And suddenly I had a voice

Something strange is happening. No, I'm not growing hair in unusual places and developing a strange interest in the opposite sex. I'm becoming... well, I don't wanna say important, but my opinion seems to matter now.

My articles have "evolved" alongside my primary field of expertise - Free2Play. When I started in this business roughly a half decade ago, F2P usually meant "Crappy game, which failed in development and got bought and re-released by some Korean publisher". Okay, sometimes they were Chinese. But you know what I mean. Hellgate London/Global. Mythos. That kind of stuff. F2P also meant "Okay game, which mimics subscription-based MMOs without ever reaching the same level of quality". Runes of Magic fits that example. Nice little game, I'm not gonna knock it.

Today, just about every MMORPG out there is F2P or at least Buy2Play, with the exception of WoW. And that's only a matter of time now - WoW is already free till level 20, they already have an item shop (sorry, "Blizzard Store") and should their subscription numbers drop to a less than legendary level, they'll go F2P and proclaim: WHAM! 200 million users! Why not? Nobody questions the supposed 50 million players in World of Tanks or the 41 million players in the very mediocre Flash-based 'Dofus'.
Long story short, F2P suddenly matters. F2P no longer means "Crappy grinder with overpriced item shop". It means Tera, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings Online, Rift, AAA titles with very fair and affordable pricing. Because in a day and age where customers can play whatever they want for free, they're not gonna spend a dime in your cash shop if they feel ripped off. The competition is strong and publishers have to try harder than ever. Good times!

And with F2P becoming more and more important, more accepted by a wider audience, my work suddenly starts to matter as well. When I first got started in this job and I wrote about stuff like La Tale or Hello Kitty Online, I used to tell myself that I can take it easy, because "nobody reads that crap anyway". A self-defense mechanism if you will. Imagine you write your very first review and tens of thousands of people are going to look at it. And people disagree with you, they disagree with everything, criticise not only your work, but you as a person. The internet is not a happy place. I dared write a sarcastic article about the dungeons in Guild Wars 2 (which SUCKED right after release!) and I haven't seen so much hate and so many personal insults against me and my entire family since I've last won a match in Call of Duty. You get used to that stuff over time, but when you're still new to the whole thing it can be very harsh. And, more importantly, you don't want to look bad in front of the guys you work with. I read the reviews and articles of the guy who hired me when I was just eight years old! A personal childhood hero! You don't want to write something that looks crap to a guy you've idealized throughout most of your teens. "It's okay, it's just Hello Kitty, no one is gonna notice if you screw up". I take my work very seriously, I try not to screw up, but... you know. Fear ain't rational.
F2P was very relaxing and easy in that regard. The important writers get Dragon Age, I get Regnum Online. Dragon Age is clearly the cooler game, but if you make factual mistakes or write a stupid review, your readers, the publisher, everyone will get pissed off at you. If I make mistakes reviewing Regnum, well... I bet you didn't even know the game existed until I just mentioned it.

And today? BAM! Neverwinter! Title Story! It's a really big thing. And it's mine. I wrote that stuff!
And you know what the weirdest thing is? PR people. Talking to me. Treating me like I was royalty. Because F2P is big now and so is my opinion. Free mounts. Free companions. Free collector's edition - and a fucking cool one at that!
This is all new to me and I'm not sure how to deal with it. Yes, of course they're buttering me up. It's a fucking dilemma! I play Neverwinter anyway. For fun. Not just for work. So I really like all the freebies they're giving to me. I benefit from that stuff a great deal. My problem is that I can't even write a fair review without feeling a little guilty. I'm not giving the game a perfect score, because it has a few gaping flaws and shortcomings, which I need to address if I want to do my job properly. Makes me look like a bit of a dick, doesn't it? I take all of their stuff, then I go and tell people that the boss battles in Neverwinter suck. Which they really do.

Also, I'm starting to get emotionally attached to the whole damn game. To me, most PR-people are soulless minions, who like whatever game they're paid to like, even though they don't even play any of that shit. I had PR guys asking me why I gave their games (not Neverwinter) a low review score and when I tried to explain certain flaws and problems I saw within their product, they tried to sell them off as features. They're genuinely trying to sell me shit as something cool. With a straight face. Like I'm some kind of drooling idiot. If you know about the E3 presentation of the Xbox One, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

And then there are those PR folks, who actually play their own game, who genuinely care, who are happy and proud to be part of the whole thing. And it's so much cooler when you can feel the love and genuine excitement that goes into a game rather than, "According to this press release I am very satisfied with the launch of our new game."
And then you want them to succeed, you want people to be just as enthusiastic about that game and you get a different perspective on the entire thing, simply because you get a bit of a "behind the scenes" experience. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I guess things just become somewhat different if the games and the companies you criticise have names and faces.

As for Neverwinter, Claire and I are still playing. Here's a picture of my guardian fighter critting for almost 16k. :P

The amount of damage reflects my gearscore fairly accurately

I have even created my own little foundry adventure:

So, everything went okay with that game. Reviews so far have been good, everyone seems happy. I hope to god I'll never sympathise with a bunch of guys who have me review a really, really awful game.

But the real surprise this week is something even bigger!

As I wrote in my previous entry, I'm in the beta of Final Fantasy XIV and I'm anything but impressed. Well, guess what? I get to send a 'mock review' to Square. You know, describe how I feel about the game in its current state, what's good or bad about it, what kind of score it would receive, and, believe it or not - they're actually paying me.

This is SO big!
Now, now. Don't get any wrong ideas. I don't consider this a chance to say, "Suck it, Square! Nobody is gonna play your stupid game! HAHAHAHA!" But it's a chance to point out the many flaws and problems, things that most F2P MMOs out there do better than Final Fantasy right now. Honest, genuine feedback. Whether they're actually gonna listen or even agree with me, is a different matter entirely. But right now they're asking me to tell them what's what. They really want to know. This is a big deal to me, because I genuinely care about FFXIV and I want it to be a good game and it feels so much better to be able to talk to these guys before the release rather than being forced to write about how good this game could have been in a review, when it's too late. Which is exactly what I had to do with the original version of this game. But this time they're asking me ahead of time. My opinion matters all of a sudden. Whee! I feel privileged!

Again, god knows what they're gonna make of all this. I'm gonna put as much effort as possible into that text, explain where I see problems and how and why other games are better in certain key aspects and hope for the best. They might just throw it away, "whatever, dickhead" and that's that. But then they wouldn't pay me to do it in the first place. This is exciting stuff! On the one hand I gotta tell them why I wouldn't pay money to play their game in its current state, on the other hand I don't wanna tread on their toes. It's fucking Yoshi-P, man! Been playing that guy's PC-Engine games since I was seven years old! "Yourgameisawfulpleasedonthurtmeiloveyousomuch!" >.<

-Cat

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - Too little, too late?

We're approaching the final beta stages of the FFXIV-remake and the NDA has been "partially lifted", for whatever that means. I have seen previews openly talking about the beta and all the changes, the NDA now allows people to say they're actually playing the beta, so they can agree on a server they wish to play on and so forth. At the same time I see nothing but "official" screenshots and gameplay footage on the 'net, aka nothing but stuff created and released by Square.
Even on official previews and articles, everything you see in the screenshot galeries is stuff created by Square, but not a single screenshot or video created by players or reviewers. Nothing. If I wanted to write a magazine preview about the FF14 re-release, I'd have to send my screenshots to Japan, have them approved by Square and if I'm lucky, they might allow me to use them.

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

Now, let me show you a Square-approved screenshot or two:

Right.
I don't wanna break any rules here, I don't wanna risk my account by posting any actual screenshots, so let me just say that I'm still waiting for my game to look as amazing as that shit above.

