The League of Shadow

This is a totally knock off of World of Warcraft!  How many times have you heard that?

Everquest was knockoff (3D version) of Ultima Online. Anything after EQ before World of Warcraft was an EQ knockoff. Even World of Warcraft was considered an EQ knock off. Now anything after World of Warcraft is considered a knock off, including new games like Age of Conan and Warhammer Online.

If someone makes a online RPG or MMOG (Mass Multiplayer Online Game) it’s going to follow a similar format for now. So let’s get away from the term knock off. Although Mythic did make Ultima Online, so really they are knocking off themselves? Whatever…

Here are my first impressions after about 3 hours of the game.

First the servers were not ready for general public until 9/18 and I was able to pick up a non pre-order on 9/17. This is no big deal, unless you have been waiting for this game and took a day off of work to play and were kept out of the game until the following day. I did not, so I could care less, but if you did I understand why that sucks.

The EA manager for master account creation does kind of suck. It’s not hard, but how can you possibly make that even a little confusing, it’s been done 100 times before? The graphics suck. Ok let me back up a little. I have been playing Age of Conan that likes to ass rape my computer (2.6 Dual Core, 3gigs of RAM, 8800gt video card) on medium settings, but is by far the prettiest MMO out there IMO. This game looks like a slight upgrade from WoW. Seeing as World of Warcraft launched in 2004, that’s not very good.

What is good is the performance. This game runs beautifully. AoC runs like crap sticks. The lesson here is Warhammer wanted performance over beauty. It also looks like the graphics suffer from lack of shader technology and texture mappings. Both of these can be upgraded fairly easy at a later date. I am also quite sure that later uber-equipment will be much prettier.

If you liked the more watered down version of MMOs that World of Warcraft introduced, with easy location of quest givers and where the quest is supposed to take place, then you will love this. I like it too. When I had time to take shifts between coffee and Miller Light all night and chase some fuckin ghost across North Karana, I would have said I liked the challenge. My time is precious so I want to get on with questing for my pretty blouse.

The battle mechanics are smooth and easy to figure out. From level one you can get in a queue for PVP, I mean GVG, wait RVR…fuck it… capture the flag and kill other players. I enjoy this part of it. Your character gets boosted to a level (minus the skills) that allows you to slightly compete with higher players on the battle field. I saw zero lag during my night of play, in city, or in a full battle zone.

There is a monster wait time in queue to log in already. Add more servers jerks. I wont be cancelling my Age of Conan account (I am still hoping for certain things to get ironed out, as I think that game has monster potential) but I will dive into Warhammer for a bit because it is very very fun so far. I am not going to give this a rating after one day. I may revisit and let you know later. If not oh well, I will drop a picture of Keely Hazell out there for you!

(all images are from IGN.COM )

Directv is the only way to get all the NFL games at your home on a Sunday. Being a rabid Chiefs fan over here on the east coast, I don’t get to watch their games without Sunday Ticket from Directv.

When I first started buying Sunday Ticket is was around 170 bucks for the season. They break it up over a few bills to lessen the blow (to sneak the cost past your wife). I used to pay it up front. I little pricey for what amounts to TV programming, but well worth it to not have to go to a sports bar an hour a head of time to scout out a table. Then you will end up spending 30 to 50 bucks on crappy food and draft beer. Stay at home, sit in a nice cozy chair or couch, and the only assholes in the room are the ones you invited. Love it.

So I moved to an area for 3 years that had more trees than the forest moon of fucking Endor. For real; I had a bowl out back to feed the Ewoks. So anyhow, no Directv for me. While  I first got Directv for the football, I did really enjoy the service. Customer service was always pretty fast and I could make programming adjustments online that would appear in minutes.

I was sad to have to go to Comcast cable. Shit, pure shit. The on-demand stuff is nice, but other than that, I would take Fios, Dish, or Directv over Comcast any day of the week.

So 3 years later in my new home I once again have Directv. I get my install done with no problems. The one downside of Directv is the install. The contractors that come out are either great or morons and will drill holes all over the place. So I get a Basic package with HBO and pay the extra money for HD programming (which is very nice on Directv). Hells yeah lets go order up some Sunday ticket!

Fuck. 289 bucks?!

That’s a lot of coin friend. I can justify anything though, so 17 bucks a week for 17 weeks…ok fine, and this time they can split it up and bill me (wife still thinks it was 170).

So NOW I can watch all the games from my couch on the 55 inch Hitachi!

Wait. This looks like shit…where is the HD broadcast of this game? Enter Directv Superfan. (or Super Fuck-You-Fans I call it)

For an extra 99 bucks I can watch the games (I already paid 289 to see) in HD (which I already pay a monthly premium to get). Yeah yeah, stat tracker and 8 game mix is nice yatta yatta. Don’t bundle the HD with that. It’s bullshit.

This pisses me off to no end.

 Dear Directv, I am dead center in the middle class of America. I have a mortgage and I have kids. I pay 120 bucks a month and $1440.00 a year to you for TV service and I enjoy the product.  You want 300 more bucks on top of the 1440? Well, ok I do like football. So now I am giving you 1740 a year. If I cut out Directv for one year I could buy all new furniture for my living room. What good is a couch if you don’t have TV and football right? Ok fine 1740 a year it is. Now that I have all this money forked out, I HAVE to pay 99 bucks to watch my programming in HD. Most people pick Directv initially for the Sunday Ticket. So you are forcing at the lowest price to watch a game on Sunday in HD (since you don’t have most of the locals in HD yet) A base programming price, a HD premium, a 300 charge for football, and then slap us in the nuts with another 100 charge.  You know what I am going to do? Fuck this, cut off the Directv, I am calling Dish. I would like to invite you to have sex with yourself. Sincerely,Bobby McIbangedyourmom  

Ok so I won’t be turning off the Directv and I will pay all that shit. I am the asshole fan that is making all the people in NY and Texas pay those ridiculous 20,000 fees for the “right” to purchase tickets in the new stadium, after season tickets are now second generation in their family. That’s a whole other rant…

So I will just take it in the ass and piss and moan about it, for now.

Halleluiah Holy Shit! Where’s the Tylenol?

This sucks, but it wasn’t a dirty hit, go fuck yourself. I love you.

(It only cost me 5 grand to see this live…from my couch)