Archmage Xylem’s Random Tasks

A while ago, a friend directed me towards the Image of Archmage Xylem, and a series of quests involving some rather random puzzles.  It seems that he’s meant for mages only, so I had to pretend to be a mage by approaching him wearing a dingy Wizard’s Hat.  After the errands he and his apprentices set me, he took me off to Arcane Pinnacle for the interesting quests..

Watch Your Step was the first of these, which had me being propelled up the ledges by magical jump pads while tagging conduits and trying to avoid detonations that would send me flying off the edge and into the water.  This was more tricky than expected and I got thrown into the water a few times!

I could have flown up instead, but that would have been cheating 😉

Once at the top, there were three more trials: the Trial of Fire, the Trial of Frost and the Trial of Shadow.
The Trial of Fire required hopping around over runes while avoiding the fire..

As there was a little bolt of fire travelling to each rune that would be on fire next, it was easy to see which were clear, and therefore safe to stand on for the next round of fire.

The Trial of Frost was next, and more difficult than the Trial of Fire.  This was set on a plateau which had three spheres which put out a frost burn affect, and frost runes on the ground which you could stand on to be propelled upwards.  The challenge was in collecting 20 stacks of Essense of Ice, which could be collected from Frost Orbs which appeared around the hazards.

I found the rotating frost burn effects hard to avoid, especially as I couldn’t out-run them.. fortunately they only removed one stack of Essence of Ice per hit.  The frost runes were mostly beneficial, though I did get thrown when I didn’t want to a few times, landing in the path of the frost burn.
Eventually I picked up enough stacks to complete the challenge 🙂

After that, I expected the Trial of Shadow to be more difficult, but it was surprisingly easy.  Once a Weeping Soul was summoned, it came straight for me in a nice predictable line.. this made them very easy to lead over rune traps!

Muckbreath

A friend told me that Crocolisks in the City was up again, so I went to do the task and see if I could get anything interesting..

Muckbreath’s Bucket turned up in the Bag of Fishing Treasures!

Muckbreath is a little darker than Toothy, who I picked up recently 😀

i-42

Where i-40 was cold and windy, especially in the temporary structure we were seated in, i-42 was sunny and hot almost the whole way through.. 😀

I drove half the way down, with a death-grip on the steering wheel (I’ve not done very much motorway driving), past a ridiculous number of lorries and one place where an accident on the other side of the road caused our side to slow to around 10mph.  Tim took the last part of the driving.. we were hoping to catch up with another friend at this point, as text messages had shown we were only 5 minutes behind, but with a stop-off at Sainsbury’s we were never going to make it. 😀

Check-in was again nice and quick thanks to arriving early, and instead of waiting around to take our PCs in at 6, we headed to the pub for food and drinks first.

All in all this was far better than the cold and wet start to i40 last year.. we hadn’t been able to go into the site as the internet hadn’t been set up for our temporary structure!  Our group were seated in B1 this time, away from the loud and annoying people who think roaring for every reload is ‘atmosphere’.  Although it was still hot, there was a balcony to escape to, and it was a lot quieter and nothing was being thrown around.. definitely going to be pushing for this spot next event.

One of the first games I played here was the awesome Portal 2, which I had started earlier but lacked the time to finish.  Plenty of other people were playing, with some on co-op, so I had to get a move on to avoid being spoiled..

I loved GlaDOS’ malicious comments in the earlier part of the game, though I wondered how I was going to end up making a break for it as she seemed happy to test me endlessly.  Wheatley was quite funny up until his change, which I think I should have spotted.. but I was rather gleeful when he turned GLaDOS into a potato even if he did still have me trapped.

The different coloured gels were a lot of fun.  On my first encounter with the white goop though, I wasn’t entirely sure what to do and ended up covering as many surfaces as I could in frustration, before spotting the little ledge I was meant to go to.  I loved evil Wheatley, especially when he tried to kill me in stupidly obvious ways.. 🙂

The second day of LAN involved a barbeque with the rest of our group.. we had the weather for it this time at least.  I’m not sure if we’re technically allowed to have BBQs on-site, but no security turned up, so no matter 😉

We also took a look through the exhibition hall, where we tried out a few games on the Nintendo 3DS, including Dead or Alive: Dimensions, Kid Icarus: Uprising, and a Zelda game which made me feel quite ill trying to focus on the screen while moving it around to aim the catapult.  While I love the idea, I’m going to be staying away from the 3DS.. if I feel bad after a few minutes use, it’s just not for me.

