Left 4 Dead 2

Alright, since I do not want to learn my new chinese characters I decided to give you an overview of my exp so far with the game!
First of all: It ROCKS! Alright, I used to say that about Aion as well and didnt like it that much after endless sessions of grinding at all, but L4D2 is just awesome!!
If you were a fan of the first L4D you will for sure love the 2nd one since it has a lot more weapons (like the Ak-47, nice sniper guns and some Tactical Shotguns just to mention a few) and also introduced the melee weapons! So my first question was: Ta fuck, I am play a shooter, why should I use a katana, guitar or chainsaw to fight those zombies? Answer is easy: Best to use those low range weapons when a boomer got you and the horde is coming for you! Just swing your weapon all the time and you wont get and or at least little dmg!! Great idea!
But of cause the most interesting new features are the new zombies. There are 3 of them called Charger, Jockey and Spitter!
First the charger: He looks like an overgrown 14 year old boy who made too often use of his right hand in special moments. Left hand tiny and weak, right hand overgrown muscle "weapon" which he uses to grap a survivor while charging at them (Yeah, thats where the name comes from) and dragging them away of the other survivors! He does incredible amount of dmg once he took one victim with him and bouncing it constantly on the ground! Also the charger can be used tactically since he gives all survivors which stand in his way a body check knocking them on the ground. Quite useful in stressful moments! But all those with all those benefits there is of cause a disadvantage: Once you started the to charge your toon runs just straight and if you fail to grap one survivor because your aim wasnt good enough you are an easy victim for the bullets of the other team.
Then there is the Jockey. I am quite indifferent to that zombie! In some moments he can be great in others he is just useless. But first to explain his attack! That little creepy zombie runs up close to a survivor and jumps on his/her back which makes you able to "control" the victims movement and dealing constant dmg. So it is great fun to lead it into fire or let it fall out of the window or a cliff! Bad moments are when the survivors are walking in "teamwalk" so none of them is alone or stays behind. Then it is almost impossible to jump on one.
At last there is the Spitter! She looks like a 12 year old, very VERY ugly girl and spits toxic out of her mouth! I have to admit: That is my totally favourite zombie of all!! Because best idea to spit at is in rooms where the survivors have to go through or cant get out too fast! So you deal a great amount of dmg for about 15 seconds! And the best of all, the longer your victims stand in your "spit" the more dmg they get. Also great idea is: If one of the survivors is already knocked out and laying on the ground and on of the others is trying the poor devil up: Spit on them and you got 2 persons knocked out!! :D
Of cause there are lots of nice combinations now: first use the good old boomer in a closed room with all survivors in it. Then spit in the room for dot dmg since they cant get out too fast with all the horde around them and at last grap one with a jockey and lead them back in the spit for imber dmg!! Just love such moments!!

Paranormal Activity Part 2

So I saw "Paranormal Activity" with my girlfriend and I have to admit it wasnt that bad. Some quite nice ideas that movie got like the onewith the camcorder which makes the audience to a silent observer in the night while the actors are sleeping and not recognizing the "Activities" they have to suffer!
Still the idea of "the whole movie is a home video and not a movie for cinema" was a blast when "Blair Witch Project" came out and is not that smashing twice and so "Paranormal Activity" is not really new if it comes to that point.
Also the real nice moments of the movie where shown already in the trailer...what really sucked in my opinion. Here the is the link to the tailer on you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UxLEqd074

All in all id say: If you want to see an entertaining movie with some scary moments go and watch it yourself...but if you expect some hard horror better see something else!

Paranormal Activity

Unexpected things happen! And I am glad about that! I am talking about the new horror movie "Paranormal Activity"!

Since High budget movies pumped up with special effects like a boomer with vomit often forget about a nice story or a red line to follow so I am quite happy to see that low budget movies like "Paranormal Activity" can break out of the Hollywood mainstream and show those weirdos called Spielberg or Emmerich that it isnt all about the money or so called "stars". (Which most times just look nice but act like a troll trying to imitate a ratonga)
Or take a look at the 2012 movie...I mean I hate the trailer already...I am really fet up with those earthshaking -breaking, everything is destroyed, burning and exploding bullcrap of a movie without any logic nor sense!