Don't get me wrong. The new engine doesn't look bad. In fact, the game looks pretty fucking decent, the landscapes are beautiful and the expression of fear, anger or joy on the faces of your character and the NPCs you interact with are more believable and realistic than anything I have ever seen in an RPG before. But those amazing spell effects up there? That realistic lighting? I dunno where that's from, but I sure as fuck haven't seen it in the beta. And while the new engine performs at a stable 60FPS even on my lower mid-range machine, the game also features its fair share of ugly, muddy textures and the most hideous, pixellated hair-textures you can possibly imagine. And in a Japanese game full of spiky, gravity-defying haircuts, that's a pretty huge deal.
Instead of the breath-taking special FX my battles are full of ugly particle-effects, which fill the whole damn screen and make it impossible to see what the hell is going on most of the time. But they're nice and rainbow-coloured. Purple particles, blue particles, lots of red particles and sometimes yellow particles. Whee! I'm sure there's a monster hiding somewhere beneath all of that crap.

Still. All nit-picking and pointing out of shameless bullshots aside, this is still going to be one of the most visually appealing MMOs to date. Provided, you're not put off by the angrogynous character design, cat-girls (and cat boys now, too, apparently... ugh!) and midgets, who resemble six year olds - with facial hair!

AAAARGH! It's like Mr. Spock fucked Asterix!

Dear Square, please don't ban me. This is a screenshot of the 1.0 client. Old version. The thing that failed so horribly.

In case you're not familiar with the original, awful Final Fantasy XIV, which failed so hard that the entire dev team got fired, the servers were shut down and they came up with this 'new and improved' version, allow me to summarize some of the original's most gaping flaws:

- Nothing to do: Quests were limited to a small amount per 48 hours, grinding was punished with experience penalties up to 100%, some small amount of story quests, which were impossible to follow and made no sense

- Boring, repetitive game world: The world was split into three different starting zones and two high level zones. Each zone was incredibly huge, but offered no unique, distinct landmarks. One zone was simply a forest, another zone was a desert and so forth. A bit like the planets of the Star Wars universe.

- No tutorials: Most features of FFXIV weren't explained, even veterans had a hard time figuring out how to play the game, even the most simple and basic functions like maps, trading with other players or figuring out where to go for a quest usually involved lots of trial & error or a google search

- Zero user-friendliness and comfort: Shitty UI and menu system, no proper LFG tool, no auction house, overpriced item repairs... the list goes on.

Now, if you're familiar with my blog, then you know that I have still played the original and raised a paladin all the way to the level cap. That's because I loved FFXI, which was the previous Final Fantasy MMORPG, and I really, seriously wanted to love FXIV. I managed to like it for a while, despite all of its gaping flaws and problems, but that's as far as I'll go.
Now Square was nice enough to grant veterans access to their powerful characters from the previous version, allowing them to explore the new game with their old avatars. And I gave it a go.

Good news first - the game does start with some quick and easy tutorial-style quests. This is how you interact with NPCs, this is how you use the brand new quest tracker and find your way on the map, here's your inventory, you get the idea. The one thing FFXIV has not done in the roughly 20 levels of main storyline I've played so far, was explain to me how crafting works now. I'll admit I always hated the crafting in the original version, I didn't care to get into it in the new version, but while the game taught me about guild leves, resting, fighting and just about everything else, it has never even touched the subject of crafting. I guess that's still work in progress or I'm completely retarded and just missing something.

Another problem of the original, the almost complete lack of quests and things to do, has been dealt with. I've run into quest NPCs left, right and center, on top of the main storyline, which continues every couple of levels or so. Unfortunately, most of these quests are so unbelievably dull, stupid and boring, I quickly gave up on accepting them and only followed the main storyline (I'm level 50, I can skip all the filler crap). Let me give you an example: I bumped into a noblewoman (at least her wall of text suggested that I did), causing her to drop some coins on the floor, so I had to collect the coins by right-clicking them and give them back to her. Other quests had me deliver a letter from one NPC to another (who was standing IN THE SAME FUCKING ROOM!), deliver a pumpkin, deliver a ring, fetch an earring... for fuck's sake, I'm not a god damn errand boy!

Holy shit, about a half hour later I even recieved a quest to collect some blood, pelts and other random bodily shit from the level 1 critters right outside the city gates. Can you believe I was actually glad to receive a simple kill-quest, because those were at least a little less boring than all that FedEx shit?
Okay, sure, there's a whole story questline, which is fun and tells and exciting story and everything, right? Well....

I won't lie to you. I have no idea what the fuck the story is supposed to be about. My character passes out at random, then she literally flies through space with a bunch of random strangers and talks to floating crystals. I'm not making this up. Some girlish-looking "male" NPCs show up and babble random nonsense like: "I believe we have... oh, nevermind!" and walk off again. Then my character faints and gets random flashbacks involving some of the NPCs, but it's impossible to make heads or tails of any of this crap. The storytelling is abysmal, I have zero clue wtf is going on, I don't know, understand or even care for any of the characters. What's worse, the story-quests thus far aren't fun, they aren't challenging and they're 75% errands.

During one particular (main!) quest I had to enter a restaurant of sorts and talk to an NPC. But the quest NPC was too busy and asked me to take fucking FOOD ORDERS from the god damn guests around the place! I literally had to walk from one patron to another and ask them what they wanted to eat, then hand the orders to the NPC before he'd allow me to continue on a quest. And shit like that happens all the time! Survey some ore nodes. Hand cookies to children. Kill five ants and take their mandibles to some random dude. Who the fuck enjoys that kind of shit anymore?

Okay, let's not forget to mention the little boss fights and story-based battles you get on some rare occasions. When you're done with your crappy FedEx and handing out cookies and delivering pumpkins, the game will send some nasty gargoyle, a golem or some other shit you way. Most of that stuff looks really threatening until some asshole NPCs appear and do all the work for you. Which, so far, has happened in every single "boss" event. An NPC shows up and takes the aggro right off me. I'm a level 50 paladin. The very definition of a tank in this game. I can taunt those monsters all the way I want, they won't attack me. They attack the NPC. And if I do get hit by harmless minions or random AoE, the NPC companion heals me. I cannot fail. It is impossible to fail story quests. There is no challenge here, no excitement and no sense of achievement when you win yet another completely meaningless battle you were never meant to lose to begin with.

The one new type of quest I have actually enjoyed involved the new 'FATE'-system. Fate meaning 'Full Active Time Event, which is really just a fancy expression from "random event copied straight from Rift and Guild Wars 2". A bunch of powerful monsters appears somewhere, you can jump right in and fight them and depending on your acontribution you get rewarded with some money (gil) and experience. That's nice, it's fun, it's level-scaled and you get random players to join and help on the fly. And that's about all the fun I had with the quests in this game.

As for the zones, I have only explored what I believe to be a small fraction of the game's world, but there's a ton of variety right there, beautiful landscapes, no complaints here. And since we're already talking aesthetics, let me move right on to the new UI and menu system. Good news is, it's a lot better, nicer to look at and hell of a lot easier to use than the original crap. The bad news is, it's still not great and far from 'on par' with any modern MMO out there. Realigning and moving my action bars was a chore, making them appear in the first place was anything but intuitive and I can't resize them or make unused slots invisible. You know, shit that WoW has been doing for more than a half decade.

In fact, the whole damn game is still in the stone age when it comes to comfort and user-friendliness. My sprint is a god damn skill, which needs to be hotkeyed, because simply pressing shift like in any other game is too easy, apparently. Want to mount up in town? FUCK YOU! Want to interact with NPCs whilst mounted up? FUCK YOU TWICE! Want to attack an enemy without having to hit the dismount button? Ffffff... well, you know. YOU CAN'T DO SHIT WHILE YOU'RE RIDING!
Yes, this may not be a big deal to some of you, but it pisses me off, because the whole damn game is like that! I have to use fucking "retainers" instead of just putting my shit on an auction house. I have to wait 12 hours in between 3 killquests. I don't see the exact location of a quest marker on my map if the quest leads me to a different area. Dungeons come with a fucking time limit, which kicks me out if my group takes too long to beat it. And so on.
It feels like it was made by a bunch of guys who have never even touched a modern MMO. I mean, if you're already ripping off Rift with your FATE stuff (which is a good thing), why don't you folks at Square spend a day or two playing WoW or any successful online game out there and then look back at your own game and see how awkward, how unneccessarily complicated, how downright annoying it is in places?

