Hey there, my 20 or so anonymous readers!
Remember our baby raptor?
So delicate and tiny, his head making up 30% of his entire body. And look at those huuuuge baby eyes. Well, that was a half year ago. Look at him now:
You can't see his loooong tail in that picture, but even then he looks pretty huge compared to how little he used to be. And he's still gonna more or less double in size from where he's currently at! Ha!
He's pretty tame by now. He will attack the gloves we use for feeding and handling, because he associates them with food, but once he realizes that there is in fact nothing to eat, he lets go pretty quickly and avoids the hand completely.
Our scaled friend isn't a huge fan of being picked up and removed from the safety of his tank. The house is big and scary, there are nosy cats roaming about and it's hard to explore when Claire holds him by the tail like it was some kind of leash. Though he doesn't seem to mind that much. In fact, whenever he's had enough, he'll come straight back to her, jump into her lap and climb up onto her shoulder. He's still a bit shy around me, which makes sense, since Claire brings the food and I just clean up the crap. She's the chef and I'm the janitor, go figure!
I'm amazed at how fearless she is when it comes to handling that guy! You see, Hugo Bosc was a Christmas present. To me, because I had been drooling over him ever since the day they got him at the shop. I've been fascinated with large monitor lizards ever since I've seen a bunch of Komodo dragons on tv. Now, of course he's never gonna be as massive as one of those guys, but their intelligence, inquisitive nature, the way they move, the way they look like fucking dinosaurs, it's all there and incredibly fascinating. So yeah, I'm a big fan.
Claire, on the other hand, has always been more of a snake person. That's a weird thing with reptile enthusiasts. For some reason, you're either into snakes or lizards, but many people aren't into both. Claire has always kept snakes. Her python is her pride and joy. When I wanted a bearded dragon, she would tolerate our lizard, but she wasn't exactly crazy about the whole thing. I'm the lizard guy here.
But after she had spent lots of time taming our little Savannah monitor to prepare him for being a present and all, he began to grow on her. Believe it or not, she really likes our beardies now, too (yes, plural, we rescued one a while back). And to see how she handles our monitor lizard... holy fuck! When it comes to jobs that require even the tiniest amount of dexterity, Claire is doomed to fail and fumble. I'm saying this with all the love in the world, but she has difficulty unboxing a pizza. I have yet to see her finish a bowl of pasta without dropping half her dinner on the sofa, herself and the carpet. She's just not very good at using her hands.
But when she handles reptiles, it's like she turns into a completely different person. Like she's channeling Steve Irwin or some shit!
You see, a Savannah monitor isn't exactly a hamster or a kitten. When that sucker hisses at you, it's pretty damn scary and you better leave him the fuck alone. His tail-whip can cause serious bruises, his claws are fucking sharp and you'll want to thoroughly clean out any bite marks he might give to you. It takes some getting used to!
When I had my first cat, I'd freak the fuck out whenever it tried to scratch or bite me, because I didn't know what to expect, I didn't know just how painful it was really gonna be and there's that innate fear of pain any sane human being should possess. Nowadays, I don't even give a fuck. My cat wants to bite me? Here, take the whole hand! I'm not scared of you!
With the monitor lizard it's like the first ever cat all over again. Is he just inspecting my hand or does he consider it food? Is he struggling because he wants me to put him down or is he about to shit all over me? I can't read or predict him, I don't know what to expect, how harmless or painful certain mistakes are going to be. Claire? Damn thing hisses at her, she tells him to shut up and grabs him anyway. Holds him in place when he tries to run off. Until he calms down and chills the fuck out. She chucks him in the bath tub, leads him around the house by his tail, treats him like some kind of stuffed cuddly toy and he puts up with it. I've seen some weird shit in my life, but this is really something. A special kind of weird shit.
Oh, speaking of weird shit - check this out:
It's so awful, it could be an old Sega commercial. Yes, yes, or Nintendo, but I think Arenanet are reaching a Sega-level of stupid right there.
And it's fucking genius! People see it, they realize it's April 1st and then assume that the whole thing isn't actually for real. Well, look at this:
Not only did they add a whole blocky pixel world for people to explore, but they come with freaky chiptunes, as well.
My only problem with this new content is that I don't care about jumping puzzles and secret rooms and bonus treasure chests and 100% completion and crap. I'm a fighter, not a fat Italian plumber! And since our guild has exactly 5 active members, myself included, well... I get dragged along for this stuff. I'd much rather kill random people in pvp and let the guild handle this stuff on their own.
That said, I find it amazing how much new stuff they manage to put into their game so fast, all the time, at such high quality. And no extra cost, at that. The fact I'm not personally interested in adventures of the jumpy variety doesn't make the new 'Super Adventure Box' any less awesome. Yes, I think the Halloween scavenger hunt was lame (loved the dungeons and the fucking chainsaw!), the Karka invasion was awful and the toy factory was fun for exactly one day. To me, this stuff is the best new content quality-wise. The new 'living story' adventure segments look pretty neat, as well. I'm just amazed at how they pull this off, especially when I look at how other games do it.
Cataclysm... eh, let's not talk about it. Water under the bridge and all that. Ever since the start of MoP, WoW gets content updates every three months, right? Mostly daily quests, no new 5man instances and a bit of raidy stuff, which average Joe gets to enjoy for about 30 minutes per week. Not really super massive amounts of stuff, but it gives people something to do. Provided they're willing to pay 9 Quid, 13 Euros or 15 bucks a month. Then there are "free 2 play" games, where every new bit of content is released in the form of 'adventure packs', which force you to shell out cash or you don't get to play them at all. And there are F2P games, which really aren't. Like SWTOR.
I paid money to play GW2 once. Exactly once. When I bought the actual game. I've upgraded to the digital collector's edition with ingame gold. That's it. No fees, no adventure packs, no "you must be this rich to play". I'm fully expecting them to announce some whopping expansion pack any day and I'll happily shell out any amount of money they'll want for it. But right now, the damn things just keeps on growing and adding more and more stuff and it's all free. I don't know how the fuck they do it. How they manage to add so much stuff at such an insane rate or how they afford running their servers without monthly fees and nothing but useless shit in the item shop. Name changers, makeover kits, decorative town clothes... who the hell buys that stuff anyway? Lots of people, apparently, because ANet have to pay their employees somehow!
In other news, I had a chance to interview Mark fucking Jacobs about Camelot Unchained! He's the guy behind Dark Age of Camelot, which many gamers consider the one and only true RvR MMORPG out there. So it's not a big surprise that Camelot Unchained is going to be another RvR game, which will feature no pve, quests or dungeons whatsoever. So, um... how the hell is that even supposed to work? In a day and age where most MMOs feature massive pvp battles as well as raids, dungeons, personal storylines and what have you, he wants people to play a game, which features nothing but player vs player battles? Well, I had a chance to ask him and he seems pretty serious about the whole thing. I can't wait to see how the game turns out and I wish him best of luck with it. I'd love to share the whole interview right here, but I don't think my employers would be too happy with that. :P
Still, how fucking cool is that? I love my job! :D
Of course nothing is ever perfect. It's Easter, I'm down with the zombie flu and I'm craving a healthy mix of bed and computer games, but I need to crank out some articles in a presentable fashion by tomorrow. And I'm just sitting here procrastinating. Back to work with me!
-Cat
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen