: NOBODY DIES


Link (YouTube)

 


 

World of Warcraft: Nitpicks Revisited

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Dec 15, 2010

Filed under: Game Reviews 153 comments

Two and a half years ago I wrote up a list of grievances against World of Warcraft. Now the world has been re-worked for the Cataclysm, so I thought I’d revisit that list and see how things have changed.

1. Low drop rates for quest items

wow_nitpicks9.jpg

Drop rates are now usually at 80% or better. Of course, this is possible mostly due to the fact that they’ve sped up the leveling curve. Blizzard doesn’t need you to kill 200 Murlocs to get from level 10 to 11, so when a quest giver asks you to bring him 20 Murloc heads, you don’t need to worry that 90% of the Murlocs in the world will be inexplicably headless when you loot them.

Conclusion: Fixed. And thank you.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “World of Warcraft: Nitpicks Revisited”

 


 

Spoiler Warning S4E10: Garrus Bueller’s Day Off

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Dec 14, 2010

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 130 comments


Link (YouTube)

At the top of the episode, we actually tried the assault on the doors like three times, and kept getting killed. We want to keep the show moving, and so Josh tried to avoid playing the game as intended: Crouch behind cover and play peek-a-boo / whack-a-mook for two and a half minutes. That’s really boring to watch, so Josh is a bit more aggressive than is advisable.

And then we stopped to begin the episode, and Mordin cleared the room alone. Sure, it seems odd that the ship’s doctor should be able to rambo his way through waves of enemies. But a more pressing question is: Where the crap was Jacob? I’m not sure why he decided to go on break right at this moment and leave all the work to Mordin, but I’m sure he’ll have lots of time to reflect on his mistake now that he’s never leaving the ship again ever.

EDIT: Oh right, he was with Garrus. Ah well. He’s staying on the ship anyway.

 


 

Drawn to Knowledge: Net Neutrality

By Shamus Posted Monday Dec 13, 2010

Filed under: Movies 154 comments

Here is my latest in the Drawn to Knowledge series. I have also created a YouTube channel, just for this show.


Link (YouTube)

Share and enjoy. Next time I’ll cover something a little less divisive.

Going into more detail…

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Drawn to Knowledge: Net Neutrality”

 


 

Deck the Dalek

By Shamus Posted Sunday Dec 12, 2010

Filed under: Pictures 76 comments

Painted by my wife: A small (8×5 inches) holiday Dalek. (Watercolor.)

dalek christmas
CEL-E-BRATE! CEL-E-BRATE! CEL-E-BRATE!

My wife and kids are all huge Dr. Who fans, and fans of the new series in particular. (Tennant is the favorite Doctor among them. Personally, I was always partial to Tom Baker.) I don’t watch it. The Doctor is a master of time who can live for centuries. I am not, and so I can ill-afford to get engrossed in long-running sci-fi series.

I think it’s audacious how they have taken the classic 80’s villains and brought them into their modern productions with much of their camp still intact.

CEL-E-BRATE!

 


 

Experienced Points:
That Game I Should Have Liked

By Shamus Posted Friday Dec 10, 2010

Filed under: Column 106 comments

In which I express regret over a game I just couldn’t love.

Guess which one.