And that doesn't even include Final Fantasy's outdated combat-system. Oh wow, you made it faster, you added more hotkeys to click, well fuck, have you checked out Guild Wars 2 or Neverwinter? Stand around and click hotkeys, that shit got boring in 2005! What's worse, there are NO skilltrees, there is NO class customization, NOTHING! Even ancient Final Fantasy XI allowed you to at least "multiclass" your characters to some extent, i.e. combine paladin and ninja and become an agile, dual-wielding tank. A Realm Reborn (ARR) lets you choose up to 5 abilities from any of your unlocked classes you're not currently using and that's it for customization.

Sure, ARR is better than what Square now refers to as "version 1.0". Well, duh. It's better because it has actual quests, a UI which isn't complete garbage (but still far from good) and visual variety in its game world. And so does every other MMORPG out there. But guess what? Every other MMORPG out there is F2P or B2P. With the exception of WoW (yet). FFXIV used to cost monthly fees. So far, there have been no news on a F2P transition. Players expect them to start charging fees again. Who the hell is gonna pay to play this stuff? Every month? Die-hard fans? Yeah sure, maybe those who like the freaky races and the winks at the older FF-titles ('Warriors of Light', Bahamut, the Crystal Tower). But guess what? Star Wars has fans. Warhammer has fans. That didn't really help the mediocre MMORPGs, which used these licenses. And somehow I doubt it's gonna help ARR.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't a bad game. It's awkward, complicated, derivative and completely lacks innovation, but it's an okay game. But what MMO out there isn't? What, aside from the unique setting, do I get in Final Fantasy that I can't get in WoW, Rift, Aion, Tera, SWTOR and god knows how many other games out there? Are nice visuals and a popular name really enough to make this game stand out? I highly doubt it. What's worse - who is even going to play it after the disastrous original launch? Other games failed at launch and got fixed over time (Age of Conan comes to mind), but never managed to appeal to the amounts of players their creators had once hoped for.

If you're just looking for some new MMO to play, the new Final Fantasy is not going to be it. If you're a die-hard fan and seriously hoping to get into ARR after the initial version put you off, you may get some fun out of this one, but even then, this is likely going to be some quick, short-lived fun, until you'll realise this is not the virtual home you have been looking for. This isn't Vana'Diel. It's still Eorzea. And it's simply not a very exciting place.

-Cat

Video Game Justice

Possibly the most important thing about a healthy relationship is that you share a major hobby. That you spend several hours a week doing the same thing, together. And the thing which ultimately destroyed countless relationships for me (aside from me being a major dickhole) is my dedication to gaming. I'm a gamer, my girlfriends were not. Some of them thought they were, because modern society has somehow made it hip and socially acceptable to call yourself a gamer.

Stop eating my fucking controller, you slut!

Seriously, this is getting way out of hand! The first thing I have to do every day is shoo random bitches out of my living room, who try to eat, fondle and make love to my gaming peripherals. I don't know how the fuck they get in here, I don't know where they come from, but I'm getting seriously annoyed with this bullshit.

Actually, you can stay for a bit...

Point being, you can be as blonde, horny and underage as you want, if you can't tell your trolls from your goblins, you can GTFO.

So, the Bear and I have that one thing in common. Gaming. That's probably it, but it's good enough. I don't know if she's into anything else and I only call her the Bear because I can't really remember her name right now, but we're solid. We're a great couple. We play our video games together. Usually co-op, because when we end up on opposite sides in pvp, it usually ends with somebody getting slapped in the face by a penis. Seriously though, that was an accident. We're just really bad at sex. We don't deliberately hit each other or anything.

If you're a regular visitor to this blog or my FB profile, you will have noticed that our favourite game right now is Dark Souls. We're about to start our 4th cooperative playthrough. And if you're somewhat familiar with Dark Souls, then you'll know that the game is designed to team you up with random strangers rather than friends, there is no real communication, no coordination, you just invite a random guy and hope he's competent enough.
There are mods and workarounds for that, Bear and I play with each other all the time, but the vast majority of players out there either plays alone or with people they don't really know. Make a mental note, that's gonna be important in a bit. :P

And whenever I team up with the Bear, we get harassed by invaders. The game actually calls them that. There's a mechanic in Dark Souls, which lets you invade other people's peaceful pve sessions and your only objective is to kill these players. Why the fuck anyone would think this is a great design idea, which generates nothing but grief, frustration and abuse is beyond me, but that's Japanese game design for ya.
Mind you, Dark Souls also offers consensual pvp if you aren't a total pussy. First of all, there's an arena, which allows you to queue up for duels, 2vs2 and so forth. There is also a pvp summoning stone. Using it will place a red marker on the ground for everyone who is currently playing to see, and if anybody is looking for a fight, they may activate said marker and summon you for a duel.

The pvp crowd is very active across all platforms. They're also the biggest bunch of whiny cunts you'll encounter anywhere outside a Blizzard-hosted internet forum. They live by some made up code of honour: Using magic makes you a faggot, you're a cunt when you use tower shields and wearing plate armor makes you a noob and so forth. They're the kind of people who used to demand 32 timeouts in a 5 minute game of dodgeball in school.
Still. Whiny or not, if you're looking for people who are willing to fight you, there are several quick and easy ways to get in touch with them and exchange a few friendly blows. And if you're a coward, a complete dickhead and an untalented loser, who wants to fight people with pve builds, zero experience with pvp and no desire to engage other players in combat, you invade other players against their will.

The Bear and I don't invade people. We don't challenge players in consensual pvp. We don't even fight each other in pvp. We're like the Klitschkos. We're a team. We don't fight. That only complicates things and causes bad blood. But we get invaded a lot, like I said.
Now, remember when I said that most people either play their pve solo or with random strangers and zero communication? Bear and I sit in the same room. We talk. We're a team. We're lovers. There's some chemistry going on here. And whenever some dickhead invades our session, we position our asses in opposite corners of a room and wait to ambush them. We put the bad guy right between us. Like so:

Half of the time, the invader doesn't even notice there's two of us and will just start attacking one of us and ignore the other. So we close in and beat the shit out of them:

If an invader starts running circles around Bear and attempts to outmaneuver us, she simply turtles up (tower shield ftw) and I shoot them in the back with my repeating crossbow:

Alternatively, they go after me, I do the turtling and she does the backstabbing.
As you can see, this isn't rocket surgery, there is no master strategist at work, it's just basic 2vs1 exploited in the most unfair manner possible. But no matter how simple the whole thing is, pulling it off becomes so much easier and more efficient if you can communicate with your partner. Random strangers can't talk to you (outside of windows live chat), there's no coordination, they might be drooling morons for all you know. And invaders know that. That's why they fucking invade you in the first place. Unfair advantage and all that.

So we did our thing last night, killed one invader, killed another and after the first one I was greeted by this message here:

Mkay. So you invaded our game against our will, clearly hoping for an unfair advantage and instead we ganged up on you and kicked you ass, so we're noobs and gankers. Love that logic.

Well, you know how it goes. I was stupid enough to write back, of course. Told him I didn't invite him and I couldn't remember forcing him to invade our fucking game. Funny how he tried to fuck up our co-op session and then insults us when we kick him out.
And of course he just kept on going on and on and on about how we're noobs and faggots and the usual stuff you get to hear on just about every online game with a pvp component.

