More ESO updates.

So Elder Scrolls Online has some new screenshots. And in someways my opinion has improved. They've shown me Argonian soldiers, which actually look pretty good in both keeping to the source material and adding to it.

It they toned down the Argonian colors, which in someways make sense in someways, but it might not be popular with all. I'm really curious in how the Khajit will be done. 

These are Khajit:

So are these:

They are both canon and according to UESP:

Khajiit are each subtly bound to the Lunar Lattice, a mysterious force entitled the ja'Kha'jay in their native tongue. The Lunar Lattice determines the form a Khajiit assumes in life, according to the phases of Masser and Secunda at the time of their birth; while Khajiiti newborns appear incredibly similar to one another at birth, their future form becomes clear in a matter of weeks. This is due in part to the fact that, although born smaller than the children of either man or mer, the Khajiiti mature at a significantly faster rate.

It is imperative to note that while the Khajiit derive their natural form from the moons of Nirn, their peculiar tie to such is in no way related to lycanthropy, for, unlike that disease, it is neither contagious nor temporal. A Khajiit will retain its form of birth throughout their life and the moons, although they affect in what form the Khajiit will be born, do not affect it after that. Furthermore, there are no known shapeshifting Khajiit.

So the ones in Arena being the Ohmes and the ones in Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind being Suthay-raht. So what's ESO going to do? Just go with Suthay-raht or actually have a couple different types? It seems like they are just going with one type. And I know I'm not the only one who knows this.

I hope they don't betray the Orc strongholds that they set up in Skyrim. It's not a subtle hidden thing either.

Their new demo video has got my interest peaked. One tiny thing bugged me in that at one point in the movie they show what looks like a Dunmer and the white hair made it look a little too drow-ish for my taste.

On to the graphics.
On the armor and the scenory:
You've done it again you magnificent bastards.








On the colors and some of the characters:
Meh. Sometimes it looks too much like Wow. And that isn't necessarily a good thing. They keep saying they're not another WoW clone but they need to prove it to us skeptics. It's pretty, but even after playing Oblivion which is the brightest of the later 3 games, it seems too bright. You don't need to focus on the people you've already won over. The Bethesda obsessees and the MMO freaks you'd really have to piss them off to get those guys away. Try getting the cheap asses and the people that aren't sure about going back to MMOs. I haven't been on one in a while. Don't do monthly payments, it's dying. Do something so that "everyone can play" like you said. Show me why I should play more PC online games, give me an excuse to use my docking station for my laptop for something other than homework. That is my challenge I give to you Bethesda. Do you accept this quest?

Political Time!

So I got Pokemon Black 2 and while that's fine and dandy, PETA made a "parody" of it. And I haven't even bothered to look at it since the "Mario shows its okay to kill animals" episode because he wears a Tanooki suit and how they blew that out of proportion. This person on Tumblr says it best: PETA- You're Doing it Wrong. And honestly, if you really think Pokemon is about animal cruelty, then play the damn games. And I don't think they get the irony of their bad guy being a Team Plasma boss rip off. It just annoys me to no end about how ignorant they are about the games they shame.

In other news, Colleen Lachowicz is under fire for playing World of Warcraft. I can't get over how stupid an argument this is, how trivial it is that she plays a game. Not out with hookers or rent boys or mistresses, just playing a game for fun. 

And some people are freaking out because she's a level 85 Orc Assassination Rogue. Which infers that she doesn't do work or anything besides play WoW. You know, with some people, you could maybe make that argument, but if you're campaigning for a senate seat, you can't be someone who just sits and plays WoW. So stop inferring that she's similar to a stereotypical nerdy teen on the weekend. Because she can't be, she just likes killing stuff that isn't real to have fun. 

This is it because if I delve any deeper politically, I might offend too many more people, and my blog's too small to support that right now.

