Holy fuck! I can't remember the last time I've had such a god-awful weekend. Amazingly enough, I got the article done on time and it turned out pretty good. I never had to do anything like that before, so I wasn't entirely sure whether or not I could do it, but what do you know - sometimes stuff just works out for ya. Of course now I have another 24 hours to re-review nearly half a dozen games to update some older articles of mine, but after what I've just been through, I'm almost looking forward to something so easy. I probably would have freaked out over this kind of task just a week ago. It's almost like I'm enjoying the pressure. I'm like that little guy who got crushed to death when he had sex with a fat chick. Except, I'm still alive and I'm receiving rather handsome amounts of money for this kind of abuse. Bring it on!
You might be wondering why there haven't been any reptile videos as of late, particularly those involving our newest addition to the club, our savannah monitor. Turns out batteries are one of the first commodities you'll stop buying once you run so low on cash, you're no longer sure you can afford the next rent. That's all a thing of the past now, what with the huge amounts of work and everything, but we had hit a bit of a rough patch and... well, you get the idea.
So here's what you have missed: The monitor bites. A lot. He's still pretty small, but his serrated teeth are starting to poke holes through what used to be a set of awesome kevlar gloves and he hisses and tail-whips a whole lot. The good thing about his brand new confidence is that he no longer shits himself when we pick him up.
It's not as bad as it may sound, though. Once he's been picked up, he holds relatively still now, he's not trying to run away as much and it shouldn't take much longer until he'll last through an episode of Coronation Street or something. If I have to suffer through that shit, then so does he! He's probably the most interesting and fascinating pet I've ever had. Don't get me wrong, I like our cats and lizards and the snake and all that, but that monitor is in a league of his own. Not only will he be bigger and a lot stronger than the cats, but he's also rather intelligent. He has learned how the sliding glass doors on his tank work and is trying to push them open. We have to wedge them shut now. Part of me feels a bit retarded right now. There's this huge animal in the room, which hates me and is trying to kill me and it knows how to operate doors and I'm talking about how cool it all is. Ha! Right, I'm exaggerating, of course, but... you know.
As you can imagine, I don't get much time for any "fun" (aka non work-related) gaming, but my enthusiasm towards Black Ops 2 has somewhat waned, now that I have seen certain things. I know this kind of shit is happening in just about every single game out there and there's absolutely nothing new about it, but actually seeing this crap and just how incredibly lame and cheap it is makes me lose all hope and motivation. But hey, human nature, right? Whenever there's a competition, when people fight to win, there will be cheaters and exploites, be it sports, videogames, what the hell ever. Offline gaming just got a little more attractive again.
Also, Diablo 3. Inferno difficulty. Monster Power 10, aka as hard as it possibly gets. I'm doing it. I'm totally doing that. Right now. With a mere 24 paragon levels my DPS isn't anywhere near high enough to do any efficient farming on there, but I can kill the elites, survive huge packs of trash and I can do an entire playthrough without suffering too much. And with another 76 paragon levels to go (in other words, 228 strength or 228% extra damage), roflstomping my way through the deadliest legions of hell is only one massive XP grind away. What else can I say, now that I've played the game up to that point?
First of all, the whole "play any class and any build you want" thing still works, at least up to the lower monster power settings on inferno. It does NOT work that way on the absolutely highest settings, which is FINE. That stuff is meant to be as hard and as challenging as it gets, so if you could just waltz through there with every possible spec and setup, it would pretty much defeat the purpose of the whole thing. Most casual gamers probably won't touch it and frankly, there is really no point at the moment. Sure, the monsters grant extra gold and experience, there's a slightly higher chance for better loot, but in turn, killing stuff takes so much longer, it's just not viable for leveling up. Farming, sure, but only if you're close enough to the end of the long road to paragon 100.
That said, just joining any random group of people to do a bit of inferno farming will team you up with folks of all possible classes and builds, from super efficient to borderline useless and they can all hold their own, some more so than others. It's nice to see the occasional witch doctor here and there, as well. With the upcoming 1.7 patch, monster power can be raised for public games, so things might change a bit from there. But for now, people of all specs and skill levels are present.
Of course, once you look at the folks who go for the toughest challenges available right now, you see the exact same stuff you see on WoW and just about any game of this kind: Flavour of the month, cookie-cutter builds and people copying the first guy who killed a boss naked or reached level 100 on youtube and shit like that. Because that's just how it works. In every game there is just that one build, which outperforms every other combination of gear and skills, and since we all want to be able to beat even the toughest baddies, we go for that exact kind of build and fuck individualism and personal play style. Of course this also screws up the whole unique character appearance thing Blizzard had going here. Everyone is picking the exact same legendary items, which have a fixed appearance, which cannot be dyed or customized in any way, so if you see nothing but characters wearing the exact same shoulders or headgear in every inferno game you'll ever join, well... don't act too surprised.
My one big problem with the whole game right now is repetition. Yes, I know. All we ever did in Diablo 2 was kill Bhaal. And nothing else. And I never want to kill Bhaal again. Ever. But with huge parts of Diablo 3 being premade and scripted and no real randomised dungeons, well... I'm getting bored. I want those 100 paragon levels, I really do. I wanna find legendary items and sell them for real money. But by now I have memorised every possible layout of Arreat Crater 2, I know every last pixel inside the Tower of the Damned and even the 30 million gold coins in my stash no longer make me happy enough to help me ignore the fact that I'm doing the exact same crap over and over again up to a point, where even the WoW faction grind looks fun and anything but time consuming in comparison.
This is something every handheld Japanese Diablo clone had solved years ago by adding some kind of endless or 99 level dungeon, where every floor is generated from scratch. Random layout, environment, music, monsters, traps, you get the idea. And with every level, stuff gets a little more difficult. Even Wizardry on the old PS2 had that. Or the Item World feature on Disgaea. Heck, even Guild Wars 2 is doing something similar with the new fractal system, although those aren't generated at random, but picked form a pool of a mere 9 or so pre-generated ones. It's still a step in the right direction. Why can't we have that in Diablo instead of forcing us through the same old story, the exact same locations, dungeons and quests over and over again? It's a shame Blizzard only read my shit when I create massively overblown newsposts about them...
I crave ham. I think I'll go have some ham. I deserve ham after so many days of sickness.
-Cat
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