By the way: Isnt it insane that "Paranormal Activity" just cost about 12.000 $ (what is around € 10.000)? You got to know that the producer earned so far around 104.000 $ / € 70.000!! And the movie didnt come out in EU so far!
Hell yeah, I got loads of ideas to come up with for a nice Horror movie!! Damn...

Anyway, so far I have just heard good things about that movie and since Horror is exactly my thing if it come to movies I cant wait to watch it!
I am remembering all the other great low budget movies like "Saw I" or "Blair Witch Project" and get almost horny! ;)

Is this the end?

I am quite sick of Aion at the moment! Why? Well, it is just grinding, grinding and grinding again. The quests are almost always the same. There are like 2 categories: Quest type one is (what a suprise) grinding. Quest type two is like running, flying and even teleporting around endless ways just to end up at the NPC who gave me the quest task. That just sucks. And if I once run out of quest I have to...huh, would anybody like to guess? Yeah, grind! It just seems a bit dull to me.
I saw about 5 Elyos which got killed by the hungry horde of Asmodian fellows in seconds...I went through 2 rifts (what was a journey itself to find them) yet and ended up in way to high elite mobs and got killed by the hungry horde myself.
So I am crawling up my way till 25 hoping that PvP in Abyss might be a bit of fun. It better is a blast otherwise I will chancel my account and go back to Guild Wars. As well a dull game but at least its for free.

Although I am quite sad about my feelings about Aion since it has so much to offer!
I really like the flying around feature with my wings! Still that feature should be doable in more areas not only those few I recognized yet. Well, gliding is always possible but gliding isnt flying to me.
Also the great class balance is honourable I think! Every class got its weakness but also its very own strength. Havent seen such a great balance in any other MMORPG yet.
As well I really like the character customization! One can really create some monsters out of the great looking toons!
That brings me to the graphics! I just love it! So many details which can be found! Sparkling blossoms, funny looking foes, the great looking sky and much more!! Still there could be more done with the graphics. Especially the armour should be looking more different. Like in EQ 2 where almost every armour looks different and one could not find a toon looking the same because of the different cloths one is wearing. Plate looks like any other plate of the same level in Aion. Maybe the one is more greenish as the other but still little difference.
And if it comes to quests I already told you my opinion.

So, hopefully the PvP is great...otherwise my Templar Hammerfall will never see the little light of Asmodia again...

The Secret World

So I checked my mailbox and got a nice newsletter of FunCom (Age of Conan). I dont read such things usually but by accident I clicked on it and I was surpised:

FunCom is about to create a new MMORPG called "The Secret World" (http://www.darkdaysarecoming.com/?utm_id=478&activate=PT1RYnZObUxzbFdZdFIzYm9CRU40Y25iaGxtY3Z4bVo,). Quite cool feature of the newsletter: A facebook-like-quiz which tells you what secret power (Templars, Iluminati or Dragon) fits best to you! Quite liked that! (I am a Templar a member of the Templars by the way)
After I finished the quiz I had access to the homepage of the game.

Quite interesting facts I found there like
- no classes or levels.
- real world areas such as NYC, London and many more
- players are able to customize their characters absolutely free (head that quite often the last few games)
- PvP is a must these days so as well in that game
- absolute freedom which weapon one want to wield (shotgun, pistol, swords, magic and so on)
- next gen graphics! Check out the screenshots - looks damn nice!!
- no fantasy world or sci fi crap...seems like that kind of "apocalypse" world people are asking for!

I am quite looking forward to get more infos about the game! Seems as if that game could finally be one step ahead of those "wanna be like WoW games" which annoy me so much!

Mixed stuff

Since the last few levels I am quite struggling with the hardcore grinding quests so I thought I'll give the sorcerer a try to first check out if the class is any good and second if the templar is just that slow in killing mobs.