Why I don't like 4th gen of Pokemon

So a little background info:
Pokemon Black & White 2 are coming out a day after my birthday. And thinking about maybe getting it made me decide to look back at my older games. And for those who don't know when I say Gen x of Pokemon, here's a quick guide:
Gen 1: Red, blue, and Yellow
Gen 2: Gold, Silver, and Crystal
Gen 3: Fire Red, Leaf Green, Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald.
Gen 4: Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum
Gen 4.5: Heart Gold and Soul Silver
Gen 5:  Black and White
And I don't know where Black & White 2 will go until I play it.
Anyways first I want to explain why I didn't put HG and SS with D,P &P. The main thing I have is that the two feel very different where as Ruby and Fire Red don't seem like they were made by two different people. I honestly don't know about Platinum, but feel free to correct me on if that should be more with 4.5

I had a few problems that were unique to these games.
Most ridiculous villain

They looked silly then, they look silly now. Some people say that they have one of the more legitimate "save the world plots" but it's hard to take them seriously when you're lolling at hair or outfits. That and they still have a storm trooper-like syndrome. In that they can't be threatening in any sense after fighting them.
Learning curve
It switches from really easy battling to hard bosses at a whim. And I know that bosses are supposed to be harder than the trainers in the gym or during the bad guy plot. But lvl 9, lvl 9, lvl 14, lvl 16, the last two being boss ones. That's not fair. 2-3 level jumps are expected, not 5 levels.
New Pokemon
We have:

The cat that has ugly in it's name to make it even more apparent how ugly and annoying this is.

And the affermative action Gardevoir. Because we really needed that, but yet Lopunny, the new one, only has one form for gender. 

First time playing Diamond, I had a boy one.

Honestly a lot of the Pokemon this Gen were relatively forgettable. There were very few that I was excited about 2nd time playing around and showing me the occasional gen 1-3 Pokemon taunted me with the better Pokemon. The first catch-able non-gen 4 Pokemon? Psyduck. Which is redundant since I have Piplup.

All in all, it's not bad, it's not like they betrayed their old ways, but it's just not my favorite game to date.

How to Kill a Troll - Incisive.nu

How to Kill a Troll - Incisive.nu:

I was going to have a whole post how trolling has gone from jokes to being straight out assholes. And this covers it better than I could have. I don't have a problem with joking around with people. But when a gamer thread turns into who can be more racist for the lols, I stop finding it funny. And I'll end with this to sum up the ending.

'via Blog this'

Looking at Why Subscription games are failing

So Wow is free up to level 20, the Free to Play section in Steam is now a few pages and growing, and now there's talk about once the Elder Scrolls Online starts it might eventually go to Free to Play.
So why is it that almost every subscription game is going to some form of a freemium. Well, it's a survival method, because obviously the old way isn't working.
And subscriptions aren't new, whether to news, music, cable, and obviously games. I remember when I was a kid Disney had some Club type thing that was a monthly subscription, and I was annoyed when we stopped getting it. But why now of all times is the subscription payment fading out?
My theories are:
The Economy- As everyone knows, the economy is a hot mess. And when the economy is a hot mess, everyone has to trim fat. And you do that in things like less cable channels, maybe staying with the same car instead of getting a new one, and cancelling your monthly gaming subscription.

And that makes Blizzard a Sad Panda.

Demographic Shift- So a lot of the original WoW players have grown up, gotten jobs, gone to college, etc, etc. And whether they needed to make ends meet with a Ramen and free WiFi budget, or if they just simply don't have the time for gaming. You don't have much time for gaming if you work 8 hours a day and still have to do other adult activities. And for most adults that have those few days on the weekends to play, $15 dollars a month doesn't seem worth it for a few hours, when you can get a brand new game for $60 and play multiplayer endlessly. That brings me to my next point. What we're playing on has changed in a few years. 

As a whole, people have been playing less "serious" video games on computer, and more on one of these systems. 

