Continuing my string of posts about things that I wanted to talk about during my hiatus, following is a list of stuff that happened in the world of video games that I found interesting or noteworthy. And addictive. Horribly, horribly addictive.
A couple of months ago I was browsing Reddit, and I happened upon a submission about a game in its Alpha phase that people were absolutely salivating over. I posted a comment about how I'd never buy a game in Alpha, because it's bound to be bug-ridden or possibly never even finished. I was ridiculed, but held fast to my opinion.
A few days later I was lurking around Reddit again and looking through my message log. I found my anti-Alpha post, and since I was bored, decided I'd check out the game's website and possibly give it a try, if a demo was available.
That game, of course, was Minecraft.
And nothing, not even a lengthy stint with World of Warcraft, could have possibly prepared me for the vise that slowly wrapped itself around me as I loaded up the free, browser-based client and started playing around with it.
I moved around the game world. I liked the blockiness of it. Then I clicked and accidentally removed a block. Amazed, I did this several more times, and then figured out how to make blocks. Looking at the vast landscape generated before me, I quickly realized that this was a game with almost limitless possibilities.
I spent the next hour or so building a massive tower with a door in the back that led to an underground tunnel. Building was easy with infinite blocks and no enemies around.
Curious to learn more about this game, I checked out the feature set for the single player for-pay Alpha client. The prospect of building massive structures with limited or mined resources sounded daunting, but I wanted more, so I quickly made the payment, took a quick moment to note my hypocritical nature, and then plunged into a gaming obsession that lasted for weeks.
By day, I dreamed up new and unusual ideas for structures to build, and by night, I built them. I went from putting in a good deal of Team Fortress 2 almost every night to putting in a ton of Minecraft, exclusively. I created a modest safe house, a massive network of mines, a two way mine cart system that went deep underground and underwater, a huge lighthouse, a giant stone skull carved into a mountain, and the beginnings of a second home, an underground lair with trees and deep shafts carved into the hillside above for light. I even crafted a replica of Uncle Scrooge's Money Bin. Yes, I played a ton of Minecraft.
But then I just grew tired of it. I still had my massive plans for construction, and still had plenty of inspiration from the official Minecraft forums and Minecraft's home on Reddit. But I'd log in and I just didn't want to spend hours and hours mining all that stone, moving mountains, and chopping wood. To put it in short, I ran it into the ground.
I'm still looking forward to the October update, since it includes so much cool new stuff... but I'm otherwise pretty much over it. I've got too many other games that I haven't put much time in with yet, and I need to get them out of the way to make room for the holidays.
After slogging through months of other less interesting updates like the Steam port to Mac and Valve's horribly disappointing E3 "surprise" (Portal 2 on PlayStation 3... yawn), the addition of Engineer achievements and unique class weapons is a breath of fresh air. It's the patch that fans have been clamoring for since the inception of class updates for TF2, and it looks like Valve's lost no steam (pun intended!) in providing unique, fun, and rewarding additions to the game.
In total, the new update offers Engineers a new gun, two new melee weapons, a new sentry gun, a remote for sentry guns, and the ability to move placed sentry guns. Additionally included are four maps and the requisite slew of Engineer-oriented achievements.
I'm most excited about the ability to move around already-placed turrets, as well as the sentry remote control. After building a sentry gun and upgrading it to the highest level, it stinks to have to destroy it just to place another in a more active part of the map as the action moves around. Now, you don't have to do this - you just have to be careful when you pick it up and move it, since dying while carrying the packed-up sentry will cause it to be destroyed instantly.
Controlling turrets remotely is also a great addition. Though it takes the slot of your pistol to use the remote control (dubbed the Wrangler), it can be invaluable in helping to keep your construction alive while you run off to do other things. The sentry goes offline for a few seconds when you switch back to controlling your Engineer, but this is only a minor annoyance.
I played around with the new patch last night, on the new map, Thunder Mountain, but I actually haven't played as an Engineer yet. Why, you ask? A few reasons.