My sorcerer is just level 12 so I am really not able to answer my second question yet but honestly I like the finger wiggling bastard with his bolts of fire and amazing roots! Soloing against one mob is up to now very easy still I am not good enough for 2 mobs the same time because I panic most times and target the wrong mob. But it is definitely doable for more experienced player than me.
So I will for sure stick to that class at least till level 20! Till the grinding begins again I guess...

And here are my competition screenshots Toothy! Got some really crazy toons mate!! Hope you like them! Inbreeding ftw! ;)

Change

Since Gordon wrote in his latest article about the topic "raids" on his blog http://networkedblogs.com/p13935605 and the fundamentally change ("Change - I can't believe in") one has to face in a MMORPG in high end level I have to admit that this is absolutely true!

I recognized the problem especially in WoW. People I had to group with were totally unable to lead a group, act as a group or even stay long enough in one to complete a quest. Although WoW has so many group instances even in lower levels people just seem not to be willed to group with others.
Why could that be?

My opinion is that players just dont want to spent their time with the problems others. Groups are just a nice and (most important) faster way to get MY quest done! Others need my dps/healing/tanking for their quest although I am already done with mine...pfff who cares about them? I have to hand in mine and get my exp!
"What, killing Black Claw High Priests because just one of my group needs them? No time for that stuff, dude." *Dude-got-kicked-out-of-group*

I guess people just want to grind as fast to high level as they can! And MMORPGs of the latest generation are quite suitable for that. Kill 10 rats -> get a lot of exp. Kill 10 shadow wolves -> get even more exp!! Kill 10 fire beetle -> welcome to next level!! Cant find any rats or wolves? No problem just press "locate" and games shows you the direction! Of cause you can kill them on your own!
Back in the old times of Everquest I had to spend weeks in Oasis to get one bubble of exp out of, ah I cant remember, 20 bubbles for one level. There was no locate system, you actually had to read (oh my god, yes, READ) the text of the quest npc to get the slightest clue where to go...
I even know a Bard in EverQuest who managed it to reach level 14 after 2 years constantly playing! Still it was fun for that person!

Back in the old times of Everquest one had to wait at a group which was camping an orc camp to get a spot in it!! Hell, I waited for hours just to get my spot in the group while I was jumping around in the green grass hoping somebody leaves group to get at least some exp. And most of the time it was waiting again for the respawn after you were lucky enough to be allowed to join!

I am not saying that this was better or worse than the system of today but it was for sure more time consuming.
Not like fastfood -> fast done but feels strange in the belly.
And yes, of cause I prefer those fastfood mmorpgs of today more than the old once!
Because:
Who has time/will to do such waitings orgies in his free time?

Point is: people want action! They want fun as fast as possible! There is no space anymore (as it seems) to create a nice roleplaying character and interact in "strange" lines like "I am the royal paladin of the glorious city of Rivervale! Tell me stranger, do you have business to do in that area? I for myself need to kill those nasty bastards known as the gnolls! They attacked the royal family during a hunting session! Now they shall pay with their death!"
Unfortunately nobody but geeks do so since one can say instead "U need gnolls? yes?" *Invite*.

The same problem I see with raids! Raid used to be VERY time consuming like everything in the old mmorpgs! I know people who just camped the respawn place raid monster for weeks! I am not joking! There was a timetable for the whole guild when person x had to camp and when person y had to take over the camping! Most of the time the raid was an epic failure and all the waiting was for nothing! But that was why raiders were those rockstars like "Longasc" said on Gordons blog! It was because of the time such raids stole! Because it took more than a stack of potions and a person who shouted - 50 dkp on Vent!
Raiders were perfectly organized! People met outside of game in real life just to talk about the next raid mob, how to take it down, what would be the best gear and such stuff!
A guild was a platform of socializing!

But back to the main topic.
As I already said: People want to have FUN in games. Thats why they play that game. Some define FUN differently. Some like to raid some not! Others love groups - others just want to be high end level as fast as possible! And again some others love to explore the world and create endless alts...
But as always in life it is damn had to create a game for all of those individuals. And since it is all about the money the creators of mmorpgs want there cant be the perfect version of a game for all of us.