VRYKERION

  • Final Fantasy XIII Part 1 & 2: Introduction, Gameplay & Characters

    (Reposted from my Tumblr)

    Potential Spoiler Warning! This is the warning:  There may be potential spoilers. You have now been warned by the Potential Spoiler Warning.

    Introduction & Gameplay

    Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it. Maybe this game isn’t as bad as I first assumed.

    I rented FF13 way back when it first came out and I didn’t even get more than a couple of hours into the game.  Just the initial wham of a ton of stuff happening with no information or context completely put me off the whole thing.  Finally, because of Spoony’s SCATHING review of the game, I actually had the opposite reaction and decided to give it a try again.

    However, I will say this.  Now that I’ve read up some on the shared mythology of the Fabula Nova Crystallis, the entirety of the first chapter of this game would have been immensely improved by the inclusion of a Legend of Zelda style opening narration that established some of the game’s mythology.  Like have Vanille or Lightning – probably Lightning for reasons that are all spoilery about Vanille – giving a short summation about the Gods, the Fal’cie, and the l’cie.  Heck, you don’t even need to establish Etro yet, just Bhunivelze, Pulse and Lindzei. That they created Fal’cie to accomplish tasks before departing the world, and that the Fal’cie create l’cie to carry out tasks that they themselves cannot.  There. Done.  Now Chapter One makes SO much more sense and no need to read datalogs.

    As for gameplay, there’s not much to say that hasn’t been said.  The long hallway like level design can be tedious at first.  But it’s not that bad if you know to expect it.  You run to the next story point, and kill monsters along the way.  Occasionally switching parties. Which sounds horrible, right?  Just running from point to point for story and killing monsters?  How can that be any good?  I dunno. Was pretty fun when it was called Final Fantasy I.  Seriously, think back to the dawn of the series.  You just went from town to town for story points, and killed monsters along the way.  Yes, from time to time there was a dungeon that usually had one path to bottom with some side branches that dead ended for some optional treasure.  Final Fantasy XIII? Same deal.  The only downfall is that the fact that the path is pretty damn obviously a straight line with some dead end branches, and that the monster fights aren’t random.

    Characters

    It’s not exactly a secret to those who know me that I am not a fan of the later ‘half’ of the Final Fantasy series.  In my personal opinion, the series peaked at Final Fantasy VI (the last game I was able to personally complete in the series in full) and then suffered from somewhat of an indentity crisis as soon as it found new ways of making itself pretty.  Not to say there aren’t games in the latter half of the series I like.  Final Fantasy 7 was okay, even if I beat every character in it with a chair.  Final Fantasy 8 had some good character moments but I don’t know if the plot knew what it wanted to do.  Final Fantasy X and XII were completely focused on the wrong character and Tidus just annoyed me to death.  Vaan was a bit more tolerable, until it became blatantly obvious that he was only there so the characters that were actually involved in the story would have to explain things to him and thus inform the audience about the story. I did like XII’s attempt to move towards the political machinations of two warring nations, not to mention I like the fact that Ivalice returned as a setting.

    That said, the reason that usually makes or breaks a Final Fantasy for me is the characters.  Final Fantasy VI had 12 amazing characters, each with their own story and arc that they went through between the Worlds of Balance and Ruin.  Some more than others, but each character – not including the bonus characters of Umaro and Gogo though there’s plenty of speculation about Gogo’s backstory – got a story, and got some form of closure through the game.  So… how does FF13 hold up in the character department?  Well, keep in mind I’m only halfway through the game but so far… pretty well!  Most of the game focuses on the subtext in the characters dialogue.  What’s not said is often more important than what IS said with the characters and each reacts differently to the one life-changing event at the beginning of the game.

    Lightning: The devoted soldier who blindly focused solely on her duty after the death of her parents.  She spends a good chunk of the game saddled with the guilt of not believing her sister when Serah told her she was a l’cie.  She buries this guilt the same way she deals with everything, by blindly focusing on a goal at all costs which in this case is the destruction of the Sanctum (the Government).  She breaks and is forced to actually deal with her emotions when she realizes that her behavior is teaching Hope to be like her – cold and ruthless. Lightning is the cynical one of the party.