First, everybody is playing as an Engineer right now. It's one of my favorite classes in the game, maybe even my favorite, but I can't play on a team that is 90% Engineers. The addition of being able to move your turrets around helps make the class play a little better on the offensive, but it's still boring to sit around waiting for sentry kills when everyone else is doing the exact same thing. It also makes each round incredibly hard to win.
Second, since everyone else is playing as an Engineer, it's a great time to be other classes - particularly Spy or Soldier. I racked up quite a few new achievements last night playing as both classes, because right now there are about four times as many destroyable objects being placed in the field than normal. I actually noticed another small downside to the remote-control sentry ability here as well; as a spy, it's a lot easier to back-stab people near remotely controlled turrets because, unless the player who is controlling it is looking at you when you do it, you won't be instantly detected and can escape again much easier than before.
It was also fun to play on the new maps. Almost nobody I was playing with knew them well, so we weren't mired down in the same old tactics you see whenever you play on maps which people have ran through a hundred times.
Overall, the class updates for Team Fortress 2 have added a lot to the game, and I applaud Valve for keeping at it. I hope they continue to find interesting ways to give the game depth and add to the fun. I know one thing for sure: I'm going to have a hard time not playing in most all of my spare time in the coming weeks.
Just wanted to throw down a quick update here, since it's been quite a while, and I'm sure many people out there are sitting on the edge of their seats, wondering if I'm lying in a gutter somewhere. Many sleepless nights were had, courtesy of my lack of updates, and I am sorry.
Fear not, however! I am alive and well, and have just been busy with a lot of work and, of course, a lot of play.
I don't think I'd posted the above picture on the blog yet, so there it is - a tree painting I'd done some weeks ago for a contest and auction for the Sacramento Tree Foundation. Sadly, it didn't get accepted into the limited space of the show, but I'm glad to have made it, and I have more ideas for some other paintings in this style.
This painting was done in acrylic paint and paint pen on a 15" x 30" canvas. Here's the sketch the painting is based on (ink on 5.5" x 8.5" sketch pad):
During my time away from the blog, I got to go up to my parents' house for a bit one weekend, and went out on a small vacation to Sonoma with my girlfriend too. I had a great time with both, and the time away from doing work has been refreshing.
Speaking of work, I've got more work lined up for No Love Skateboarding - along with the rat image I posted a while ago, which was used for a shirt design and then reconfigured for a skateboard design, I've done a Denver cityscape and have a few other projects for shirts and boards on deck which I'll post here eventually.
I'm also working on a disc label and CD jacket for a friend of my dad's, Johnny "Guitar" Knox, who is a local blue guitarist in the Sacramento area. That project is going a bit slower than originally planned, but it's getting done slowly.
I've also got a logo to design for my girlfriend's cousin which I have yet to start.
And finally, probably the biggest time sink of them all, I've finally completed Dragon Age: Origins, after about 60 hours of play. The game was good, long, and fun. I'm glad I finally got into it. I've already started another play-through, but I think I'm going to take a break for a while so I can finish on my aforementioned projects, as well as re-acquaint myself with some of the other games I've neglected over the months.
After the somewhat botched Gears of War 3 announcement last week, I've been thinking about running through Gears of War 2 again on Insane difficulty, so I can grab all the collectibles I missed and have some more action-oriented fun for a change. I also want to sink my teeth into some of the Mass Effect 2 DLC that came out while I was playing Dragon Age, but I'm just not in the mood for another epic gaming marathon right now.
Anyway, thanks for checking in, hope the lack of posts hasn't kept anyone away, and (again, I know!) I shall try to be better with the updates.
Though I haven't been staying up late enough to catch much of this last week of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, I have been keeping up with the whole debacle every day on the internet. A proud member of Team Coco, I've been hunting down the latest clips every day, and have been greatly amused by Conan's increasingly insulting monologues. I've also had good fun seeing all the other late-night hosts weigh in on the issue, as well as people completely outside the blast radius (Ricky Gervais had some awesome things to say at the Golden Globes).
