Benie's Games Blog

The Curse Client got updated to v5 today. Saw the update before it popped up on the Minecraft Forum homepage. I don’t know anything about this, but what caught my eye and sickened me at the same time was the new WoW-related background.
At first I thought that MoP had been released. The fact it’s been months since I took the time to learn anything about the upcoming EP. The reason is I didn’t want to get so attached to it and come back, since Minecraft has my full attention.

But I finally decided to look, and was relieved that the EP hasn’t been released yet. Nor is there any known date. But back on March 21st, exactly three months ago to this day, Blizzard released a Beta. An opt-in beta that you can sign up for by sending them your system specs and waiting patiently for them to get back to you, which isn’t a guarantee since they will only invite you in if they need more testers.
It’s like waiting for that special letter/package to show up in your mailbox that you’ve been waiting 6/8 weeks for. And the letter/package may or may not “get lost in the mail” and never be delivered.
What is cool is they don’t have a NCA(Non-Closure Agreement). So you’re free to take screenshots and/or blog about what you saw. But they warn you to expect bugs since it is “BETA” for a reason.

So anyway, let’s get to what I’ve found out through one of the links I clicked, the WoWPedia.
First off, it looks like they’re showing where Pandaria is (due south of Northrend). They also show two… things that are new that have been added to SW and Org, west of the portals. I assume this is the only way to get to the island. I don’t see any added boat or zeppelin docks. Maybe they’re coming in the future?

They also show new, zoomed in pictures of every start area for every playable race, including Northshire and the road to GS. Pretty cool.
No new tamable Hunter pets have been announced yet. Hopefully this will come at a later date.
Also, there seems to be three new classes to the Pandarian race, but they appear to either not be confirmed, or a joke. The Monk is still the official class. Maybe in the future, these three “classes” may or may not be confirmed.
Brewmaster however has been confirmed as one of the Monk’s Talent Trees.

Two new mounts have been added. Both dragon-related. The mount for the Pandarians is a Dragon Turtle. And the other sick mount is a fucking Chinese Dragon (called the Cloud Serpent). You can get one by raising it up by doing 20 days of quests, similar to the Venomhide Ravasaur mount for the Horde side. I’m sure pleasing the new Cloud Serpent faction will not be easy, but I will do it sometime after getting to Level 90.

They got other maps of the new Scenario system of MoP. One is the Horde capturing Theramore, and one is the Alliance trying to take back a destroyed Theramore. Both are PvE battlegrounds, meaning the enemy team are AI, not real players. This is great and just what I wanted; Alliance VS Horde fights without being laughed at for my sucky DPS or dying alot and feeling depressed because I can’t handle the intensity.
But really, what’s the point if we’re going to lose Theramore to the Horde anyway? It pisses me off too, because I had alot of history with that place.

Last thing. For the first time in WoW history, all Level 85 chars will be in one area and one area alone (Jade Forest) to get to 90, instead of two (like Northrend and Mount Hyjal/Vashjir). From there, chars will be going to the other zones (in order, mind you) on their road to Level 90.
Seeing the pictures of the Jade Forest alone, it’s no wonder why they grounded our dragons (or our dragon forms) ’till Level 90. It is fucking beautiful!!

So anyway, it doesn’t appear I missed much. so this is good. Currently in WoW they’re celebrating the Midsummer Festival. I’m sure GS is getting ransacked by the Horde, trying to get their fire as I type.

I’ve been playing this instead of Minecraft. I like it enough to blog about it. I’ve heard of the “Tycoon” series before but never got into it. But about a week ago I was watching this Let’s Play series of this guy named “Nerd3”. Watched his video of this game and I liked what I was seeing.
What sold me to get it is the fact it has a Sandbox mode. There’s another one but I’ll go over that later on.
So I got it though the Atari store for $19.99. It’s actually $10 cheaper than what Steam wants for it. The Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 Platinum edition includes the two EP’s “Soaked!” and “Wild!”.

The object of the game is simple; build an awesome theme park that people (or “peeps” as they’re called in the game) will spend alot of money in and make you rich. But in Sandbox mode, everything is unlocked to you and you have unlimited funds to build whatever the fuck you want, where the only challenge is your Creativity.