And since this picture, the smartphones have also taking a good chunk of would be subscription gamers. This being said, why pay $15 a month for one game when for $25 for 3 months for whatever games you have. Does the cost of games cancel out any money saving argument, yes. But it doesn't change the demographic that I am more likely to find my friends and friends of their friends on console games versus a subscription game like WoW. 

Bang for Your Buck- A lot of games, as everyone knows, I get for cheep or free. And I'm okay with games Like League of Legends telling me to use real world money to buy stuff. I'm not paying them and in turn I get a basic package.Where as WoW's free to play is only up to a certain level and then when you pay monthly it's still a pretty basic package. If you want Worgens or Goblins, you have to buy the prerequisites before buying Cataclysm. And to me, that annoys me. If I'm paying them money for the privilege of playing their game, I should get whatever they make, not just what the standard package comes with. Maybe I'm just spoiled but I feel like it's the same argument for on Disc DLC. I payed for the damn game, I should get everything of the game. It's not the same as flat rate or Freemium games. If there is a one time payment or none, I don't have problems with that. But if I'm paying you monthly to be entertained, and I shouldn't have to pay for more races or higher levels at that point, especially if it has to go into to download so I can see what I'm missing out on anyways. 

I know that I'm mainly basing my knowledge on WoW and that that's not the only subscription game out there, but they were one of the first and that's what a lot of models of others are like. That and examining every subscription game would make this ridiculously longer. 

A Plea to parents

ERSB ratings are there for a reason. They even have online guides for if you want more than just the letters. Here it is. That being said, please stop buying your kids games that are not appropriate for them. I'm tired of little kids on online games that aren't meant for children. And I'm tired of spoiled brats bringing bad names to well made games, because the games have mature themes.

"But Samus, I thought you were against censorship." Some of you would say. Well yes, you are right, I am against censorship. But I'm not talking about getting rid of Rated M games. You'd have to pry Skyrim from my cold dead hands before that happens, and TF2, No More Heroes, Brutal Legend, etc. What I'm talking about is not having a six year old playing Skyrim or GTA4 and thinking that it's just about shooting and stealing. And both aren't about that.

And for those that want to seem like the cool parent for getting your kid every game they want, guess what. Parent's shouldn't be worried if they are considered cool, they should be looking out their kids best interest. And I doubt the best interest of a 10 year old is getting them a game with alcohol, sex and violence in it.
So, yeah. Parents please stop getting your kids rated M games when their not even close to the right age.

Animal Crossing 3DS trailer thoughts

So this video came up a few days ago, and I just got to looking at it, and here is a video with an English translation since I know no Japanese and most of my readers know little if at all. 

So in this Animal Crossing, you'll be mayor, unlike the rest of the series where you're just a citizen. And that means you take responsibility for upgrading the whole town. And I found the solar panels shown at 1:03 very interesting.
There will be new and old villagers alike, and have more personality than just the six (cranky, jock, lazy, peppy, normal, and snooty).
And instead of going to the city or just having Nook's shop and the Able sisters, you'll have the shops from the city just outside of town.
So I don't know how to feel about it yet, I need to see more of it to really rage/geek out.

Why Big Barda is Amazing

Since I haven't talked about DC in a while, mainly because I haven't gone to my local comic book store in a while, I'll continue with a character named Big Barda. She's not that big of a character, and mainly in cameo roles most times, her picture comes up in Sandman once, when Scott (or as most know him, Mister Miracle) wakes up.
The first question is why would I pick her?

Normally she doesn't have the axe, but by the end of this I hope you'll understand that she doesn't need the axe to kick ass. First off, she was part of the Justice League, Birds of Prey, and was an elite warrior from her home planet, for further reference, watch this video in which she kills her former subordinates.
Here it is.
It wouldn't let me put it here so there's the link.
It should be noted as well that Wonder Woman is awesome in this, and in other things as well. But Wonder Woman gets plenty of attention, so I'm giving Barda a second in the spotlight. Of course its not a great spot light, but better than nothing. Anyways, one of the reasons I admire Barda is that she has actual armor. The first time I saw her its what won me over. It was in this episode of Justice League Unlimited that she was brought to my attention. Of course she does have some fantasy moments.

