See Ya, 2014!

Our dog is still growing.

2014 has been one of the most... erm... interesting years in my life. Christmas is approaching rapidly and I finally get to sit down and chill out for a while. Which, of course, is a complete lie, because I'm still writing reviews, posting news and doing a few new things with all that creative energy, since being a freelance games critic doesn't really pay the bills anymore. In fact, I've reached a new low where magazines offer one third of the money that I used to get when I first started writing about these games roughly half a decade ago. Of course I don't accept grossly underpaid job offers like that, but by the end of the day that means I still have my dignity and nothing to eat. So instead of just writing about games I now get to help create them by writing quest text and helping out with translations. It requires more or less the same level of wit and creativity but without the math (German review scores are fucking horrible!) and without a bunch of 14 year old shitheads jerking off all over the comments section. If you happen to be one of my German commenters on any of the websites I work for, yes, I just called you a shithead and I hope you die. If you're one of my employers, please don't fire me. :P

I don't claim to know anything about game design or the development of games, but at least in the case of the game I get to write for, the actual mechanics, the stuff you click on, the things you do in the game are already implemented and working. There is just no story for that particular content. You see, the devs just have this spot on a map, which features a certain setting, players go there to quest, loot, same old, but there is no explanation as to why anyone would have to go there or what's going on. And that's where I come in. It's pretty exciting stuff, because you come up with a background story and a fitting quest chain and then the devs put all your text in the game and eventually you get to play all the stuff you wrote about.
It's complicated, too, because everything needs to fit the overall theme and setting of the game, so stuff goes back and forth for a while, things get rewritten, some stuff makes it in there right away and sometimes a series of quest texts goes straight in the bin, because it just doesn't fit. The whole thing is far from being an impressive AAA-production, but it's fun to help create something, even if it's small and not incredibly significant. Good money, too, so I'm happy. And by now I've written paid columns, adverts, manuals, translations, reviews, game text... wow. And it all started with a crappy little blog like this one.

How to ruin your mood in one easy step: 1. Launch Dark Souls.

We're trying to fit in some exciting shit with all the work I get to do these days, so there's still a lot of Warframe going on and we're also back on Dark Souls, because we're fucking masochists. Seriously, after five minutes of Dark Souls, even the toughest challenges on Warframe feel like a vacation. Especially since their community ladies are being so nice with me.

Burrrr-surrrr-kurrrr...
Digital Extremes are hosting some of the best live streams and this moment really made my day.

And since I'm already linking my shit on Youtube - the channel is starting to see more activity and subscribers, so the new mic must be doing something. With that said, I still went down from 250k views to only a little above 150k when I removed one video, which showed the drawing of a naked lady on my psp's wallpaper for about four nanoseconds. It's a bit depressing, really. I can try voice, no voice, music, guides, reviews, gameplay or what the fuck ever, but all it takes for a video to be REALLY successful is a split-second of vagina.

As for Dark Souls, I didn't actually want to get back into it, but with the recent migration from GFWL to Steam I had to fire it up again, then I had to make sure my old savegames still work and then I played around for a bit and one thing lead to another and... yeah.

So much suffering.

And let's be honest here for a minute: Much of the praise this game is getting for being incredibly difficult but never unfair is a load of bullshit. When enemies, traps and other shit that can kill you in one hit lurk around every corner, usually hidden in a way that makes it impossible for you to react until it's too late, there is very little fair play involved. Forcing you to memorize the layout of a level isn't fair, it's actually pretty bad game design.

So coming back to the game after more than a year of inactivity on a New Game++++ is an exercise in frustration. But there is just something about Dark Souls. The gritty, depressing setting, the sad music, the futility of it all, the whole thing is a very melancholic work of art. And finally beating a ridiculously unfair boss fight after getting your ass kicked for god knows how many hours feels much more satisfying than it should. The game also allows for a lot of different play styles and I'm really enjoying the combat system.

You can dual-wield just about anything from cool stuff that makes sense (claws, knives, fencing weapons + parry daggers) to shit that makes no sense at all (dual shields, dual twohanders), use quick and agile builds, which rely on parrying, dodging and backstabbing or power-heavy builds with heavy weapons and armor, clocking in at significantly fewer swings per minute, but making every hit count that much more.