Aside from this, the only other real point of interest for me was the Demon stand, where they had an amazing car simulator running DIRT 2.  The fastest lap was to be rewarded with a year’s free internet, and of course I came nowhere near the quickest time though I loved the experience.  The seat, pedals and wheel come to some crazy price.. I think £24,000 was mentioned..

Elsewhere in the hall it was surprisingly quiet.. no freebies, and very little attempts by staff to draw people in to the various stands either.  There were people playing on what might have been some kind of tournament, but with no real interaction, we wandered through and back out again.

There are usually a number of flyers on the desks, and this time there was a 50% discount for the EA Store.  After trying out Bulletstorm on a friend’s PC, I bought both that and Crysis 2.. so much for not buying any more games.. 🙂

I made a start on Crysis 2.. but there were too many distractions to concentrate on it during the day and I was playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent when it got late.  There were a few changes to the sections I’d seen in the demo, with a bit more puzzle in the form of the chemicals I needed to find and mix.  The part where I had to avoid an invisible enemy in the water made me just as jumpy as when I’d originally seen it, which was probably amusing for those near me in our row.

Other games which saw some action were Beat Hazard on a friend’s computer while he played GRID on mine, some Killing Floor, an attempt at League of Legends (seriously out of practise) and a round or two of Unreal Tournament 3.  I had also brought along my Xbox 360, so there was a quick look at Stacking, and a bit of the co-op Zombie Mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops, as well as an all-too-brief look at Homefront for a friend who hadn’t seen it yet.  Maybe next time!

Tim made some use of his 30 day trial of WoW, though it was hard to tell if he was enjoying it or putting up with it for the sake of saying he’d had a go.  I also managed to get a little bit of time in WoW, and started off collecting bits for the Noblegarden Easter Event.. there were plenty of bunnies hopping around, including a pet.. 😉

I also pestered a friend to show me where to get the rather interesting Venomhide mount.. a pet which turns into a mount!

Unlike my Warrior friend, I had no trouble in being poisoned the required number of times.. he had to take off all his gear and use the most useless weapon he could find, whereas I just hit the Ravasaur with the basket I was collecting eggs in 😉

Eventually I had been poisoned enough and I was given my own Hatchling to take care of..

Our last night of LAN included some non-gaming hijinks as one friend started falling asleep in his chair.. this meant he got plastic cups balanced on his head :>
There was no chance of an all-nighter this time either.. all too tired, maybe from the heat, and we headed back to the tents at around 4.30am.

The last day didn’t include the usual CFMN vs inv TF2 match; instead we had a big game of L4d2 versus.. for which I had to switch to Tim’s PC as my copy of L4d2 had managed to corrupt itself.  Awesome game.. will have to make sure that we get more of this played from home too 🙂

Battle for Mount Hyjal Complete!

We attempted to clear this raid during the week, but weren’t able to get past Azgalor..

Take two, then!  As our Mage produces the highest DPS in our group, he was given the soulstone so he could res after being killed by Doom when it was his turn.  He was the first to die in this fight, but got marked up again as soon as he was back up!

Although we were slowly winning the fight, Azgalor was still applying Doom and killing us.  Our tank was the last man standing, and finished Azgalor off before the debuff was applied to him. 🙂

We left the Horde encampment and went on to the Night Elf area, and Archimonde, the final boss..

Archimonde was more painful.. his mechanic involves throwing us into the air at intervals, and we’re meant to use the Tears of the Goddess to slow the fall.  After being thrown, I discovered the Tears of the Goddess didn’t last very long.. applying it straight after being thrown meant it wore out and I hit the ground hard.  I think I’ll stick to Levitate!

On our second attempt, I was thrown far from the fight, only getting back in time for Archimonde to fear the group away, meaning I couldn’t heal the tank and he died.  Our mage then tanked for a while, with my smite-healing providing enough to keep him up until the next fear, which disrupted us too much.

There were no freak accidents on the third time round, and once we brought him down to low health, we were joined by a load of Ancient Wisps for the last part of the fight, and an invulnerability buff thanks to Tyrande Whisperwind let us attack without fear.