    Snow: Foolishly and childishly acting the ‘hero’ as a means to cope with his grief over losing his fiance, and the death of all of those who followed his lead during the purge, Snow is insufferable and intentionally so.  The others get annoyed with it, and it fuels Hope’s quest for revenge for Snow getting his mother killed.  Ultimately, Snow’s poker face breaks and he admits that he’s just running away from his guilt.  He becomes a bit more likable after that. Snow is the optimist of the party, believing in the ideas of good vs bad and Serah’s final words as a mission statement.

    Vanille: If you were to ask most people about Vanille, the best responses you’d get are “weird” and “annoying”.  She’s that eccentric upbeat character you find in Final Fantasy games.  Though the interesting part is, that it’s a complete and utter facade.  Several times you’ll see her let her guard done and wallow in the misery she truly feels.  You see, pretty much most of the first half of the game is Vanille’s fault.  The incident at the reactor where Sazh lost his son? Vanille & Fang. Opening the Bodun Vestige so Serah becomes a l’Cie? Vanille & Fang. Heck, the insane reaction in Cocoon  to anything Pulse related can be tied back to being Vanille’s fault too. And unlike Fang, She KNOWS this.  She spends most of the early game lying and manipulating the other characters with this upbeat cutesy persona towards her own ends.

    Hope: A young boy who watched his mother die and since his mother was following Snow into combat, well, he blames Snow.  He spends most of the early game working up the nerve to confront Snow and take his revenge.  He also has a not-so-great relationship with his father that is never explained.  At all. I have no idea why this kid hates his dad but will murder people to avenge his mom.  The only explanation given is “He’s a teenager.” Oookay?  I always figured it was because early on Hope is very much someone who relies on others as a crutch. His mother, then Vanille, then Lightning.  His father on the other hand, only tells him that he should walk his own path thus not being someone to coddle him like he wants.  That’s almost all I can figure out.  Hope’s resolution comes mostly in the guise of Snow’s, in which he finally tries to kill Snow and Snow STILL tries to protect him because Snow promised Hope’s mom that Snow would get Hope home safely.

    Sazh: The realist of the group.  Lost his kid when his kid got turned into a Cocoon l’Cie (As opposed to Pulse l’Cie who are enemies, Cocoon l’Cie are apparently celebrities taken to be trained by the Sanctum). Tried to blow up the Pulse fal’Cie thinking he could get his kid back by fulfilling his son’s focus and got turned into his son’s enemy instead. Despite all this Sazh tends to err on the side of ‘you can’t change the past’, even when confronted with the truth about who is responsible for his son becoming a l’Cie, he won’t kill her because it won’t change anything.  Sazh is the only character who is pretty much willing to stop everything and say “Wait. You don’t realize this is all insane, right?”.  I like that about Sazh.  Even when he’s dealing with incredibly painful emotional stuff, he is the most adult and well-reasoned about how to react to it.

    SERAH!: Serah is a block of crystal.  That’s about her role in the story. Yes, Kairi in Kingdom Hearts had a more influential role. She has some stuff in the flashbacks that sets up Snow and Lightning’s own stories, but beyond that her goal was to drag these schmucks to get branded as l’Cie.  Kind of makes sense why her though.  She has strong connections with at least two trained fighters. Even if just Snow and Lightning were turned, the fal’Cie had a pretty good chance of getting something done. On the upside, she gets plenty of time in the spotlight in part 2 as the main character. So there.

    Fang: I’ve barely met Fang, so I might have more to say as the game goes on, but she’s pretty laid back.  She has a ‘burned out’ l’Cie brand which means she completed her focus, though she doesn’t know what or how because she has amnesia. Beyond that, she seems more concerned with helping Vanille complete her focus than anything.  Her personality is free, loose, and very open minded.  In a non-plot crucial point, she has also managed to check out Vanille’s butt and Lightning’s breasts with the old “Let me check your brand” trick. ^_-

  • What Is A Game?

    Not sure what's wrong with this...
    Not sure what’s wrong with this…

    I was recently reading an interesting article about the amount of harassment from the internet game developers face on a daily basis.  It was a good read.  A reminder about the utter savagery some people face when exposing themselves (or in some cases, forcefully dragged out into) the anonymous hordes of the internet.  I haven’t had a lot of interaction with developers myself online, but what little I have had has been nothing but courteous and helpful. Heck, even Xbox Live support (Not a developer, I know) always went out of their way on Twitter during my numerous rants about how Xbox Live refused my credit card (The problem has been fixed.  Turns out the solution was: Switch banks).  I have spoken to Ghostcrawler at least once with some questions about Pet Battles, and he actually answered them.