Keep in mind she could still end you.

She's also married, to Mr. Miracle (Scott Free). Which points me to my next point, they were a gender reversal in who's stronger and protective. She is the powerhouse in the relationship, and although poked fun at sometimes, she still has moments of just wanting to be a normal person. In the 80s comic, she wants the neighbors to not think of her as a freak at times. And the relationship isn't some attempted love triangle, or one that people aren't sure if it really works, they love and respect each other. Every time Mr. Miracle shows up, Barda at least has some face time, and they'll joke with each other. And this is one of the two comics of Mr. Miracle I owned.

I enjoyed the partially humorous nature of their relationship. Its in someways ridiculous that she is the "man" in the relationship, but it really works for them, so what does it matter?

Like most comic book characters, she's evolved over the years and all for the better. She's still stayed strong, but stays pretty much true to herself.  

Elder Scrolls online is making me depressed

So the more I've seen it, the less I like it. First off, the picture on the official site that greets you as soon as you go to it.

The Nord looks alright, and the imperial thief-type class is ok, from what I see, but wait, what in the holy hell?
The female elf mage, what the hell?

Is that a bosmer? It has to be, altmers are golden and dunmers are grey. But she's too damn pretty, and cleavage armor, really Bethesda?

You went from this:

To this pretty girl. I can't handle it. It annoys me to no end.I'm scared of what they'll do to both the Altmer and bosmers. And oh god what they might do to the beast races.

Oh god why did you do that to the Khajit? I kid, I kid this pic is from this forum

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. 

The pacts I under stand, but I have a bit of the problem with a couple of facets. The Ebonheart pact makes the most sense from the grouping race wise. These are the three races that although they don't like each other, they don't tend to like anyone else either. And the Ebonheart in this is different then the one in Morrowind. The one in Morrowind is on Vvardenfell, this one is on the main land. So I bet you Vvardenfell will be an expansion pack/DLC/whatever, if they're honest to their own lore. Oh and I get my Elder Scroll lore from uesp.net so if you want to see where I get my Lore facts from, it's from there. 

 The DaggerFall one is what gets makes no sense for one reason only: The orcs. The Bretons and Redguards aren't busy fighting each other yet, so those two make sense. But the orcs, well, have a history of being attacked by both neighboring races, so I find it odd that their teaming up with the two races that have a history with them, unless its a way they're people pleasing to include it. Or to make the teams even.

And the third: the Aldmeri Dominion, the Bosmer, Altmer, and Khajit. The khajit are just kind of there, for being there and needing to fit in an aligince and everyone has already teamed up. Like the kid who came in late to class and he makes an odd number so he's teamed up with the best buddies that ignore him.

And the graphics are pretty and all, but it still feels like it's going to be a yet another WoW wannabe. 

My problems with Science Fiction and Fantasy books

I love science fiction and fantasy, don't think that I have a problem with them, I love immersing myself in Tamriel and Middle Earth, the ideas of weapons and beings beyond our imaginations makes me giddy. The problems I have aren't with the genre itself, it's mainly with the writers and the readers. Allow me to explain.
1. Taking themselves to seriously 
So I couldn't get into science fiction or fantasy in middle school, because they tend to recommend incredibly serious, heavy stuff. It was quite a switch from Wishbone and Animorphs.

Tell me a time where being a starfish would help you save the world.

In fact, if it wasn't for Douglas Adams, I might have never gotten into the sci fi/fantasy realm past supernatural love triangles.(Another time maybe). And I'm not saying that all science fiction needs to be as delightfully random as Douglas Adams, I'm saying that there needs to be more authors like Adams and Robert Asprin. There needs to be more options for those who want a light-hearted, but not kiddy, science fiction/fantasy to read. 