Group photo! 😀

The Enchanted Lantern

I collect pets and mounts in WoW, and knowing this, a friend said that if I were to get a Maelstrom Crystal, he would make me an Enchanted Lantern.

Tonight, I remembered to look in the Auction House for one, but was fairly shocked at the price of the crystals.. I decided I’d rather just wait for now, and either the price would come down, or we’d eventually come across one for ourselves.

My friends didn’t wait though, and between them got a crystal and made the pet anyway! 🙂

The lantern was a lot bigger and brighter than I expected.. like the Wind Rider Cub, it also flew when I did 🙂

More Old Raids – Black Temple

I had a whole two days away from WoW after letting my three-month sub expire.. going outdoors and getting daylight.. playing Fable III.. but there’s no rest for the wicked, so I returned on Sunday evening for some more old content with the rest of my lovely guild.

Black Temple was next up on the achievement hit-list.. we entered through the sewers and after one friend pointed out that the Aqueous Lords were urine-based, I levitated myself and Vorlak so we wouldn’t have to walk in it 😉

The second boss, Supremus, was a huge abyssal demon..

When I stopped the group for the screenshot, the others noticed something very interesting in the sky.. Azeroth!

I was warned of Supremus’ volcanoes, but was a little disappointed when they showed up because they were rather small.. especially beside him anyway.  They were easy enough to avoid, too..

Teron Gorefiend was an interesting boss, thanks to the mechanic involving the player dying and returning in ghost form.
At first I thought this was a fail in my healing, but then found out it was the mechanic.  You only get one minute in ghost form, but during that time you have the ability to chain the shadowy mobs which appear when you die, as well as shield anyone still alive.. just Vorlak by the time I got killed.. and of course you can attack the boss too 🙂
I would like to try this again, as I now know what to expect.

Somewhere around here I was hit by an interesting bug.. I was still able to move and cast as normal, but otherwise I was slumped over with a sleep effect on me.  Later this was joined by a dazed effect.. they lasted until I was killed.

I hated the Reliquary of Souls.. running the gauntlet to get to this boss was fine, and even the lack of a rest before the boss was fine.. but the boss itself? Ouch.

Essense of Suffering was the first phase.. a 100% reduction in healing meant I could only apply PW:S or attack.. but this was beaten in pain levels by the second phase: Essense of Desire.  Desire? Oh yes.. I wanted more mana, as my pool got smaller and smaller, and everyone else wanted more healing as they were taking damage equal to 50% of the damage dealt.  We wiped on the first attempt, but the guys were successful in interrupting the boss’ attacks on the second, and we got into the third phase.. which by comparison was easy as it was just damage to heal through.

Gurtogg Bloodboil, a massive fel orc, was also fun.. though he killed me on our first attempt when he randomly charged at me.  I liked him when we had our second go though, partly because he made me massive and powerful with the Fel Rage buff that also reset my Shadowfiend cooldown!

Another highlight of our trip was the Den of Mortal Delights.. well, what can I say about this place?  It brought plenty of smut out, anyways.. our temporarily fire-specced Mage had the best line, saying that the ladies were hot for him.. before burning them 😉

The boss, Mother Shahraz, was easy enough to kill though she had an annoying mechanic: Fatal Attraction pulled us on top of each other, applying a debuff so we then hurt each other.  Run away!

We finally got to Illidan..

We were able to pose around him without him moving, as he had to be started off elsewhere..

Somebody started off the fight by talking to Akama, who was tucked away round the corner from where we’d been posing with Illidan.  There was some dialogue.. and then fighting 🙂

We knocked Illidan down fairly quickly in the first phase, but then met the two Flames of Azzinoth, which put out huge beams and threw fireballs at us until we were dead.  We split off for these on our second attempt, with two of us on the first Flame and the other three on the second Flame.. this time it was easier to avoid the beams and fireballs.

Illidan then landed, and didn’t last long especially as we were joined by Maiev Shadowsong (the namesake of our server!).

Sadly, he didn’t drop the Warglaives of Azzinoth.. but hey, we can always go back again 😉

Reins of the Red Proto-Drake

Over the last week we’ve been achievement-whoring our way through more old content..

Today, I managed to complete “Glory of the Hero”, which meant a very nice reward: The Reins of the Red Proto-Drake!

This also brings me to 25 mounts, and the achievement “Filling Up the Barn” 🙂

Critter Gitter!