So let me get this straight: You invade pve sessions because you don't have the balls to play consensual pvp with people who are ready and willing to fight. You do so with only one goal in mind - to kill generally helpless players, take away their experience points and currency (pardon, 'souls') and force them to start over from the nearest safe spot, yet you start complaining when they fight back and kick you the fuck out? Seriously?

Okay, he's talking about "ganking" here, probably referring to the fact that we sandwiched him and went Ken Barlow on his ass. But that only makes it more hilarious. What the fuck was that asshole expecting? A formal bow, maybe a kiss on the cheek, the two of us taking turns and maybe waiting for him to send us a note on all the gear and spells we were or weren't allowed to use? You invaded our fucking game! We didn't ask you to do it, we didn't message you and say, "Hey, come here and attack us, we promise not to fight back!" or some shit. You come into my session, try to kill me, attack my partner and I'll take you down by any means necessary, no holds barred. No fucking rules, no bullshit imaginary code of honour, you're going to die and that's that. And where I'm from, people have the common sense to expect that sort of reaction, they take it like a man and shut the fuck up about it, not start whining like a 12 year old who has to buy female hygiene products for the first time in her life. What the fuck is wrong with you stupid kids? You didn't see that kind of bullshit back in Quake or Unreal. At least not on that level. We just played our fucking games and shut the fuck up. This new generation of gamers whines about "endgame content" and "balancing" and feeds greedy publishers by purchasing shitty DLC and competes over who wears the fanciest dress at fucking cosplay conventions. You don't like me kicking you out of my game any way I see fit? Then stay the fuck out! Or do it like the last cowardly cunt and Alt+F4 your way to safety. Which was just as pathetic, but at least he didn't bother me with his stupid opinion.

-Cat

My New Coworker

Ahh yes, work! That time where people tell me to send a list of all the games I'd like to review and then they pick the good ones for themselves and ask me to test Hello Kitty Online. Okay, that has only happened once in four years, but let's go with it for the sake of the joke. Then comes the fun part: Brib... errr communication! Yes, communication. Talking to the PR guys, getting free cash shop currency, premium mounts, special collector's editions, that sort of thing. And the actual play time, of course. Best part of the job. Plow through the levels, try all of the game's features, get some random guild ("I'm writing a review for XXX, pls halp!") to show me all the raid bosses and do all the work for me.

But then...
Writing.
Brrrr!

In the time it took to create this first paragraph I have fed our beardies, given the cats some water, baked and eaten a box of Tesco's Ultimate Chicken Nuggets and fixed Hugo's heating thingie, which had been unplugged by our stupid cats. I may have watched a cat video or two, that people put on my wall on Facebook. Or was that this morning? What day is it?
So yeah. Concentration problems.

They're fucking delicious.

People want me to be funny. They expect it. Maybe they don't and I'm just expecting myself to be funny. I want to be funny. And many truly funny people are spontaneous, which I'm absolutely jealous of. Watch a comedian in an interview or a talkshow and they're just funny, they come up with puns and witty stuff just like that, outta nowhere. Then there's me. I'm about as entertaining as a sock full of peanuts. This is why I hate and avoid podcasts.

See, I'm a bit of a random extra. Some of my friends are hosting a cast, one of their regulars can't make it, hey I know, let's grab Kitten! He doesn't know wtf he's talking about, but at least he's funny! Except I'm not. My bitching about cash shops and my sexy voice granted me the appreciation of my peers that time, but funny... nah. I need to plan my funny. I need to sit down and think and wait for ideas. Better still, I pace around the room like I'm receiving an imaginary phone call. I do get good ideas from that. I'm particularly proud of making up the term 'feckish'.

Alas, no amount of pacing cures my inability to focus or stops the lovely old granny in the house opposite to ours to get her ancient tits out. I don't know whether it's the heat, dementia or a blunt attempt at flirting with me, but holy fucking shit look at these wrinkly sacks of flesh! Damn carpet needs vacuuming. Was the ceiling always covered in cobwebs? God I love my sword. Cost me a fortune and my parents thought I was fucking insane, but look at how cool it is up there, just mounted to the wall above the fireplace. I wonder how many zombies I could take before they eat me.

Brain refuses to compute. Or computes too much, in too many directions. So I need a fetish, a talisman, a focus, some magical trinket that helps me keep my train of thoughts on track. In the past I relied on my old work mate here:

Luna and Olf.

Snakes wiggle around a lot, they try to get into your clothes (sleeves, collars, nothing is safe!) and I don't know shit about them, which makes me nervous. When an urgent article was due, I used to get the snake out (oh, shut up!) and pace around the room with it. And of course the snake would distract me. Gotta make sure it's not gonna slither off and fall on the floor or get stuck under my shirt or... oh god, it's looking at me, I bet it'll bite me any second!
So, how the fuck does distracting myself from distractions with another distraction help, you might ask. Simple.

See, grannytits, hyperactive cats, cobwebs, they all distract me as much as the snake does. But they're everywhere I look! Too much input. Too many stupid things happening all over the place. And multitasking only goes so far. I can brush my teeth and pee in the sink at the same time, but put a shaver in my other hand and stuff gets compl... okay, maybe that's not a good example. My point is, the snake is just one distraction, but one big enough to keep me away from all other distractions. I can focus on the critter and on my work and that's it. And the constant feeling of 'Ohshitohshitohshititsgonnabitemeeee!1' helps with the flow of adrenaline, which, in turn, helps with the creative process. I've never been bitten by our snakes, but that only makes me more paranoid, because I don't know what to expect when it happens. Like giving a cat a belly rub for the first time.


The problem with elderly snakes, and all things elderly, really, is their life expectancy. Or lack thereof. Long story short, we eventually went from snake to no snake. And then got a different snake to fill the position, but royal pythons, well...
"Royal python" sounds amazing. Majestic. Awe-inspiring. You know what else they call them? Ball pythons. Because when you touch them, they don't hiss, they don't bite, they just curl up into a little ball and hope for you to go away.
So yeah. Chokie is a nice snake and all, but she's not scary, she doesn't make me nervous and she doesn't really do enough to keep me focused. I don't know. We get along and all, but there's no chemistry. She's just not a good work snake.
I also tried Chompy, our dearly departed beardie, but she'd just run off and shit on the printer. Always. Not the kind of distraction I had hoped for.

So for the past few months I've been going through a bit of a difficult time, work-wise. Working from 9-5 (9 at night and 5 in the morning, that is), kept distractions to a minimum, but that's also when they run Mythbusters marathons. Not good for productivity.
But all is not lost. Not anymore! Meet Nomnom:

The happy one on the right.

She eats carrots.

She sits on my shoulder. That's it. Sometimes she eats a carrot. She goes soooooooo yellow. And orange. And red. When she's in the mood. I don't even know how the fuck that helps me focus on my work, but it does. Maybe she's a placebo. Placebo lizard. Maybe I should have named her Placebo.

I gotta do my part for a new magazine issue, soon. I think I'll hire Nomnom as a trainee for now. Put her on my shoulder. Pace around. See how the articles turn out. We'll go from there. I think I can afford paying her a carrot or two per article. See how we get along, if she grows into the job and all that. I have a good feeling about this. I may be getting ahead of myself, but I think I can sense a potential partnership here. Strictly work-based, of course. Most importantly, she does not shit on the equipment. That's always a plus. All your trainees need to be housebroken.

-Cat

I used to be cool, now I'm just old

I'm a lazy bastard with too much time on my hands, so I browse online picdumps a lot. And I see ancient jokes on there, stuff I didn't find funny when I first saw it 20 years ago. And when I check the comments section to see if anyone agrees with how old and unfunny that crap is, I see a bunch of kids, who act like it's a super awesome new joke they're seeing for the first time. Chances are, some of these little shits weren't even born when I first saw that stuff.

Oooooooold!