2. Where are the women writers?

I know, you can't blame the famous male authors for doing well. And I'm not, I love Tolkien, Asprin, Adams, Moore (even if some don't say his stuff is Sci fi, but I think if you read Fluke you'd call it Sci fi) Millar, and I'm starting to read some Alan Dean Foster. And I know there are women writers in both of these genres, but a good amount are young adult novels and the others I haven't heard of. And I'd be willing to try some of the young adult novels if it wasn't for the force of the love triangle. I was told about The Hunger Games a while a go, but I couldn't bring myself to read it. Not that it didn't have an interesting idea, but the back of the book made the love triangle front and center instead of a side note.

Screw political commentary, Peeta and Katniss forever. 

3. Re-used tropes 

Games have slowly been getting better at this but Douglas Adams and Christopher Moore are offenders of this. The Damsel in distress and/or sexpot. And my favorite in fighting, they either tend to be hyper-masculinized or hyper feminized. And I'm not even getting started on fantasy armor. That started out in books and it hasn't ended yet.

Look all in all, I love the sci-fi/ fantasy genre. Just the books are sometimes not very female friendly. 

Elder Scrolls Online

So I'm not sure what to think of it. At first I was like this:

but with online, but the more I think the more skeptical I am. On one hand, going through dungeons with friends and being able to possibly do a market thing and sell my wares to other than just shop keeps I like the idea of.
 But the open world feel and the sociological density can't be like that on Morrowind through Skyrim. It says on the wiki they have up that you can look up here that right now they only have plans on the three provinces. I can understand that in the quality over quantity idea. And the plot seems pretty cool, but some of the race characteristics they've built well, will probably go away.
For example, Altmers are jerks. In every game since Morrowind, they will act superior over you. But since you have people playing as all races,the snobbishness is going to rub away.
It also sounds like they're bringing back classes, which unless they're doing XP based I'm not too excited about, but that's for another post.
I'm also guessing it'll be a monthly payment kind of thing, so I won't be able to play it. But I'll comment as more is revealed.

Participation not needed.

So I saw the whole movie marathon except for Iron Man And Some of The Incredible Hulk. See last post about class if you're wondering why. So I want to start off  with the fact that most people in the theater saw all the movies. And even if they didn't Captain America was right before The Avengers. But then I hear this:
"Why is Captain America still young?"
Both my boyfriend and I were dumbfounded. We just saw the movie and it was explained. But anyways, the movie was good. My problem after this great episode was with the rest of the audience. The action scenes are good, and the lines were well written, but I don't see the need to applaud after every funny line or during good action scenes.
It kind of seemed like this:

"Just keep clapping, it proves we like this," The scenes were good but I don't think that you need clap every time the hulk or your favorite character is on screen. It just got tiresome. But other than that I enjoyed the movies.

In Preperation for The Avengers

So I'm going to a movie marathon that leads up to The Avengers. But I'm only going to see half of the movies.   Damn class that will dock me half a grade for missing.

Anyways, I'm still super excited to go to Thor and Captain America before the midnight showing.So last night I was shown this awesome video from when Lou Ferrigno was the Hulk.

 

Oh mullet Hulk and shoulder pad Thor. If this doesn't get you pumped for The Avengers than maybe this person who designed fashion inspired by The Avengers.

If you like this, you might want to check out Kaciart on her Tumblr. The only one I don't like is the Hulk one, it feels too simple. But I love the other ones so much. Especially Thor and Captain America.  And also eye makeup. You can't say that it's at least impressive. If I had the talent, time, and not cheapo makeup I might have tried something like that. Or pay to have it done if I had the money. So now I wait until I can go to the marathon. 

Update on my rage and awesome mystery professor

Okay, so after my rage at Bloodmoon, I learned none of my characters were harmed in the hullabaloo of all the uninstalling and re-installing. And to celebrate, here's Samwise from Lord of the Rings to show my enthusiasm that I had inside at 1am when I realized this news.

But I decided to start over because I wanted a better balance of spells and straight up hack and slash.