A friend just sent me some Critter Bites.. which allows me to turn critters into temporary pets!

I started grabbing all the critters I could find around Orgrimmar, until not only did I have the achievement “Critter Gitter”, I also had a large following of dung beetles, toads and other small critters.. wheeee! 🙂

Goblins!

We finally rolled our Goblin characters.. Scragglefizz and Fizwik.

Fizwik is a Hunter, and Scragglefizz is a Shaman.
Goblin totems are these rather interesting drill-looking things.. when I got my first totem I was rather pleased I’d gone Shaman 🙂

I absolutely loved the Goblin starting area; it just seems to have been designed to go a bit wild in!  There are little roads everywhere, and one of the first things you’re given is a Hot Rod to go and collect your friends in.  There was rather a lot of accidental bumping of pedestrians, followed by more intentional bumping as they yelled at us 🙂

We also got to take charge of a modified Shredder to kick ‘footbombs’.. Deathwing appeared over the mountain as we were kicking balls, and of course, I went for firing them at him as he flew overhead 😉

It was then that the mountain starts to blow.. so the next quests involved collecting riches and attempting to get off the island.. the only boat being that of Trade Prince Galliwix, who does a double-cross as you hand over your life savings!  Can I kill him?  I want to kill him..

The ship then heads for Azshara, but meets some ships en-route.. and the Alliance blasted us!  We washed up with the wreckage on the shores of The Lost Isles..and after gathering supplies, getting rid of some pestering monkeys and attaching fireworks to cluckers.. the goblins had to settle this new area.

This meant the Town-In-A-Box came out..

(Screenshot taken from Wowhead, since I was too busy being excited about a big pile of explosives to take one myself!)

Hitting the plunger set off some seriously impressive phasing as we were blasted up into the air in a cloud of smoke, to come down in the middle of a small town 🙂

If you want to see this without playing through the levels, there’s a video on Youtube: Town-In-A-Box Creation.

Are Games Too Short?

The subject of game length has come up again at work this week, with complaints about Homefront’s short single player campaign of four to five hours.  I got rather annoyed with the double-standards of some people whining about Homefront but being perfectly happy with the length of the single-player campaigns in the Call of Duty series.. they’re all about the same length!

Personally, I think five hours isn’t enough if that’s the entire game.. I really wasn’t happy when I completed Half Life 2: Episode 2 in just a few hours.
However, in most games there are extra modes, and for Homefront and the Call of Duty series, there is a lot of playability in the multiplayer part of the games.. though if you are only interested in single-player, that’s no consolation.

A short game with great action and really memorable sections should be considered far superior to a longer but less fun game.. but it seems that some people dismiss a short game as being poor value for money regardless.  I wonder where this leaves us for the future.. I hope it doesn’t lead to devs padding games with boring travel sections or pointless dialogue..

While talking about Call of Duty 4, we all agreed that the single-player was rather short, but overall the game was fantastic.. even months after playing, we remembered parts of the game we enjoyed.. such as the One Shot, One Kill mission, which stood out as a real highlight.

Another game I look at favourably is Half Life 2, which was a lot longer, but was also paced nicely so that you could stop and look around between the more action-based parts if you wanted to.. and when devs have gone to the effort of creating a good game environment, I’d feel I was wasting that to speed through as fast as possible.

As for pacing.. I recently had early access to a game with rather annoying, nagging NPCs which made me push on all the time and I found myself getting angry with it, especially since I knew the game was fairly short.  Sure, I could have ignored the NPCs, but their constant barked orders were irritating.. this just spoiled my enjoyment in looking around and made me want to get things over and done with just to shut them up.

That’s not the feeling I want in a game, if I’m honest.. so short and rushed rates badly in my books.

I saw an argument last year for games being too long.. since many gamers have unfinished games in their collection, they must be getting bored before finishing them: therefore games are too long.  Now, I have a horrible record for completion, but this is nothing to do with the length of the games in question.  The reasons I don’t complete my games are a lack of time after the grind of work, lots of cheap games (I’m looking at you, Steam sales!) leading to there being more in my collection, and the fact that when I do have time, my friends are around to play as well.. and I’m hardly going to tell them to sling it while I get on with a single-player campaign.  Recently I would also blame WoW, as it’s rather too easy to just pop on for half an hour, which turns into a few hours that could have been used to advance the story in another game.