Goodbye Single Player Portal 2

Ahhhhh I wish I could talk more about Portal 2 but I don't want to ruin the ending for anyone. I just want to say that it was EVERYTHING I could have possibly asked for. I'm very used to playing games like Little Big Planet or Soul Calibur or any Mario game, and while you get emotionally attached to those characters to some level, Portal 2 is different. Maybe I'm weird but it was much easier to identify with Chell and really actually yearn to escape.

It reminds me of my game design classes and getting grilled week after week on our game pitches. We had to show that our game would be fun, replayable, unique, and make the player connect to the story. Valve (makers of Portal & Portal 2) are geniuses when it comes to this. They have a great sense of humor, they have a compelling story, great & unique game mechanics, they make the player feel smart, and they get you invested. I can't wait for Ariel to finish it so we can play co-op mode together and actually talk about it. I almost love watching her play Portal & Portal 2 as much as I loved playing them myself. She has a wonderful sense of humor and watching her react to the game makes me laugh all over again.

Back to WoW for now I suppose...
Patch 4.1 dropped on Tuesday and now, THANKFULLY, they changed the daily heroic mechanic so you can run 7 heroics in a week (at anytime) rather than having to run one a day for valor points. I'm earning a lot more valor points now.

Sarah hit lvl 80, so it's only a matter of time until she joins us in 85 heroics. Whenever she wants to run some regular dungeons I will definitely tank for her. Regulars don't scare me too much, and by the time she's ready for heroics so will I (as a tank).

I have another topic I want to write about but it's a big jump from this topic and rather long, so onto a new post I go!

Definitely thinking with Portals

So far I'm not sure why so many people are angry about Portal 2. What were they expecting??? Most of them are complaining about the purchasable gestures and addons for the co-op bots that you can buy in the downloadable content store. None of these things change the game at all! They change how your bot looks a little bit, but it's all cosmetic. It's not like you're buying extra levels.

Other people are complaining that the game doesn't look as realistic as they had hoped. I think it's an absolutely stunning game and they need to just shove it, hehe. It's definitely increased in realism since the original, and the physics and animations in this one just blow my mind. When the chambers are reassembling I think to myself "thank god I didn't have to do that animation." Soooo many bits and pieces! And when panels can't fit back into the wall properly, they repeatedly try to jam themselves in. There is something comical and humanizing in their motion, and I think the animators did a great job.

Plus, Portal is the type of game you buy for the puzzles and the humor and the experience. It's never really been about bleeding edge graphics. I think people need to rethink their obscenely high expectations and love what the game is. But I will say you should look at the foliage, pay attention to Chell's form in those brief instants you see yourself. It's very very impressive. The first Portal was all straight lines, so maybe people don't realize the time and energy it takes to make things look dirty and dilapidated.

As far as WoW goes, nothing new here. I haven't logged in since Monday due to my Portal 2 addiction, but I can't imagine it'll take me more than another day to beat it. I'll be very sad when it's over, but then I can move onto co-op mode with Ariel!!

sidetracked

Completely unrelated to WoW and tanking...I am sooooo excited about Portal 2! I still remember how awesome it was when I beat the first one in a weekend (I couldn't put it down and also suffered a crap ton of portal induced motion sickness). When Valve announced Portal 2 I thought it was a hoax at first. Now I'm patiently awaiting my release date delivery from amazon. Ariel and I decided on the ps3 version of the game because through steam I also get to download the pc version. I think I'll prefer playing on the pc, Ariel thinks she'll enjoy the ps3 better, and since co-op mode is cross platform (except for the unlucky ones with the 360 version) there really wasn't a drawback to this version.

Also, death knights are CRAZY.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp1TAbOFQCQ&feature=player_embedded#at=241
This German dude is tanking two heroic bosses from the Stonecore at the same time. Oh wait, I should rephrase. He isn't tanking them, he's soloing them. I'm the last person to complain my class is overpowered but WTH! Those are some crazy skills (video found at MMO champion).

The servers are down for their regularly scheduled maintenance right now so not much else to report. Hopefully Portal 2 gets here soooooon!!!

woot, a success

I spent a few days away from WoW due to some out of town guests and then Ariel and I spent most of Sunday sleeping in order to make up for our lack of sleep. It was a good weekend though :)

Today I figured I would do my daily quests and then run a heroic as dps in order to try and get some more tank drops/boost my reputation with the Wildhammer faction because I'm very close to being able to buy my tanking boots from them. Then, after giving it some thought, I realized that those were just tactics to continue to avoid tanking in a real instance. Technically my gear blows what people normally wear in regular dungeons out of the water, so I have no excuse. Frank also helped nudge me in the right direction.

I opened up the dungeon finder, chose random regular dungeon, selected tank as my role and queued! Since tanks are in demand I got an insta-group instead of the half hour dps wait. The dungeon was the Lost City of Tol'Vir, and while my group changed specs and gear I introduced myself and let them know it was my first time tanking. I figured if I was honest with them and tried to be nice, they'd be kinder if I killed them all. I told them I would try to keep a decent pace, and that I wouldn't make them use CC unless they all thought we needed it.

The first few pulls were horrifying. Nothing went wrong, I was just so scared I would lose aggro and get the healer killed or something like that. I tried to remember the places in that dungeon where my random tanks usually pulled incorrectly and got a few groups. I tried to remember what frustrated me as dps, so I could avoid doing that as a tank. As it turns out we only had one death, and that was right as the boss went down, and the healer apologized and said it was his fault. They thanked me and said it was a great run in the end :)

I also made great use of nerino's boss info addon, so I could let them know the strat before we pulled each boss. Yay! I'm still scared of tanking, but a little less scared.