Some kid kicked his ball into our backyard the other day, so I came outside to help him get it back. Cmon, we've all done that kinda thing, sometimes you make a new friend that way, kick that thing around a bit. Poor fella was petrified, nearly crapped himself. I was wearing pants and everything, but I had to realise that I've changed from this:

Ask my friends and family, I fucking looked like him until I was 15

to this:

Well... almost. My sense of fashion might be a tad better, but with more holes.

There was a house party across the road from us the other day and this hot young girl talked to me as I walked past there. And I thought, "Hey, still got it!". She asked if I was here to pick up my kid. Ouch! Awright, I can understand I'm too old to be anywhere near the shag-radar, but surely I'm not old enough to be your parent! I just don't know what's going on anymore.
You see, when I write my articles and reviews, some of them end up online and there's always a certain amount of dipshits posting stupid crap under my stuff, telling me how I've got no clue wtf I'm talking about (joke's on you, fucker, I get paid and you don't!), so sometimes I check on their profiles, see they're born in 1990something and think they're just stupid little brats. Until I do the math and realise they're legal adults.

What really gets me is when some dumbass 16 year old posts shit about how awesome the 90s supposedly were. "Proud to be a 90s kid" and what not. What the fuck do you even remember from the 90s? Crawling around on all fours and shitting yourself?
You know what the saddest thing is? I don't think I even want to be cool by today's fucked up standards anymore. Do you know wtf kids these days are into? Fucking ponies! My goddamn little pony, dubstep and fucking candy-flavoured beer and vodka for kids. Calling everyone "bro". Just... don't. Okay? Don't you fucking bro me!

You know what I'm into? Reptiles. Look at how our new beardie is doing:

As for Dark Souls, well... you either cry about its difficulty like a bitch or you keep at it and become... badass.

-Cat

Reptile Adventures and Opping Co like the Pros

Yay! Another blog about animals! Our animals, not random weird ones like these:

Sad news first: Poor Chompy expired just a couple hours after I posted my previous entry. Have you ever heard somebody say how a loved one just "peacefully passed away in their sleep"? I can't tell how different animals are from humans when it comes to these things, but having found her dead after a stage where all she ever did was lie quietly and sleep, I find it hard to believe in peaceful death, let alone dying with dignity. I guess the only way one can look at it which isn't entirely depressing is that she's no longer suffering.

We buried her under a little tree at the edge of town, near where we buried the little red kitten that died a few hours after our cat gave birth to it. I'm not at all religious or spiritual, I don't really spend a lot of time believing in things. But I cared about our pet and I'd rather have a tree watching over her than wrap her in a plastic bag and chuck her in a bin. A friend of mine once said that energy never simply vanishes. It can be stored, transformed maybe, but it never just poofs and disappears. And that, in a way, all life could be considered some kind of energy. Suggesting that, you know, nobody is ever truly gone. That might be a bit of a naive, simplified way to look at it, but I like the thought. Life doesn't know justice or fairness. It feels nice to be a little naive sometimes, if only to cope with things. No worries, I'm not gonna go all weird and sentimental.

The whole thing is a bit fucked up. I haven't seen my old man in over three years, we rarely ever talk and I have zero contact with the rest of the family. When my friends back in and around Germany throw hints and want to come for a visit, I generally ignore them. I'm not much of a people person. But hand-feeding sick pets, caring for and cleaning up after them, finding them a peaceful spot when they pass away instead of throwing them away like they're some kind of broken toaster... yeah, I do that. I don't know what the fuck that says about me. Probably nothing nice.

Anyhow. Today I've gone and done something that will (rightfully) make some of you want to ask, "Why? What the fuck is wrong with you?"
I took home another bearded dragon.
I'm not trying to replace Chompy and I'm not going through lizards like Lisa Simpson goes through cats, don't worry. Chompy was my first ever reptile. She's the reason why we rescued Bakara and why we own Hugo. She is why Claire went from absolutely nothing but snakes to mother of dragons:

We genuinely cared about Chompy and we miss her dearly. So what's the deal with our new friend here?

First of all, Bakara was all alone in her tank now. She was with another beardie before she came to us and she has been with Chompy for as long as she lived here. Some beardies like to be left alone, they compete over food, the best basking spot or who is best at headbanging. They just like being dicks.
Then there's Bakara, who is as peaceful and social as it gets. We like keeping our pets near us and out of their tanks when we have the time, but when we both have to work and there's simply no time, it's nice when our beardies keep each other company.

The other reason is that I've always liked this unwanted little beardie up there. You see, every once in a while people bring animals to Claire's shop and it's always for one of two reasons: They no longer have the time to care for them or they split up with their partners and nobody wants to keep the pet. The latter excuse is cruel, the former is simply bullshit. We're talking about a pet, whose maintenance value is a fragment of any cat's or dog's. They eat fruit, salad, fucking dandelions which grow right outside your fucking house. You clean them up every two or three days, if that. They don't want to be walked, they don't bark or make noise. They don't ask you to throw a stick. They just sit there and demand a little food now and then. That's what, five minutes of effort a day? And you mean to tell me you don't have five minutes?

Anyhow. I don't remember exactly whether it was reason #1 or #2, but this adorable little creature was returned to the shop, along with a starving male beardie, who died a little while later. Those guys weren't looked after, they've been treated like crap, one of them had to die because his owners were a bunch of lazy, heartless, irresponsible shitheads. But the female made a full recovery. That was quite a few weeks ago now, back when Chompy was still alive and kicking. I got her out of the tank now and then when I visited Claire at work, because I've always liked her.
Beardies are fun, hyper little creatures when they're babies, but they tend to get a little slow and derpy as they grow up. Bakara has a hard time eating her lettuce without one of us helping her. She'll bite the air a good foot or two away from the food bowl, then it'll take her a minute or two to realise she's not really eating anything, so she makes a small step towards the food and tries again. It can easily take her a half hour to actually reach her bowl and headplant right into she salad to get the food she craves so much. She's as dumb as they come, even for a beardie, and I have never actually seen her catch a locust. She needs to be fed by hand when it comes to bugs and live food.
I know, she's a bit of an extreme example, but some of them just get a bit dumb and lazy.

Her new cage mate is the exact opposite. She's a skilled huntress, she's curious and always looking at what's going on and she's a very talented climber. Poor thing is so tiny, when I pick her up she just sits in my hand, holds on to my thumb (it's 4am right now, I'll update this blog with a picture after I had some sleep) and she's good to go. When I got her from the shop today I just picked her up and we walked home together. No box or anything.
Bakara didn't even react to her when we put her in the tank. Sure, she looked at her, but that's about it. She probably just thought, "Oh hey, Chompy is finally getting better." Okay, that's a bit sad and macabre, but at least there was no fighting, no head-bobbing, no nothing.
It's still strange to see them together. Bakara is one of the largest, chunkiest beardies I have ever seen and the new arrival isn't even half her size. Not remotely. I'll upload a video tomorrow, so you'll see what I'm talking about.

So, don't be too hard on me. When friends of mine lost a beloved pet, the very thought of getting a new one offended them and that's perfectly understandable. But Bakara doesn't have to be alone now and that little female, who was no longer welcome at her old home and who couldn't get anyone to buy her at the shop will be cared for and fed and looked after for as long as she lives. She can join the ranks of unwanted or slightly defective special needs beardies that we end up taking care of. ;)
Now all she needs is a name.

In other news, Hugo doesn't like Chicken McNuggets. We went to McDonald's today, sat outside and enjoyed the sun and I offered him some of that stuff (I actually peeled the damn nugget), but apparently our spoiled friend only likes real, proper chicken. Not some weird, pressed, shaped crap what was pre-chewed by a machine. Can't blame him. I wish I had such self-control when it comes to junk food.
You wouldn't believe the insane amounts of people stopping and staring, stroking him, asking questions or taking pictures. I like it. People around here can be incredibly friendly and open-minded.