    And while the way we treatment game developers who wish to have an open dialogue with their players is a very important topic, that’s not actually what I wanted to talk about.  Actually, what I wanted to say came from a comment to one of those articles.  Among the comments of support and comments of “Well if they don’t wanna be harassed they should stop making ****y games.” there was one comment that really stood out to me.  It posed an idea that I think is at the heart of the divide of much of the gamer community.  Not an issue of hardcore or casual. Or console versus PC.  But an issue of mentality over what a game actually is.

    The comment was (and you’ll have to pardon me for paraphrasing, I wasn’t able to find it again): “What developers don’t understand is that it’s about working to become better, overcoming difficult obstacles, crushing the competition, and proving you’re the best. If you don’t have that, you are not a real game.”

    Not a real game?  Interesting.  Because that description can probably only apply to maybe a handful of the “games” in my collection.  And they are surely not the ones I play regularly.  But I bet you’ve seen something similar to one of those requirements in the forums of nearly every game you’ve played.  I know I have.   So let’s take a look at these a bit closer.

    Become Better: This is pretty much the most universal concept.  You become better by doing over and over.  From jumping over pits in Super Mario Bros., to grinding levels in MMOs.  Honestly, I think a lot of people overlook how universal this is in gaming.  I see that a lot in WoW, when people talk about how “easy” the game has become.  That for a lot of people just starting there isn’t much to point them along the right road, which skills to use and when, or how to build a decent rotation.  Of course, folks respond with crap like “That’s what the internet is for”.  Look, I didn’t have to go to the internet to figure out how to jump over pits in Super Mario, why is that such an easy solution for MMOs?  /sigh.  I don’t know.  But we were all noobs once, right?  But now we’re all bad ass.  So we had to have become better.

    Overcoming Difficult Obstacles: If the last requirement was the most universal, this one is probably the most subjective.  What constitutes difficult?  If one person struggles with beating a boss on easy mode, but eventually kills it, is that less overcoming difficulty than someone who beats it on the hard mode?   This is probably the most common thing I see in MMO discussions and it’s one that I doubt that will ever be solved mostly because it’s so subjective.  Of course, as we’ll see, the application of the later requirements tends to create conflict when applied to the subjective one.  Like if you can overcome the hard mode, and the other person has a hard time overcoming the easy mode, you are clearly a better gamer than them.  I don’t really agree with that.  But that’s probably the reason I personally steer away from games that thrive on competition.

    Crushing the Competition:  And hear the lamentatiooooons of da wooooooomeeeeeen! Yea, no.  This is one of those concepts that seems to be derived from old school board games and probably more likely sports.  But it DOESN’T apply to as many games as it does apply.  Arkham Horror for instance is a cooperative board game where players work together to defeat the game itself.  And there’s lots of board games like that.  Or how about single player games?  What is the competition to crush?  The NPCs?  The Bosses?  Wouldn’t that fall under the ‘Overcoming Difficulty’ portion of things?  If this is a REQUIREMENT of gaming, then there’s a lot of Non-Games out there that people enjoy.  Or are you gonna tell me that Skyrim isn’t a REAL game?  Really?  Now you’re just being stubborn.

    Proving You’re The Best: This one kind of walks hand in hand with the crushing the competition, except that it really can be done on some single player games.  After all, there’s a world wide competition for speed runners for games like Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker.  And while yes, you technically can “crush the competition” with that too, the game is not designed around that.  It IS designed with the ability to prove you’re the best (or at least the fastest).  This is where I personally think the main split between gamers actually lies.  Do you play to prove your the best to others, or do you play just to play the game (I’d say ‘have fun’ but if proving you’re the best is fun, then well, both options would be ‘have fun’.  After all, there is something fun about punching your initials into the high score…  spot…  my god, I just realized how old I am…)

    So are these THE requirements for a game to be a game?  No more than Chuck E Cheese’s being the only place where a kid is allowed to be a kid (Except in Alaska.  It’s actually a law there.  Sorry Alaska Kids.)  I can see why some people would put emphasis on these aspects of gaming.   They are all great ways and reasons to enjoy a game.  But I don’t think they are the only reasons, nor do I think it’s fair to say these are the criteria developers should be judged on in the Court of Internet Popular Opinion.  We all like different things.  I’d be perfectly fine with a game that you can’t lose, don’t have anything to overcome, but told a kick ass interactive story.  Sadly for me, things like Japanese Visual Novels was never a concept that caught on in the United States, so for the most part my selection there is parsed down to hentai options.  And while I love a good story as much as the next person, I’m not playing through a 20+ hour game to look at pixel porn.