I think the thing that makes me the most nervous is the "random" aspect of the dungeons. If I know what I'm getting myself into I will read all of the detailed boss strats ahead of time, but there are so many dungeons and when I hit "random" I worry I'll get stuck in one of the instances I've only done once or twice. As dps you don't always know the intricacies of what the tank is doing. I probably don't give myself enough credit for what I do remember, but I'm positive that feeling of confidence will only come with practice.

See, successfully paying my student loans sets me up for all types of success :P (I did that this morning after careful budgeting and am very proud of myself for figuring all of that crap out...it's been MONTHS in planning).

We'll see what the future holds for my tanking skills. Frank said that once Sarah hits 80 on her mage we should all run Naxxaramas, the old Northrend raid instance. It'd still be mildly challenging, so maybe I'll tank that and get even more experience.

So Far So Good

Yesterday was actually a good amount of fun for my newbie tank. Fortunately the newest expansion of WoW has been out about 4 months and we've had this patch of content for a while now, so most of the need to know tanking tips are all over the lovely interwebs. One of my favorite sites to check on all of that is wow.joystiq.com. Their Death Knight columnist breaks everything down from some of the more popular talent specs, where to find gear, and how all of your stats weigh against each other.

One of the awesome things that boosted my confidence a little is that before I read the DK gear guide I had already purchased and gemmed/enchanted some of my gear. I had guessed based on my previous knowledge of the class and just went with my gut. The great part was that the columnist suggested the exact same choices I made! So yay for going with my gut. Oddly enough I'm only 4 items away from having a complete tank gear set. Those four slots are currently filled with my dps pieces, and they aren't horrible for a tank, so at this point I could probably tank a normal dungeon without any problem. Hell, I could probably tank a heroic if I wasn't so scared. There are a lot of asshats out there that do it with less gear, but I'm pretty hard on myself.

I'm wondering if I'm going about this the right way? Am I conquering a fear if I refuse to run any dungeons as a tank until I'm completely over geared? Then again, if I run it now and completely suck my confidence will be shot and it'll be a while before I can force myself to do it again. I guess I'll do it like I always do it, research, wait, and do it when I'm comfortable. Or with friends, if we all happen to be online together. I won't be able to play much for the next three nights because I'm having a friend visit from high school & then plans for Saturday night, but we shall see.

I didn't play a whole lot last night (after the gearing/gemming/enchanting extravaganza) just a quick northrend dungeon with Sarah and Frank. Who knows, maybe today I'll feel adventurous? One great thing about this tanking spec is I have soooo many self heals and wards ways to survive. I tried some player vs player content yesterday and totally kicked ass. I'd go through entire Tol Barad events without dying once. Consequently I was there for 3 TB wins yesterday, when normally I'm lucky to see even one. At the very least this experiment is great for pvp!

Day 1...or 2

I should start by explaining that I'm a perfectionist, but not always in a good way. Without realizing it my motto has been "if you can't be the best/do something perfectly, why do it?" and I know that's a pretty crappy way to talk to myself.

There are a lot of things I wish I did better. Or a lot of "natural talent" I wish I had, but don't believe I posses. It's hard to make the overnight switch from that viewpoint to being confident in the abilities I do have, and understanding that through practice and effort I can achieve what I want.

I decided to set small goals & challenges for myself in order to get closer to thinking that way. I'm very passionate about gaming, specifically MMORPGs. I've been playing video games and watching my brother play video games as far back as I can remember, which is probably the Commodore 64 or ColecoVision. I started playing MMOs in high school on my friends' Ultima Online "shards" or what we now call realms or servers. Then it was on to Everquest, Everquest 2, and eventually World of Warcraft. I was a computer science major for two years and then switched to digital media. Eventually I'd like to work in MMO game design, or on the back end doing class balancing mechanics. I like figuring out how things work and min/maxing.

It's funny though. Through all of my time playing MMOs I never pushed myself to be a healer or a tank. It seemed like too much responsibility. For instance, in Everquest 2 I was a dirge, which is an offshoot of the bard class. When I describe who I am in real life, I always come back to feeling like a dirge. Bards don't have exceptional damage per second, but if they play really well they can have nice raid or group output. They can't tank, but they can take a few hits soloing. They can't heal, but they have a few life taps and "oh crap" buttons. They can range a little bit, but do most of their damage in melee range. They're not particularly good on their own, for anything, but they have such incredible group/raid buffs and make everyone else perform so much better that everyone wants them around. Maybe that sounds a bit cocky, but I see myself as the jack of all trades master of none, but still someone you want to be around.

All of that is fine until you're writing your resume or thinking about doing freelance work. It's so fucking hard for me to brag about myself because I just don't think I do anything out of the ordinary. I can help other people, I can fill in the gaps, but please please please don't give me responsibility because I'm so scared I'll mess it up.

Now that I'm 26, almost 27, I've decided that this needs to stop. The first place I can make it stop is in WoW. Hopefully that can give me some of the courage I need to do it in real life. My main character in WoW is a death knight that's always filled the dps role. It's comfortable and safe and I know how to do it, so now it's time for me to push that. Last night I respeced my secondary talent tree and changed it to be a blood tanking spec. I bought some tanking gear, slapped on some glyphs, wrote a few macros and ran some old northrend & burning crusade instances with my friends. I know that's not a challenge at lvl 85 but baby steps! In the beginning it's easier with friends, because even if I mess up I know they won't really care.

Once my friend Sarah gets up to lvl 80-85 I plan on tanking regular dungeons for her, before I ultimately move on to heroics. I'm pretty sure if I can master this - a better way of thinking about myself won't be far off. I'm extremely scared I can't do it, but this time I just have to force myself anyway.

I'll be keeping this tanking journal to record progress, my thoughts along the way, and maybe help other people that feel the same way I do. I know some of the people closest to me don't believe in themselves the way they should...maybe this will help them try, too.