Before I close this entry for the night, I need to bore you with one more cool feature I have just discovered in Dark Souls, a game you could probably only care less about if I finally stopped bringing it up: The Book of the Guilty.
As Claire and I are reaching the final stages of our coop-playthrough, we've been open to invasions from hostile players pretty much all the time. And we're getting invaders. Lots of them. And with one exception, where Claire got smashed to pudding by a giant before we had a chance to fight our potential assassin, we've beaten every single one of them. And here's the cool thing: When people are being dicks and invade and harass you and (try to) kill you, you may report their sin (the game actually calls it that) and they'll be named and shamed in aforementioned Book of the Guilty. The really interesting bit is this: Not only can you look up all those asshats who get a kick out of invading peaceful players instead of fighting people fair and square in the arena. You also get to see their gear and stats. And you wouldn't believe the amount of blatant cheaters in that book!

When you see level 1 players with every single attribute maxed out, you can't help but despise certain "gamers". It's one thing when you intentionally invade some random player's session to kill a guy, who is most likely not specced and geared for or even experienced in pvp. It's usually a pretty easy, cowardly victory. But it gets really sad when you have to max out every last one of your stats, give yourself godly items and then go after people who cannot fight back anyway. How great is it then, when there's a list with their gamer tag, their character names and all their fucked up attributes and stats, which show off just how cowardly and shit at this game they really are? Sure, if somebody is out into grief play and trolling, he won't really care about that sort of thing, but there is no more "benefit of the doubt", no bragging rights, no "OMFG look at me I'm killing everybody!1" on youtube. I like it. I think I actually prefer this to the usual anti-cheat garbage, which never really works, anyway. It gets twice as good when you encounter these bastards and beat them anyway. I'm having the time of my life here.

We destroy boss baddies and invaders alike. And yes, that's a wolf , using a sword in his mouth to attack a boss. Asians, man.

I'll add updated pictures and a little video later. Need sleep now. Fucking birds are screaming their heads off out there. Bleh. Also, brain surgery:

-Cat

Stone Age Thursday

Ooga booga! Me Cat! Me no internet! Me no tv! Me no fucking clue what to do with myself!

Seriously though, I’m writing this blog offline right now, because cable is dead and has been dead all day. To make things a little more fun, we seem to be experiencing rolling power-outs right now, so I may very well lose this text in the middle of the creative process. Oh well, guess I’m gonna do it like Jesus and save. Harhar!

My friends back in Germany like making fun of me for living in England and bring up the usual stereotypes whenever they get the chance. You know, English food, English weather, English oral hygiene, that kinda thing. Which is okay, I’m a bit of a troll, myself. “Still enjoying your cancer, Bob?” Jokes aside, England and Germany really aren’t all that different. Germany has better beer, England has better comedians, but they both have the same supermarkets selling the same stuff, they both run the same shitty “reality” and “talent” shows on tv and Opel cars are branded Vauxhall and have the steering wheel on the wrong side, but they all still drive German cars around here.

Aaaaand I just had a blue screen of death! I wonder if my PC got damaged due to the power out while it was running. Can that still happen with today’s modern hardware? I’d look it up, but since there’s no internet…

And that brings me to one of the things, where living in England feels medieval at best. For about a week now, the internet would simply stop working for no apparent reason. Sometimes for ten minutes, sometimes for an hour. Boom! No internet.
Great. The minute I finished typing that last sentence, the internet actually came back on, so I fired up my browser and BAM – power out!  So I waited for electricity to come back, rebooted my PC, restored this text (thanks, Word recovery feature!) and now the fucking internet is dead again. Nice. Having a kickass day here.

I don’t know what kind of ancient technology they use around here for power and basic cable, but if I had to guess, the whole thing is probably handled by the same guys who are in charge of water and facilities. I have seen bathrooms in East Germany in the late 80s, before the fall of the Berlin wall. The poorest, shabbiest areas, which were still recovering from the war. And facilities were more modern over there than the bathrooms they have around here today. “Oh hey, I want to take a bath! Better push a button and wait a whole hour to get some fucking hot water! Or maybe I should take a shower instead. Oops, water is still cold! Silly me, I should have pulled the little string on the bathroom ceiling to make the water go hot!”

Yeah, our internet is like that. Sometimes it just dies and nobody gives a fuck. See, that's another difference between England and Germany. If this kind of crap happens in Germany, people complain, they demand their money back and if it keeps happening, they change ISPs. Which, essentially, doesn't do shit, as they all use the same cables and connections anyway, but it makes us angry Germans feel better. Your service is shit, watch me tear up the contract. Around here? Pfft!

I dunno if people in England are just happier and more relaxed. Or maybe they don't really trust that new invention called the internet. I mean, they still advertise fucking audio CDs in this country! 

I'm not entirely sure how Queen qualifies as "trucking music", but that's a different story.

Speaking of things that die - Chompy, our bearded dragon and my first ever pet reptile, has taken a turn for the worse and I'll be surprised if she's still with us by the end of the week.

There is that cheesy saying that you don't choose your pet, but pets choose you. Chompy would jump out of her tank and climb all over me at the shop, which ultimately lead to the decision to buy a beardie in the first place. I know, that lizard probably just wanted food and would have jumped any random idiot at that time, but you gotta bond someway, right?

Unfortunately, something was very wrong with Chompy and her siblings, who all turned ill and had to be put in quarantine a short while after we bought her. Our beardie grew a weird bump on her back and started showing off-coloured scales, which later turned out to be yellow fungus, whilst her siblings started dying back at the shop, one after another.

So we treated her, put wound healer on the sores and infected areas, bathed her a lot and kept her warm and clean until she seemed perfectly normal and healthy. Well, "normal"... she would never shed her skin properly and no amounts of peeling, bathing and helping would stop one of her feet from growing an increasingly thick layer of old skin. She'd drop a claw, then a toe and eventually the entire foot became petrified until she lost it.

We took her back to the shop for intensive care and she made a full recovery, aside from the obvious missing foot and a milky eye, which had gone blind. Chompy could no longer chase after locusts in her condition, so Claire would feed her by hand.

She was a bit of a sad sight, but she ate, basked, had relatively normal weight and everything was fine. Until last week, when she no longer ate any bugs at all. Didn't seem like much of a problem at first - sometimes they're just not hungry. But she'd refuse them the next day and the day after that. Eventually we had to force-feed her. We stuffed her full of fatty worms to stop her from losing weight, gave her vitamin treatment, but she lost more and more weight every day. The strange bump on her back, which had disappeared roughly two years ago, is back. So is the yellow fungus.

We're putting wound healer on the infected areas again, we're keeping her clean and we've fed her all week long, even though she doesn't want to eat, but she's not getting any better. She is practically skeletal. If we weren't so attached to her, we probably would have put her in the freezer by now to put her out of her misery. I have never seen anything so depressing. Nothing seems to help at all. Right now I'm not sure which option is more cruel. Stuffing more and more food down her throat, hoping for a miracle or putting her to sleep and taking away all chances for a recovery, however unlikely. 

Oh and since people are rather quick to judge on the internet when it comes to animals: We've rescued a beardie about a year ago, who is happy and healthy, we have a very healthy royal python and our savannah monitor is perfectly fit. We take very good care of our reptiles, as does the shop where we get them from. Whatever problem Chompy is having and whatever killed off all the other beardies in her clutch, is down to the breeder who gave them away in the first place.

It's frustrating. I don't know what to do. It feels like I'm not doing enough, but what could we have done, that we didn't already try anyway? This is not how I was expecting to lose her, and after only two years at that.

-Cat

Yay for jolly cooperation!

It finally happened! I was getting worried she wouldn't make it before the release of Dark Souls 2 in March 2014, but Claire finally finished her first playthrough of Dark Souls. I'd make fun of how it took her a whole extra week or 75 extra hours of game time, but she tends to read this blog and strawberry week is coming up, so I'll just congratulate her and celebrate her long overdue success.