And I can't help it. Though I've already finished the whole thing and all the bosses multiple times and though I'm playing like a complete and utter noob again after my long break, I just can't stop playing it. I'm using this ridiculous combination of gear where I'm swinging a giant two-handed sword in slow motion, blocking most hits with a shield the size of an average dinner table and shooting baddies with my really awesome triple crossbow. The real fun starts when Claire and I play in co-op and people invade us, so I just stun-lock them with lightning bolts while Claire hacks them to bits. And then we usually get a whole lot of hateful messages for fighting 2vs1 and for not bowing and stupid shit like that.

Do I look like I'm gonna give you a respectful bow before I kick your ass?

This is the one thing that seriously bothers me about the Dark Souls community. People can invade other players' sessions and attempt to kill them in pvp. It's part of the game and I can live with that, even though some assholes spend all day collecting all the most powerful items on deliberately underleveled characters in order to kill total newcomers, who wouldn't stand a chance with or without gear, anyway. It's entirely possible that some dickhead will enter your game during your very first hour on Dark Souls and just thrash you with the game's most powerful items while you're still trying to figure out how to jump. Because people will do anything to win and to gain an unfair advantage.

Ironically, these guys don't just enter your game, chop you up and leave again. They use the emote system and fucking bow before they attack. In fact, it's considered common courtesy to return that emote. Because "honor". "Ohai, I suck too hard to fight consenting PvPers in the arena, so I have to invade noobs. Please accept my humble bow." So if you bow to me during an invasion, it's likely the last thing you'll do. And if you're expecting me to take turns with my team mate and attack you one at a time, well, GO FUCK YOURSELF!

I'm still on the fence about Dark Souls 2. On the one hand it's on Steam Sale right now for 11 Quid. Better dual-wielding, more gear, better magic, much larger game world, more stuff to do. On the other hand, I'm still having fun with the first one and while most people agree that Dark Souls 2 is an okay game by itself, it's a disappointing "Souls" game. There is also way too much troll crap going on in pvp and people on the forums complain about "hackers" a lot. Which is no great surprise, seeing how Dark Souls stores save files locally, meaning any idiot can alter them with a simple hex editor or even change files "live" using a memory editor. Oh hey, look at me, I'm such a total hacker!

And they're already working on a "next gen" DX11 version with the DLC already included, so I should probably just wait a little longer.

Claire is back on WoW. It was actually me who said she should just go and get WoD, even though I hate the idea of her hanging around on there all day while I'm playing other shit by myself, but we're taking a few hours each day where we still do stuff together. And the initial hype has already died down a bit. She's still on there a lot, but she's no longer over the top crazy about it. To be fair, I've heard the exact same stuff from my old man, whose sudden death was, in part, related to his WoW addiction. Make no mistake, he was just the kind of guy who was easily addicted, so if it hadn't been WoW it would have been something else and I don't blame the game. But I just can't play it anymore and wouldn't do it, even if it wasn't for all the changes and simplifications which I'm no huge fan of.

Classic AV was fucking tedious. I miss it a lot.

We had this messed up relationship and never really talked or did anything together. For my 9th birthday I didn't ask for any presents or anything and just wanted to spend a day with him, because he was always working or playing video games. Azeroth was the only place where I could really reach him.

I've done some amazing shit on there with him and Claire. The three of us would tackle instances way above our own levels, just the three of us, and we'd win. He was a lousy father, but he was one of the best hunters I've ever known. What a weird thing to say. Walking around Ironforge, flying over Dun Morogh, knowing I won't see the login-spam from his army of characters, who covered just about every profession there is, knowing he won't send me messages on there and we're not playing any dungeons - I just can't do it. Sometimes I wanna log on there and roll a dwarven hunter and name him Redbeard like the first character who became his main, the first one he leveled all the way to 60. There are plenty of memorials in Azeroth dedicated to people who died in real life, so the idea isn't even that far-fetched. WoW was his happy place. The guy had his problems and he ran away from them when he was on there all day, but it's where he chose to be and where I've buried most of my happy memories about him, for as weird and as sad as it might be. It would be nice to have him remembered on there. Oh well.

We were such noobs back then.

I'm still writing the odd game review here and there, but it's mostly news these days. And hopefully more quest text and translations, because that stuff is a lot more fun than news. I wish I had the time to put something useful on my Youtube channel in between all that stuff, but there are only so many hours in a day and the really annoying stuff usually pays the most. Haha, "pays". Working 7 days a week, every week and being able to juuuust pay the rent and buy food isn't fun. I thought that kind of shit would end when I stopped working in call centres and doing retarded data typist crap, but poverty seems to be the way to go, no matter what. On then, to a poor, filthy 2015! At least we're having fun.

-Cat