Anyway, it's too bad Conan won't be doing The Tonight Show for longer. I always liked him on Late Night, and he seems like a much funnier guy than Tonight's former (and soon, once again) host, Jay Leno. Hopefully Conan goes on to something much better and stomps Leno in ratings. Leno deserves it for not taking the high road and bowing out, and to a greater extent, NBC deserves it for making crappy decisions at the whims of their affiliates.
I was thinking about doing a write-up of my favorite games from 2009, but as I was going over most of the games I played last year, many of my favorites turned out to be from 2008 or earlier. I got a few of 2009's finest for Christmas, but so far, I've only had time to play through one of them - Assassin's Creed 2. Luckily, it turned out to be one of my favorite games in a good while, so instead of doing a list I thought I'd just write a game review instead. Read on for tales of free running, theft, death-defying acrobatics, and of course, assassination.
As a note of precaution, I am going to try to keep spoilers for the first game to a minimum, but in order to talk about the opening sequence of the second game, there might be some slight spoilers for the first one. If you haven't played Assassin's Creed 1 yet, and you're planning on doing so, proceed with caution. I will not spoil the content of AC2, save for the introductory portion of the game.
A little over two years ago, I picked up Assassin's Creed 1 (also as a Christmas gift, I believe), and quickly played through it over the course of a few weeks. It was a fun game. With sprawling ancient urban environments, the visuals were particularly impressive, as were the movement mechanics for the player. In the end though, the whole thing became somewhat repetitive, with each level in the game playing exactly like the last. There were a few quirks with the fundaments of the game that could probably have been overlooked if the rest of the game had been better, but which ended up standing out instead. And the finale of the game, which was deliberately left open for a sequel, was somewhat of a letdown.
Despite the first game's drawbacks, however, I did have a good time with it. So when November 2009 rolled around and Assassin's Creed 2 was released to better reviews than its predecessor, I was excited. Unfortunately for me, I usually don't buy myself many games between November and December, just in case someone decides to get me a game for Christmas or my birthday. I waited for the holidays, did in fact, get the game, and played through it over the last few weeks. After nearly 24 total hours of game-time and collecting 47 of 50 achievements, I can say with confidence (and puns) that Assassin's Creed 2 is leaps and bounds above Assassin's Creed 1; it's truly a great game.
AC2 begins right where the first game left off. Desmond Miles, the surrogate protagonist of both the first and second games, has finished locating the Piece of Eden for Abstergo, and locked in the laboratory with the Animus. Lucy, the technician who projects sympathy for Desmond in the first game, returns to the lab and the two escape from the Abstergo building, seeking refuge with a group of modern-day Assassins. Armed with their own Animus, the group enlists Desmond to help them find out the truth behind the Piece of Eden, and we delve once more into history via Desmond's biological memories.
Almost all of the game takes place inside the Animus, in a virtual recreation of ancient Italy. The story follows Desmond's ancestor Ezio as he uncovers a vast Templar plot, and includes many historical figures like Niccolò Machiavelli, Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI), and even Leonardo da Vinci.
One thing you'll notice right from the start is that AC2 makes a much stronger effort to explain the story better than the first game. The virtual past is a bit different, it is explained, because the new Animus is more feature-packed than the one used at Abstergo. At various points in the story the other characters who monitor Desmond's progress will voice over and explain what is happening. And all the people and places of interest you visit in the game is explained in historical context via a large collection of database entries that are added to Desmond's Animus menu as you progress through the game. It's all very well done, and I spent a lot of time reading the database as entries were added to it. In many instances, the historical information is actually a pretty interesting read, and it adds a lot to the game as well.
The story that Ubisoft has woven into real-life history for Assassin's Creed, particularly this second game, is compelling. The interactions between Ezio and other characters, both historical and fictional, is very well done and does much to add a distinctly human element to the game. Whereas in the first AC game you were relegated to performing the same pattern of actions over and over with very little narrative in between, the second game gives you many more unique missions while stringing them along with strong story elements in between.
Gameplay in AC2 is varied and thoughtful. Once the initial theatrics are over and you've assumed your role of Ezio, you're given free reign to explore a sizable portion of Renaissance Florence. Similar to AC1, you're able to climb tall structures and use them to scope out nearby missions. Unlike AC1, however, you'll find that you now have access to a few different types of vendor stalls, where you can buy weapons, new armor, quick-travel to different parts of Italy, etc. Missions that do not progress the story include assassination contracts, races, and fighting. There are also many treasures scattered throughout each explorable area that pad your wallet and eventually help you learn more fighting moves and increase your health points.
Combat is somewhat basic, but less frustrating than in the original game. There are more ways to dispatch enemies, and there isn't as much emphasis on maintaining an overall rhythm, so there are many fewer times where you get caught in a string of attacks that are impossible to stop. Additionally, you can buy new weapons from blacksmiths, and you can use weapons dropped or taken from enemies as well.
Sometimes, you might not want to fight the throng of guards chasing you - not a problem! There are far more places to hide in AC2, and it's much easier to tell when you're blending into a crowd (for anonymity). You can also hire bands of thieves, mercenaries, and courtesans to help give you a little cover and distract or fight guards when necessary.
Finally, player movement in Assassin's Creed 2 seems much more refined than before. Ezio climbs and swings around structures much faster than Altaïr, and if you're like me, you will be happy to see is that swimming has been added to the game engine, so you no longer have to fear the random instant death of a bad jump near water. Overall, player movement in AC2 is very fluid, and even though you'll be spending much of your time watching Ezio perform stunts that seem super-human, the animation is so natural you'll come away feeling like it really could be possible for a person to move the way he does. With Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, and a host of other games, Ubisoft has a good lock on games involving non-linear movement/acrobatic mechanics, and with each new game, the engine only seems to get better.
In addition to the regular assassin gameplay in AC2, there are also a good number of hidden puzzle sequences, where you solve a collection of ever-challenging puzzles in order to uncover more of the secrets about the Piece of Eden. These puzzles serve as a good break from the action now and then, and are quite devious towards the end of the game. Luckily, you can always choose to solve them later on. These puzzles, along with the collectible codex pages and all the other supplemental information included in the Animus database, are a good example of the efforts Ubisoft went to in order to explain the Assassin's Creed world better in the second game. Both the cryptographer and conspiracy buff inside you will jump for joy.
Gameplay aside, the very first thing that might draw you into AC2 (or the franchise in general) is the look of the game.
The original game, Assassin's Creed 1, had some good graphics; even playing the game today, I am still amazed at how well the game engine draws the vast expanse of ancient cities and surrounding countryside. Assassin's Creed 2 is no different - and oftentimes better! It is a visual feast, and Renaissance Italy has never looked so good. Everywhere you go, people are walking, talking doing things. The buildings in each area you visit are gritty yet fantastic. Historical sites, like Basilica di San Lorenzo and Basilica di San Marco, are recreated somewhat faithfully (at least, close enough for a game), as are the surrounding area structures. The day/night cycle is slower than most games, and both look great. Visual effects for the Animus and Eagle Vision have been ramped up from the original game. Ezio even looks wet after he climbs out of some water.
Sound is equally good. The voice acting for all the major characters is believable, and the little bits of Italian you hear now and then (attributed to a flaw in the Animus' translation software) adds to the illusion of the whole thing. I thought the soundtrack was particularly nice; it instills feelings of awe, tension, mystery, and urgency at all the right moments, and fills in the gaps between the action nicely.
Assassin's Creed 2 isn't without its faults of course, but they number much fewer than the original, and are ultimately much easier to forgive for all the greatness of the rest of the game. For example, as with Altaïr in the first game, Ezio manages to make some clumsy jumps now and then, which can sometimes result in an accidental falling death. It doesn't happen often, and I can see how the game engine can get confused about exactly which platform you might be aiming for in the distance, but it's not a fun time when it happens.
As with another game I reviewed not so long ago, health potions also seem to make the game a little too easy. Naturally, the farther you get into the game, the harder the bad guys can hit you, sometimes taking 4-5 hit points in one attack. But early in the game you gain the ability to carry around vials that can refill many depleted hit points at once. You eventually are able to carry a maximum of 15 of these vials, and with so many at your disposal, it becomes almost impossible to die, save for an accidental fall. The vials are important to AC2, because unlike AC1, you do not regenerate health over time, but it still feels a little cheap sometimes to be able to just click the D-Pad and become healed. Of course, I also like the idea of your character becoming more adept at what he/she does as you progress through a game, so I can't hate on this too much. Poor planning or lack of funds will limit your supply of vials, so I can live with it.
One final thought I had on the subject of problems is that some of the puzzles you uncover are either unclear in what they want you to do, or are difficult to devise. I didn't have many problems with them for the most part, but some of them seemed to require some very non-linear thought to be solved, and I actually had to wait for the hint to appear before I could get through (an optional hint can be given after a certain amount of time has been spent on a puzzle). This isn't really a problem with the game, I guess, but for some people who aren't very good at deciphering numerical puzzles, it could prove frustrating.
In any case, none of these things detracted from the experience much for me. The level of polish applied to AC2, especially compared to AC1, really shows in this respect.
On the whole, I really enjoyed Assassin's Creed 2. It continued the story from the first game in a smart and provocative way, it fixed many of the problems from the first game, and it did so without being tedious, and without running out of gas. There are lots of things to do in AC2, and if the story line for the series interests you, I definitely recommend giving this game a shot (and the first game before that, if you haven't played it already). I'm really looking forward to Assassin's Creed 3, which I hear is due out in about 2 years. That's alright though, because I'll probably need a while to collect all those feathers (think flags from AC1).
Time flies when you're having fun, I suppose - I'm back from BlizzCon 2009, and though I don't quite feel ready to head back to work, and all the other responsibilities of non-vacation time, it's good to be home.
My trip started off as the typical Marty-planned trip does: poorly. I happened to hear about when tickets were being sold for BlizzCon 2009 only a few days before the first sale, but I wasn't able to grab any of the tickets in the first round, as I wasn't home that weekend. My luck turned around somewhat quickly though, and I was able to get in and score a couple of tickets very early in the second (and final) round. I also got two cheap plane tickets. As was the case last year, this trip was to be for myself and my brother, to celebrate his birthday.
As the old saying goes, however, the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry, and Spencer (my brother) found out only a week before the trip that his work couldn't give him the required time off. He was upset, and I was faced with a dilemma; I wanted to go on the trip, but I didn't want to go alone. Geeking out simply isn't as much fun by yourself. I felt bad too, since the trip was originally for Spencer. So I could skip the whole trip and just spend the time off with him instead. A friend of mine was attending the show this year, and he could pick up our goody bags if I chose to stay home.
After a few days of mulling it over, I decided I'd just go on the trip by myself. I wasn't entirely pleased with this, but I didn't want the money spent on tickets for the show and for flight to be a complete waste. This way, I would also be able to pick up our bags of junk myself, so my friend didn't have to bother with it, and I could attend some of the panels of the show, which I knew would be interesting and fun. I made some changes to my flight times, jumped on a plane, and made it down to BlizzCon for a fun couple of days.
Lucky for me, I didn't have to go it alone after all; my girlfriend happened to have enough miles on her frequent flier rewards card for a free flight to Anaheim and back. So, my trip, which had up until this point, looked like it was going to be lonely and somewhat disappointing, actually turned out to be quite fun. My girlfriend isn't really into games, but she still had a good time as I showed her around the exhibition, explaining all the odd sights and sounds. And we got to venture out and do some shopping, as well as just hang out and relax, something we'd both been needing. I really appreciate the effort she took to come with me, and it was a great impromptu vacation!
But now we're both back at home, and at work. My new World of Warcraft pet, Grunty, is prowling around in Azeroth. My n00bz is guarding the rest of the junk on the shelf in the computer room. And even though I'd rather be off on vacation again, I'm happy to be back. Hopefully my next vacation isn't so long in the making - and better planned to boot!
Has it really been an entire month since I've posted here? it honestly doesn't seem like it. I've visited the blog frequently (every day), and though I've had a lot of ideas for things I've wanted to post, and have even written a fair amount of half-finished articles, I never got around to posting much of it all.
I guess I've been a bit busy. Not enough to completely excuse me from my absence here, but pretty busy. Since I feel like I owe an explanation to anyone who's been visiting the site and wondering what happened to me, I'll briefly run through everything I've been up to.
To kick things off, I got myself a new bike a little over a month ago. My girlfriend and I have enjoyed going for walks on the roads and trails near our apartment since we moved here, and we both thought it would be fun to have bikes to better take advantage of the bike paths, as well as for a simple form of local transportation. So far, it's been a lot of fun to be able to hop on a bike and jet around the area for a bit, and it's also been a good amount of exercise. So long as the weather stays reasonable, I'm sure we'll be doing this for many months to come this year (if not the entire year).
I also started putting a more serious effort into re-tooling the Reflect system/website, and though I've only been able to dig into a little bit of the core system so far, I'm happy with the way things are turning out on this front as well. Reflect has grown to include a lot of talented members of the Game Maker community, and I want to provide these developers with as much function as possible, as well as make the system more attractive to other developers who might be considering putting in an application to use it. I'll elaborate on all that later though, as I make more progress with it.
In order to help me develop the new Reflect assets, I also decided to get myself a laptop. Up until now, I've not had a laptop, and have used my desktop computer for everything. I'm still partial to my desktop, because I enjoy the power and comfort of the desk/chair, but I am happy to be able to get away from the "computer room" at my apartment, too. One of the biggest hurdles for getting started on new projects lately has been having to spend lots of time cooped up in the back room in my apartment, and now that I am free of this burden, I've been able to do a lot more.
I've also had the chance to see a few movies. My girlfriend and I have watched Public Enemies, Harry Potter and the Half blood Prince, Proposal, and a bunch of random rented flicks. My brother and I saw The Hangover as well. I enjoyed all of them, and in my opinion, it's been a pretty good summer for movies.
Last weekend, I went hiking with my girlfriend and a few members of her family down at the John Muir Woods national park. It was beautiful, and the I had a great time marching up and down the hills with everyone.
As you might have guessed at with my new bike and the hiking, I've been trying to spend a little more time exercising. I've also been trying to get in more time with my girlfriend. And since all of these things take a significant amount of time by themselves, I'm sure you can imagine how its been with it all happening at once.
I will try to update the blog more often than monthly intervals, of course. I've still got to post the editable version of my long-abandoned competition entry, as well as my animated water texture tutorial. I'll get around to those soon!
Thanks for reading and staying faithful enough to come back and find this new post! More to come soon, hopefully!
With less than a week to go until Father's Day, the ridiculous parade of allegedly dad-focused marketing is already well upon us. On the way to work this morning, I heard a countless number of commercials trying to convince me to buy my dad a new cell phone. On TV, I've survived a constant barrage of pleas to pick up new flat-screen sets, stereo equipment, and various implementations of carpentry hardware. Online, it's been cameras, camcorders, USB memory sticks, hard drives, and all sorts of other computer gadgetry.
Each holiday it gets worse.
I'm not against the idea of getting someone a thoughtful gift, either. I think that if your dad has been pining for something for a while and you've got the means to get it for him, then maybe you should. But isn't the whole idea of the holiday lost when you're stuck in some infinite loop of trying to one-up last year's gift with something more and more expensive and outrageous?
The idea of buying someone a cell phone as a gift is utterly absurd to me. A cell phone is a personal thing that you should shop for yourself, since you're the one who's going to be using it most of the time. Not only that, but if the gift receiver doesn't have a cell phone already, he/she's going to be stuck with a new monthly bill, thanks to your thoughtfulness.
The notion of gifting a new television is just as bad. As if people need another $1,000+ added to their burgeoning credit debt.
Since when did the idea of showing your appreciation for someone include buying them a menagerie of electronic gizmos?
While retail world is busy buzzing in peoples' ears about its newest pile of shiny garbage, I'll be taking a quiet trip up to the country to my parents' house. I'll probably end up wrestling with some technology anyway; I hear my dad's been having some computer problems. But I think that he'll appreciate the help a lot more than being saddled with an unwanted new cell phone.
Unfortunately, the balance of the entire universe will be thrown off anyway - because for Mother's Day, I only sent a card this year. Sorry mom!
After missing out on the first round of tickets a few weeks ago, I'm happy to report that I was able to swoop in and grab a pair of BlizzCon tickets this past weekend!
My brother, Spencer, and I had been planning on attending BlizzCon this year, but during the first round of ticket sales, neither of us was able to get to a computer in time to get some tickets. I had just returned from a short vacation in Arizona and was on the road the same day for another short trip to Lake Tahoe. I had a lot of fun that weekend. Spencer had to go to work in the morning.
To fill in for our absence, we armed my dad with my brother's credit card and all the relevant information needed to make the purchase, but demand was high, and by the time he got in the ticket queue, he was about 25,000 people behind. When he got to the front of the line, the tickets were sold out.
This last weekend, Spencer was again not able to stand by for ticket-buying, but I was, so I set my alarm for 9:00 AM, got up and played around a bit, and then logged into the Blizzard Store and waited patiently for the clock to strike 10. At 9:58 I began refreshing the page every 10-15 seconds, and at exactly 10 o'clock, the drop-down box appeared for ticket purchase. I fumbled for a second, selected the wrong number of tickets, backed out and fixed the error, and proceeded to get in line. I was approximately number 250 in line.
A few seconds later, I was in front. I proceeded with the purchase, and it all went very smoothly. Much more smoothly than last year, where the store continually broke, and left a lot of unhappy people out there. I was pleased that I had remembered to log into the Blizzard Store the night before and update my credit card/contact information, so I didn't have to worry about changing it at purchase time.
Directly after I finished with everything, a friend of mine who had gotten tickets during the first round logged in just to see how long the line was; in about a minute's time, the line had grown to over 31,000 people!
So, I guess I am pretty lucky to have been able to get BlizzCon tickets again. I expected things to be a bit slower this year, with the economy and all, but I guess it's true that during hard financial times, people are always looking for entertainment – a way to escape from the troubles of life for a while.
Hopefully this year's show is just as much fun as the last. It's not until August, but If it's anything like last year, it should be worth the wait.
Man, I go away for a small vacation and I miss the next big TF2 announcement from Valve! Not a big deal, really - I did have quite a good time on my trip, so a TF2 update kinda takes a back seat in terms of awesomeness... but more on that later. Valve's got a new update page set up for the next TF2 update, and it looks like it's going to be another sweet addition to the game.
So far, they've announced The Huntsman, a bow and arrow for the Sniper that can stick enemies to walls, Payload Race, a new game mode that's kind of like a two-way Gold Rush, and another item for the Sniper, The Razorback, a back-mounted shield that keeps the Spy from stabbing him.
Oh, and speaking of the Spy, he's also snuck in for some update goodness; he'll be getting the "Dead Ringer" watch and the "Cloak and Dagger" watch, which will let him fake death and stay cloaked forever respectively.
Like the other updates Valve has brought to TF2, these will change play considerably, but also seem very well thought-out, so hope fully balance will not be hurt too much. I haven't played TF2 in a month or two and I'm pretty excited about all this... hopefully this will be the push I need to come back to the game, as it is one of the more fun experiences I've had in online gaming.
Anyway, maybe I'll see you there - and hopefully I'll see you back here soon as well, as I write a bit about my recent vacation. Thanks for reading!