Now we can finally team up like this:

and do that:

Our coop-experience in Dark Souls is a lot like Rainman. You know, it's pretty amazing and does some really cool things, but you just can't deny that it's retarded.
Remember when games had a multiplayer option right on the title screen and you'd get to choose whether you want to join or host a game and whether you're in the mood for a coop-session or a deathmatch? What the fuck happened to that? Whatever the hell they were thinking when they made this game, Dark Souls simply doesn't work like that. At all.

Let's say Claire has to fight a dragon and I want to help her. So we both launch the game solo, we both have to stand in the exact same spot at the same time and then I have to scribble summoning runes on the ground. Claire now has to wait a minute for them to appear in her game, before she can activate them to summon me. Because that's so much more convenient than a join/host or adhoc-join via buddy list option. There is also a chance that some other player will find my summoning runes before they appear in Claire's game, meaning that any random fucker could force me to join their game, instead. I have no influence over who ends up summoning me - the first player to activate my rune summons me to their game and that's that.
It's a bit like sneaky outdoor sex. You gotta find some dark, deserted alley where nobody will find and interrupt you before you get to have any fun. Then she has to wait for me to get it up (the rune!) and jump it before anybody else does. I can appreciate that they wanted to encourage play with random strangers, but making coop with friends so awkward as a result is a major oversight.

It's annoying, but not annoying enough to stop teaming up from being fun. So let's stick with that dragon from our example, Claire summons me into her game and we battle our way through a dungeon to get to said dragon. And on the way there, we get invaded by enemy players. Because that's just one of those things about teaming up: If you open your game up to friendly players, you may also get invaded by player killers at any time. Which was fun in our case, because we kicked our invader's ass, but if the hosting player (Claire) gets killed by an invader, it will automatically terminate our session and teleport both of us back to our last respawn point ('bonfire'). Solo.
To make things a little more awkward, a summoned helping phantom (me) cannot use their healing potions ('Estus Flask'). When Claire heals herself, the game will restore some small portion of my health, but that's about it. If I'm defeated, I get kicked out of her game and transported all the way back, meaning we'll have to meet up again for another summoning attempt.

Sure - it makes sense in the spirit of the game's insanely tough difficulty level. It makes the whole experience seriously challenging for 'player two'. It's also anything but user-friendly and convenient. But eventually we made it, fought invading players, zombies, basilisks and lag and ended up fighting (and beating, yay!) that dragon. What happens is that I get some small portion of Claire's reward for helping out, then the game kicks me out of her session and teleports me back to where I placed my summoning rune, because the area boss is dead and my job is done. Oh and here's a fun detail: The dragon is only dead in her game, but it's still alive and kicking in mine, meaning we have to meet up again, Claire has to place a rune and I have to summon her as a phantom to help me kill the dragon in my game.

Basically, the idea behind this whole coop feature is to make people say, "I can't do this bit alone, let's summon another player to help me for a minute." There will be parts of the game, which Claire and I are going to play solo for the sake of only doing them once. We're probably gonna team up for every boss fight in this playthrough, which means we'll have to kill each and every one of them twice. Which sounds a lot more annoying and time-consuming than it really is. It's more enjoyable to beat the same boss twice as a team than failing a dozen times solo. And most boss battles are fun enough for us to enjoy them several times.
I think we'll manage to beat the first half of the game today and get through the rest as we get closer to the weekend. I hope lag, crashes and player killers won't prove me wrong.

- Cat

Oh hey, Monday!

It's Monday, all my friends are at work and I'm just sitting here procrasturbating. Meanwhile, booking face has been interrupted by a bit of a low blow:

We've been studying your profile and think this is relevant to you.

Facebook suggested I like Hitler the other day, now it's offering me to like Satan himself. I gotta start clearing my browser history more often.

My Dark Souls New Game + is calling my name and I want to play so hard! I have just started getting into this:

Stereo. Fucking. Greatswords.

I am only beginning to understand the real depth of this game's combat system, which is actually rather basic and straightforward on the surface. You put an item in your main hand. Swing it with one hand, two-hand it, totally up to you. And if you feel like it, put one in your left. Classic sword & board come to mind. Or a sword and a parry dagger. Or dual daggers if you want to be taught how MMO-style rogues make absolutely no fucking sense. I have seen youtubers beating the game dual-wielding shields. What the fuck, indeed.

Offhand-weapons don't magically double your attack power. A rapier may make it easier to parry and counter an attack, a greatsword may be swung and double as a crappy shield and an actual shield protects you, for as long as you actually remember to lift that fucker and aim it at whatever bad stuff is coming your way. Some folks block with one shield and bash with the other, just for challenge's sake and to prove it can be done.
All weapons come with different amounts of range, damage, speed and even their own set of moves and attacks. Over the course of the game you get to enhance your items, beef up that broadsword to "+15" or add a bit of fire or lightning damage to it, cool visual effect and everything. Naturally, some combinations make more sense than others, some are infinitely more difficult to play, but at the end of the day, every weapon and every fighting style is valid if you can learn to pull it off. I have seen people beating every single boss naked, swinging nothing but a nailed club. Which must have taken greater amounts of practice than I dare imagine, but I like that it can be done if you're really fucking good.

Meanwhile, Claire is running around on there like this:

Fucking dragonslayer armor. It's silver by default, but it's very easy to override textures in this game, so... yay. Now, if she could finally finish that first playthrough of hers, so we can finally play our NG+ in jolly cooperation, I would be so happy!

Teaming up isn't the only reason I want another playthrough. It turns out that the entire plot and the way I've interpreted it, is a lie. When I finally realized how much I've been manipulated and lied to, I felt like an American watching the Eurovision Songcontest.

Without getting too much into detail, let's just say I had no idea what was happening, because I'm too used to all the hand-holding and obvious decisions in most RPGs today. Some goddess tells me I'm the chosen one, I have to defeat some guy, light a fire, allow the world to continue as it is, yada, yada, yada. Heard it a thousand times, let's be nice to these important NPCs, impress them with my badassery, finish my epic quest, end of story. Turns out the goddess is an illusion, that whole prophecy stuff is a load of crap and not only does "saving the world" mean sacrificing yourself, but it also ensures that mankind will continue to be enslaved for many happy years to come until some other "chosen one" puts you out of your misery and replaces you the way you did with the final boss.

It's depressing, as there are no happy endings in Dark Souls. Not for you or any of the characters you meet along the way. They all go insane and/or die in some messy, dramatic way. What's nice, though, is how there is no good, benevolent god or a good king or some other pure white character, who tells you to slay some pure black bad guy and that's that. But I fully believed that's how the plot worked until I was done. I didn't question what's going on, I just did as I was told and... well, shit.

In other news, Hugo is growing. A lot. In case you don't remember, Hugo is this guy here:

We went outside with him last weekend and I'm still surprised by people's reactions. You see, he's a huge freakin' lizard. And lots of people are afraid of reptiles. Or so you would think, judging by how many people want them banned as pets, how lots of people consider them dangerous and slimy and venomous and deadly and all that sort of thing.
So we walked around town with him and people would stick their heads out of their cars as they drove by, people would stare and you could see that many of them weren't really sure how to react. It's a mindset thing around here. People don't point, they don't approach you and say, hey, that's one bigass lizard.

Well, kids do. And that's what amazed me the most. Some grandpa was taking the kids for a walk. Rugrats, no older than five, if that. Kids always ask questions, they always want to pet him, they never seem afraid at all. Interestingly enough, even the oldtimer wasn't at all put off by Hugo. Some people are a bit scared at first, but their curiosity usually wins and they all end up touching him and asking questions. I really like that. I won't lie to you - of course my inner attention whore is getting off to that kind of stuff. Nobody gives a shit when you bring a dog, but everybody wants to check out that giant reptile. But it also makes me happy to see how open-minded people can be. I believe that much of the reptile hate around here, and how some people want to see them banned, is born out of ignorance. I bet you all know that guy who knows another guy who owns a huge snake and one day he woke up and the snake was suddenly in his bed, next to him, getting ready to eat him. People actually believe that kinda crap. They believe a lot of stuff about reptiles, because believing is all you can do if you don't know.

If I had to choose, I'd rather be bitten by an angry ball python than an angry pitbull. And at the end of a day, most intelligent pets are only as good or as bad as you raise them. They can be a mirror of your personality and asshole pet owners usually have asshole pets. So maybe, instead of banning certain kinds of pets altogether, make it more difficult for people who don't really care to get a pet, any pet, in the first place.

-Cat

Home office sucks, pre-release hype sucks harder

I think I'm gonna move my desk to a cave. Take the laptop with me, do all my work there, save it, upload it when I get home. Yes, I'm having one of those days again.

Dear mystery neighbour. If I don't respond when you knock on my door, even though you can hear me in there, then I probably don't want to talk to you. Please don't start hammering against the back door. Please don't knock on my window. Go. Away.
Just because I'm sitting in front of my PC all day does not mean I'm lonely and waiting to socialise. I'm trying to do my fucking job. During the day, this place is my office.
Yes, you may see me playing video games with no pants on whenever you peek through the window. That still means I'm working. My job is that awesome. Or you may find me testing my controller's rumble function with my genitals. A lot. Which means I'm not necessarily working, but I'm still not longing for your company.

So before you knock on my fucking door, ask yourself: Is my house on fire? If not, fuck off. Are you on fire? If so, call 999 or bother some other neighbour. Are you currently bleeding to death? Same thing. Are you on fire and/or bleeding to death, your phone is dead and none of the other neighbours respond? Fine, knock on my door if you must, but then please wait the fuck outside the house, where I can hose your remains off the stairs. Don't burn or bleed all over the carpet in the god damn corridor.

Maybe I should get a new job. Game design sounds fun. Sell people the same shit every year and they never notice it until they've given you their money. Seriously, have you nimrods learned absolutely nothing in the 8+ years WoW has been around, successfully destroying all of its competition within just a month or two?
Every year, with every fucking MMO release, I see the same shit repeat itself. Neverwinter. Holy fuck. The euphoria on the forums. The vast amounts of stupid people. Game wasn't even out yet and people posted about how they have spent hundreds of dollars on founders' packs, cash shop currency and all kinds of useless fluff. And the way they justify their own idiocy, god fucking dammit!

"I have a good feeling about this game and this company. I know I won't be disappointed when I support them, I know a good thing when I see one." Blah fucking blah. What happened? The game turned out to be just another MMORPG. Not a bad one, mind, but there are dozens of good MMOs out there, most of them more or less free to play. No one gives a crap about good anymore. Good ain't good enough.
Anyone looking at closed beta footage, previews, interviews, you know, fucking information you get for free on the internet with little to no research involved, you coulda seen it coming. It's not really a surprise or anything. But look at the Neverwinter forums now, a little over a month after launch. Sorry, "open beta".

The same dipshits, who originally bragged about spending hundreds in real currency on a game they didn't know shit about, now demand their money back. Some of them go as far as having everything refunded through the credit card company, which borders on fraud. The American way. Customer is always right, "if this game was a car", that kinda shit. So you go and spend a ton of money on mounts, dyes, pets and god knows what, you receive all of that stuff, it all works, but then you don't really like the game, so you go and charge your money back. For stuff you've received, that wasn't broken or faulty. Nice. I'm starting to see why some people throw out so much money on virtual shit to begin with. Doesn't really hurt when you're planning on taking it all back a little while later, huh? Assholes.

Now the exact same thing is about to happen with Elder Scrolls Online. Random poll on Facebook. "Do you think this game is going to be the next MMO hit?" And I dared to say no. Because the game doesn't really offer anything new or groundbreaking. Holy shit. The last time I've seen so many personal insults and death threats on facebook was when somebody posted a video that showed someone "drowning" a bag full of puppies. Mind you, I never said the game was gonna be shit or anything, I merely said it's nothing new. People actually demanded I "prove" these things instead of just saying them. Because, you know, the internet isn't full of previews and fact sheets and shit, available to anyone who is willing to look for them.

According to the lynch mob on Facebook, this game is gonna be the next big thing, because of (optional) 1st person combat and because of the "fantastic game world" you'll want to explore, sans quest hubs and all. Right. Because a modernized combat system totally helped Age of Conan, Tera and Neverwinter to become major blockbuster games, right? 1st person perspective as a groundbreaking new feature? Funny fuckers. And the whole "go explore, no questhubs" stuff is great, but that didn't make Guild Wars 2 the next big thing, either. In fact, people just look up maps on the internet and walk from one important location to another, just the way they do in MMORPGs with exclamation points and quest markers. Durrr! And what else is there? Raids? PvP? Yay. Never seen that kinda stuff before.
And don't get me started on Tamriel. Why do people suddenly consider Tamriel to be such an amazing setting? It's generic, derivative high fantasy. And even if it was as great as people make it out to be - since when does a powerful setting or franchise make a good game? Is anyone still playing SWTOR? You may love or hate Star Wars, but you can't deny the SW-license is infinitely stronger than Tamriel. And what good did that do, again? Lord of the Rings? Conan? Warhammer? Ha!

But the whole drama repeats. People are blind, naive and stupid. They believe this is the next big thing. If anyone disagrees, they consider it a personal insult. Then let them play for a month. Maybe two months. Until they see they're still playing just another MMORPG, where people do the exact same shit they do in every MMORPG. And suddenly, the same idiots who openly attacked everyone for not getting all hyped up get butthurt. Worst game ever, nothing but empty promises, huge disappointment, don't play this shit, blah, blah, blah. SWTOR all over again. Neverwinter all over again. Every fucking online game since WoW all over again. The cycle repeats. Over and over. People learn nothing.

Let me give you a little hint, you bunch of sheep: Have you played WoW to death, possibly since day one, got more and more annoyed with it and eventually gave up on it because even the thought of coming back bores you?
Don't. Buy. Fucking. MMORPGs.
What bores you isn't the setting. It's not the classes, the balance changes or the damn dungeons. It's the very genre. Repeat the same shit over and over again for years. Farm tokens. Repeat daily quests. NOBODY likes that shit. Why do you think people quit playing SWTOR when they were done with the personal story? Because after that, it's WoW with lightsabers. On a funny side note, I said exactly that during the beta of SWTOR. People told me I'm clueless and I should go fuck myself. You know. Those guys who stopped playing four weeks later. Because it was actually just WoW with lightsabers. Did I mention this is exactly what's going on with TESO right now? :P

Why do you think there is absolutely zero information on Titan, other than PR-bullshit stating it's gonna completely re-define the genre? Why do you think they had to "start over"? Because nobody fucking knows how to stop MMORPGs from being so fucking repetitive and boring when you reach the level cap. Guild Wars 2 tried it by completely removing the endgame. So people bitch about how there's no endgame. Neverwinter lets you buy endgame gear with real cash, so you don't have to do daily crap and dungeons if you don't want to. People bitch about that, too. And classic, WoW-style endgame, where you farm tokens, reputation and other shit for meaningless purple crap. Come on - that's the kind of stuff which made you believe games like TESO could end your misery in the first place.

Maybe the era of MMORPGs, if there has ever been such a thing, has come to an end. Maybe there should be more decent RPGs with (optional) multiplayer. Because what is it that many of us enjoy the most, really? Level up, unlock new skills, explore vast new landscapes. We only stop when the growth and the exploration ends and the grind and the repetition start. A good (offline) RPG ends where MMORPG endgame begins. There's your problem.

-Cat