    That’s what Mass Effect is for. HEEEEEY-OOOOOOOO! (Just kidding. I loved the ME Trilogy.)

    So what about you?  What do you think the requirements of a game to be a “Real game” is?  Graphics?  Narrative?  Online play?  A Blue Fairy, a cricket and a giant whale?  You tell me.  I’d love to hear some other thoughts on the subject.

  • So… You’re Back?

    So… I’m back.

    Writing, updating whenever I have something to say – so sometimes frequently and sometimes not so frequently – and doing whatever I might think of doing.  Namely several forgotten or thought about projects (doing a Let’s Play, my long forgotten SWTOR plot synopsis, I hear the Horde might need another Warchief here soon…)

    Yea but WHY are you back?

    Long time readers will recall my intent to continue on my internet ramblings over on Tumblr.  Namely because I felt more comfortable throwing little bits of random content up on there that is no way a significant “blog post” but makes a fine “Tumblr post” or some such.  And I did that.  For like a while. You may have seen some of it.  The problem really became the more and more I got into it, that the general vibe of tumblr community was not what I was used to with the video game and namely WoW blogging community.  Posts of animated GIFs of Doctor Who or Supernatural, quirky memes, Homestuck (whatever the hell Homestuck is), and all these other fandom like things doing their own thing.  I felt like I had jumped in the deep end of a pool of Jello with no spoon and severely lacking whipped cream.  I still have my Tumblr account.  You can find it here as always.  And the posts from this blog will get posted on there too.

    So are ALL your Tumblr posts going to come here?

    Oh hell no. No no no. No.  Have you seen the majority of the stuff I put on Tumblr?  Not to mention the countless re-blogs and whatnot.  I might bring over SOME of the posts I made over there in the past few months, and maybe some of my Ask Vrykerion posts which are always good for a laugh.  But the majority of that stuff stays there.  And I’ll continue to add to that stuff.  I still mess around on Tumblr a bunch with re-bloggings and lolcats and blue ray discs and… stuff…  yea…

    ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LEAVE US AGAIN?!?!

    Leave? What leave?  I never left. I simply shifted venues! Didn’t you read?  I always kept this door open for possible future scribblings.  Heck, the old Oddcraft site still says it might be updated now and again but don’t expect anything constant. Worry not voices in my head, your lord and master has returnedeth.

  • TREEK!

    So there’s been a bit of a hub bub about Star Wars: The Old Republic’s newest companion, Treek.  While a lot of the talk is mostly about how Treek is acquired (requiring 1 million credits AND a Level 40 legacy or just shelling out 2100 Cartel Coins with no legacy requirement at all) I personally find the companion to be worth the trouble and/or money.  Why you ask?  Is it because for a measly 700 CC I can unlock Treek on all my characters? No.  Is it because Treek is the first companion that can switch between tank and healing modes? Nuh-uh.

    Treek is the best companion ever because Treek is an Ewok.

    treel-healing-companion

    It’s like the universal answer to any question involving Treek. “Why will I be getting Treek?”  EWOK.

    treek_swtor_banner_0

    “Why should YOU get Treek?” EWOK.

    swtor-ewok-treek

    “How much does Treek cost?” EWOK! DOES IT MATTER?! EEEEWOK! DID I STUTTER?

    SWTOR_Treek-buffed

    “Pfft. Ewoks are stupid.”

    …

    Treek? Eat them.

    sddefault

    (Never forget that the ewoks were getting ready to cook Luke, Han and Chewie before C3PO got all god on them.  Do not #$%& with the ewoks. Yub yub, mutha #$%&a)

  • Blizzard’s Storytelling: Bad or Just Unfair?

    story

    A lot of times I joking will post stuff from the WoW Forums, or poke fun at the BioWare forums.  I know that really it’s just a festering pool of every inane complaint where the smallest slight is trumped up like a national tragedy, and every idea demands the weight of the cure of cancer, but sometimes… just sometimes…  stuff like THIS pops up.  And it really, REALLY, gets under my skin.

    GOOD storytelling isn’t always FAIR storytelling.  Everyone wants their faction to be the heroes and to win the war and come out on top.  There is a reason that Warcraft: Orcs and Humans and Warcraft II had TWO separate endings.  In Warcraft 3, the factions united to drive out the greater threat of the Burning Legion.  In WoW, a game built on continuity to the point where the slightest changed is burned in effigy among the chants of “Retcon! Retcon!” that the former option is impossible, and the latter has been done to death in every expansion.

    Now you are probably grumbling at this point and saying “Oh Vry, so you think the Alliance should just lie down and take it?” Not at all, I will happily go on the record saying that the Alliance seriously should have had more victories, especially in the Eastern Kingdoms.  Honestly a quest line in the barely touched Dustwallow Marsh where the Alliance forged a path into the Southern Barrens by breaking through Horde strongholds would have been nice, since the Horde was busy dealing with the Grimtotem threat in the region to begin with.

    FAIR storytelling is what people seem to want.  That special kind of story, where everyone wins, Everything blow is matched for an equal blow, and every loss is always met with an equal gain so that nothing is ever really lost.  I’ve played that game.  It was called SWTOR.  Seriously, go play through both factions stories and you’ll see.  Both Factions “win” Correllia.  Taris and Balmorra are lost and then retaken. And the only reason the Imperial’s are losing (or so we’re told, we never really see much losing going on from the Imp side) is because the Sith keep shooting themselves in the foot with stupid internal power struggles.

    Speaking of stupid internal power struggles…  Loremaster Cho points something out that I think is very telling of where this story is going.  The Horde is tearing itself apart from the inside,  every race only concerned with themselves: The Blood Elves feel used and have decided to act on their own,  Sylvanus and her Forsaken have always acted in their own interests, the Goblins are naturally out to make a buck because that’s how goblins are, and even Baine enters the Battlefield Barrens story hesitate to join Vol’jin in open revolt because he must think of the Tauren before the rest of the Horde.  Only Vol’jin and his Darkspears seem to be working for the betterment of the Horde supposedly.  I say that because it’s unclear how much of this revolt is taking back the Horde from Garrosh, and how much is just straight up revenge for his treatment of the Trolls.

    The Alliance on the other hand, is uniting together.  Bridges are being built, issues being resolved, and treaties made.  There is something happening with the Alliance.  It’s not just “Yea, we’re IN the Alliance, but we aren’t THE Alliance” anymore.  And while we haven’t seen the payday on this yet, I have no doubt that Blizz is laying the groundworks for SOMETHING with the Alliance.  Heck, the Garrosh storyline took 4 whole expansions to play out in totality.

    What Blizzard is doing is GOOD storytelling.  They’re laying the foundations and foreshadowing events, they are establishing characters and their relationships, and the events that unfold make sense in the greater narrative.  I’m not going to say that Blizzard’s storytelling is PERFECT, and hardly what I would call FAIR, but it is most definitely GOOD.  There’s lots of hiccups here or there, or plot lines that vanish for months/years before resolving that drive me nuts.  But I always remember that storytelling in an MMO is very different from how you tell a story in a single player game, and definitely different from how you tell a story in a book.  Compared to some MMOs I’ve played, they’ve definitely got a good story going.  Compared to others, it’s still a bit lack luster but fits for the style of game they’re making.

    Personally, I’d rather have a good story than a fair one.  But maybe that’s why I don’t pour out my frustration and bile onto the forums. (Besides, I have a blog for that)

  • Now A Word From Our Author

    Hello!

    …You’re probably all wondering where I’ve been huh?  Or maybe you haven’t cared at all.  That’s a valid response to a missing person.  I guess.  Anyway, those of you on twitter might know that my real life has been catching up to me.  Like a lot.  I am in a wonderful relationship, I’ve been back in school trying to get a certificate, and I’ve been playing a LOT of games both on the table top and digitally.