Oh and someone in the faculty in my college plays Skyrim. How do I know? They have a map of Skyrim on the door. Which makes waiting for your instructor a little better. And it's not on my instructor's door but I still did this:http://myfacewhen.com/183/
and the guy sitting next to me did this: http://myfacewhen.com/110/

Elder Scrolls insanity

So I have had a taste of Elder Scrolls and I want more. But the DOS games aren't worth the hours to spend learning how to just start them up, and I don't have the money to buy Oblivion or Skyrim. The solution, finding Morrowind in a used game store that I have credit in. And for three bucks in credit I got tribunal. Bloodmoon was more than I had so I let it go for another time. So I installed and Tribunal without a hitch. And I  got a witch hunter and a Knight. Then I got the credit to get Bloodmoon. And I did, I went home, the disc was in good shape so I put it in and expected Tribunal-like easiness.
        I was wrong. It installed easily, but when I pushed play it gave me an error message. So I looked up the error message. I was not alone in this error message. Some people said install everything manually. I tried that, no result. Some people said re-install Bloodmoon. No result. Some think the order you install is important, it was in the right order. I've uninstalled and re-installed. I've had it. There maybe a magic cure for it, but I'm not going to spend that much time. I'm pissed that I have to start over anyways.
Other than that I've enjoyed it so far.

And this does happen in game, and sold the scrolls because I would have been the wizard.

Family And F2P

So I have never seen the original Star Trek TV series, I have seen a lot of Next Gen, but not the original. And since I'm going to try the now free to play on steam Star Trek Online, I thought I'd watch the old shows on Startrek.com just to cover my bases.

I've done some of this with every MMORPG I've been playing that has an existing base. I'm reading DC comics as I've been playing DC Universe Online, and I'm reading the Lord of the Rings series slowly but surely as I play LOTR online. That and I feel that its part of my family's culture.

My mom used to know elven, my aunt collects Star Trek Christmas ornaments, my cousin used to collect Star Wars memorabilia, and my dad was an AV geek before it was cool. Oh and my other cousin, Erich is part of this awesome site. And those are the few things my family can talk about easily. So I come from a geek family.

And in other news, get the joke? I did and if you scroll down it will explain it and I think its brilliant.

Geek because its Chic

I've got to get this off my chest because it drives me absolutely insane. The girls who say they're geeky and know nothing about said subject past the movie they saw a week ago.
Here's a story to better illustrate my point.
Last year I was washing my hands in a school bathroom when another girl comes up wearing a Spock shirt from the new Star Trek movie.  She starts washing her hands as well and I was surprised that she of all people wore a Spock shirt. She was more in the clique of being green by flaunting your relatively high economic status. But if she liked Star Trek, who was I to judge? Anyways, as we washed our hands, a girl came from the hallway. She spotted Spock girl and they squealed then hugged. Then this "Oh my gosh! I love Star Wars!" "Me  too!" they were talking about her Spock shirt. So I did the only thing any reasonable person would dohttp://d37nnnqwv9amwr.cloudfront.net/photos/images/original/000/175/315/PicardDoubleFacepalm-1.jpg?1316330080
So that's what I mean, the people that wear the glasses they got at Hot Topic and saw a gateway nerd movie (recent Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of The Rings, Batman etc.) and thinking they now deserve the label of nerd.

There's a reason that a lot of nerds don't like these "nerds". Its a little offensive that something you were originally ostracized for is now celebrated by the people who ostracized you. But here's the stinger, you're still an outcast. Just because its cool to be geeky doesn't make geeks cool.
So that's why I love idiot nerd girl. In someways we all start off as idiot nerd girl. The difference is that most nerds look back and laugh at their n00bish ways of old. This new culture does not.

And I have nothing against the movie adaptations of Marvel comic books, Batman, Lord of the Rings, and the Star Trek reboot. But its also fine to like the movie without having to claim nerddom. In this day and age you can like it with the only criticism being of whether the other person liked it or not.