    So believe me when I say that I’ve been wanting to update this blog a LOT, and for like a while.  But every time I sit down to write something, well…  I don’t have the time or patience to come up with something to say.  I used to wax poetic (okay, I waxed limerick) about any little thing, but some of the old old old Oddcraft posts (and hats off to you if you’ve stuck with me that long) took almost an entire day of just brainstorming a way to make a dam with three heads on it funny.

    Okay, now you’re all probably giving me that ‘Oh Vry’s claiming to quit blogging again better bust out the tiny violin’ BUT NO! I ain’t quittin.  Nuh uh.  Not in the least.  I’ve simply changed tactics.  Instead of writing big elaborate fancy blog posts… I’ve downsized to small quirky Tumblr posts.  Oh yes.  I’ve switched my activities to tumblr.  But the weirdness goes on!  Just in bite sized portions.

    As for this blog,  well, she ain’t goin anywhere.  Never say never as a French pigeon once told me.  Who knows how far down in the future I might want to spruce up this blog and do something “real” and “serious” for a while.  Never know, right?  But I felt I owed to those brave souls that actually chose to follow my ramblings that you can still find more weirdness from the Hat on topics including, but not limited to:  WoW, TOR, Rift, D&D, Movies, Cartoons, Anime, Doctor Who, video games, video game news, Doctor What, Funny thoughts, Silly Pictures, Silly thoughts, Funny pictures, Doctor Where, science, rants, things I like, things I don’t like, Doctor Why, aaaaand  probably not sports. Never cared for sports.  Except golf.  How weird is that?

    Anyway, if you want to find my fancy little Tumblr and see more weird noises and scribblings from Vrykerion (Me.) simply click the big link below.  From there you can either follow me as a Tumblr user by clicking “Follow” (fancy that) or you can subscribe to the weird by clicking the little RSS icon on the right hand side.

    Hope to continue to bring you smiles, laughs, and something to show the Judge and say ‘Look, at least I’m not THIS guy’.

    That Tumblr I Spent An Entire Post Talking About

  • An Ode to Dailies

    Can I just say how much I actually love dailies? Being able to have something fun to do with myself that’s not too repetitive tasks that give me rep, valor and gold that I can then use on other awesome stuff.  Not to mention mounts! I love mounts.  And a farm! I looooove my farm.

    I know most people don’t like it because they feel the need to do everything, always, forever and what not.  But for me, it’s the perfect pace of content.  I do about two different ones at any time and work my way through exalted.  Do I valor cap? No.  But I really don’t NEED to.  I gear up through dungeons, scenarios, and now LFR (Finally.  And loving it by the by.)  Valor stuff I buy when I have enough and there’s something I can use.  So ultimately it just gives me something fun to do every day I log in that short enough that it doesn’t take forever (Eyes on you Belsavis TOR dailies. Ugh.), and I honestly don’t feel like I’m doomed if I skip a day because I’m not feeling it.  Because hey, dailies are always there.  Even at level 135, these dailies will still be there. So get to them whenever.

    But in the wake of so many people talking about how they DON’T like dailies at all, I decided to compose a silly little ode to them that makes me smile.  Maybe it’ll make you smile too?:

    ~~~

    Dailies here. Dailies there! Dailies can be found most anywhere!

    In pagodas and on the steppes, do your dailies to grind those reps!

    Help stop mogu in the Vale, roll down the spine and fly off the rail.

    Train your serpent amongst the Jade, hunt for eggs before they fade.

    So many dailies you can do! So many you’ll start to rue. Don’t forget farmers, fishers and gods. They need your help to get along.

    Help preserve the August Celestial brand and fight in temples across the land.

    Farm and fish, fish and farm – but remember you won’t make friends if you wish them harm!

    And unless we forget there’s those nice bugs too, the Klaxxi are your friend until they eventually decide to turn on you.

    And now we have a war going on. Sheildwall and Dominance are here to play along. (Just don’t upset the King or Garrosh, or else you might end up with your head cut right off.)

    So many dailies you can do! So many you’ll start to rue. With even more in five point two!

    (But remember you must cap that valor, yes you do – or else we’ll raid without you!)

  • Odd Aside: Google Search Q&A #1

    From a Google Search: “How to kill Thanaton on Korriban”

    Vry’s Answer:  Time travel.  Go back to when he was an apprentice and smash his head with a rock.

    If that fails, just use any interrupt you can when he begins to cast his different field spells and Force Storm can easily be moved away from since you’ve got a big room.  That said, Move out the bad when you don’t interrupt it.  Don’t bother interrupting his lightning spells. Use the Thrones in the dark council chamber to break line of sight on the lightning when you can.

    As an assassin I used Talos to keep me healed and kept Thanaton far away from him so he never got stuck in any of the bad AOE stuff.

    Ultimately, I think you’re better off with the Time Travel.  Might want to try a shovel instead of a rock.  And bring Khem Val.  He’ll eat him. No evidence.  It’s a good thing.

  • Of Death and Ironmen

    Honestly, I’m still completely shocked that the completely silly Ironman Challenge idea that we brewed up on Twitter all those years ago is still kicking around.  Now we’ve got our brand new level 90 Immortal Ironman.  For those who haven’t visited the OddCraft Archive’s Ironman page, the Immortal Ironman is the much, much, much, much, MUCH more well-known No Deaths variant of the challenge that the World of Warcraft Community came up with months after the original rules were posted.  (No, I’m not still sore about this all. I swear. I’m NOT! Stop saying it.  I do not protest too much.  And I’m not a lady, bub…   Sorry about the bub comment, Ma’am.)

    But I was thinking about the Immortal Ironman version of the rules, and the past World Firsts that made it with no deaths, and I realized that there was an aspect of that whole challenge that really bothers me.  Something I think kind of undermines at least what I personally sought to see with the original Ironman Challenge and one of the reasons I didn’t WANT a ‘No Death’ rule in the game.

    It makes you play it safe.

    The 85 Immortal Ironman? Dinged doing level 80 dailies.  The 90 Immortal Ironman? Questing in Hyjal.  Are you kidding me?  I mean, yes. You did something amazing, hardcore, bad ass, all that. But come on people.  You can’t even do it in the current expansion’s content?  You could just do damn dailies over and over until you ding.  That’s…  borderline cowardly!

    In my mind, Ironsally did it right.  Ironsally went into Hyjal and Deepholm and did battle against things that were compared to trying to solo raid bosses.  That is awesome.  And yes, she died.  But survival wasn’t the goal.  Conquest – VICTORY – was the goal.  And victory she achieved.  She killed them.  She waded into hell wearing her skivvies and emerged bloodied, beaten and victorious.

    I really don’t want to diminish the victories of those who decided to undergo the Ironman Challenge with the no death rule.  It’s still an amazing accomplishment.  But in my mind, to play it safe is the undermine the true goal of the challenge.  To face the forces of darkness with nothing but barest of essentials.  To see if you could do it.  To see if you can even HIT or KILL a level 85 monster at level 84 with nothing but your underwear and a wooden sword.  That’s where I was going in my mind when the initial conversation on twitter took place, that’s still where the REAL challenge is in my mind.

    But that’s not what the community wanted.  They made the challenge they wanted.  They took our framework and modified it.  That’s fine.  They have their champions, we have ours.  But if they want a challenge.  A REAL Ironman, best of the best, Ironman challenge.  Allow me to offer one additional rule to pair with their hardcore ‘No Death’ one:

    14. No Daily Quests.

    I’m asking you to show me how ‘Iron’ you are. I’m saying drop your safety net.  I think we’ve shown that Ironman is doable and Immortal Ironman is doable.  Now I’m upping the ante.  Show me what you have, WoW community.  I’m eager to see how tough you are.

  • New Level Cap, New Ironman

    Level 90 Immortal Ironman: Lyssan

    Well, it’s happened folks.  The challenge was set forth and the World of Warcraft rose to meet it.  We have a new Ironman.

    It’s been declared that LYSSAN of VEK’LINASH (US) is our World First Level 90 Immortal Ironman. A great big congratulations on the achievement!

    As it has been with past winners, your name is now eternally carved into the history of the Ironman Challenge.

    And I must say, a huge props on accomplishing this task with a priest.  Early on in the challenge I know a couple people tried to do priests, thinking that the heals and shield would be helpful in the long run.  Ultimately they were defeated by the massive drain of their mana pool. While I’m not sure if that has changed at all in Mists of Pandaria, I am still willing to say that hitting level 90 on priest Ironman style takes balls. Iron balls.  So a massive congrats to Lyssan!