The reason why I say this game is a The Sims/SimCity hybrid, because Peeps have individual needs; basic needs like Hunger and Thirst that you will have to deal with by setting up Food and Drink stalls, and toilets. Also some Peeps may only be able to handle Kiddie rides, while others can handle the “Coaster of Death”.
And of course the SimCity side being managing your park, keeping it clean and well-maintained will keep peeps in your park.
Yes, rides can break down. Sometimes more than once. And some peeps can throw up due to being dumb of thinking their weak stomach can handle a powerful ride. That’s why you need to hire a team of Mechanics and Janitors.
To keep Peeps spending their cash, hire Entertainers to act silly and make them laugh to raise their happiness.

I’ve made two parks so far. They aren’t good parks. Why I named both of them “Benie’s Failpark”. Yet currently at the time of this writing, my record number of peeps that were in the park is 1,917. That’s not bad.
So as I was saying before, the second thing that sold me to get this game is when he was talking about the Water Cannons. You can troll peeps with them by sending them flying when they hit the high powered stream of water coming from it. This can lead to some hilarious moments of seeing them “cracking their skulls open” after hitting the pavement, then getting back up and walking like it was nothing. And you can’t kill peeps. So they’re fun to troll, especially when they keep coming back for more.

However, this game isn’t without its bugs. And man does it have alot. Here’s ‘some’ of them;
– No undo button. … Really?
– No quicksave/load, or even an autosave. … Again, really?
– No option to replace a tile with another one.
– You can’t move items (aka ‘kick over’), only delete them. Nor is there a Copy/Paste feature.
– Peeps sometimes throw up after eating, leading to more work janitors have to clean up. Sometimes I swear they do it on purpose to see them hopping.
– Peeps litter even with a Garbage Can nearby. See the above post of I feel they do on purpose.
– Peeps, even if they don’t need to fill a specific need bar, walk up to the stall anyway and then shake their head and walk away. This leads to “‘Stall name here’ is too busy” of some peeps’ minds.
– The terrain tools need to be fixed. They can unintentionally fuck up flat paths by showing the grass in between the tiles (and it looks very ugly).
– When a ride breaks down and you place a mechanic next to it and then call for one, sometimes another mechanic on the other side of the park gets the call.
– Setting a stall to have “Guest Choice” for toppings, peeps will still complain about “‘item here’ has masses of toppings!”
– Some vanilla rides are bugged. Such as the “Launched Freefall” ride. Peeps refuse to leave the ride when it’s done, leading to pissed off waiting peeps and very long queue lines.
– The Mini Railway, sometimes when it breaks down it’ll say it “got its doors stuck closed”, when the cars have no doors.
– Janitors don’t clean toilets? And I never heard of a janitor that waters plants.
– You can’t respond to messages when in CoasterCam. Annoying when I’m trying to ride the rides I placed.
– The same sound that alerts you to something broke down or what not, is also used to “alert” you that you got an award. And no option to disable it.
– Bad camera controls. It’s very hard to look up.

Despite the bugs, this is still a pretty fun game. The best part is obviously the train systems one can set up. And with a few ‘cheats’ added to a .cfg file, you can have yourself a Rail System with.. non-functional switch tracks. But they’re basically for show.
You can also make it look more lively with these fake tracks and make yourself a railyard, with vehicles as “train cars”. Or if you’re creative enough, you can have multiple trains and/or trams going up and down the lines (as long as they don’t crash since switches don’t work).
Remember, in Sandbox mode, you got plenty of cash. Anything is possible.
Unfortunately, the peeps have to like it enough to go where you want them to. And they sure don’t like the nature walk around a lake I made. Peeps want rides, not to be with nature.

But it seems like the #1 thing in Sandbox mode to do, is run peeps over with coasters, Go-Carts, or a buggy. That’s why people have made videos of a “Death Park” and “Suicide Park” showing hilarious ways to ‘treat peeps kindly’.

“Woah! No way!”
Actually, I am. Why? No, I’m not bored with the W2TS. JeetTol’s Season 2 inspired me to give it a go. What I saw was alot of fun. Been thinking about it for the longest time, and finally did it.

I wanted to start off with the same mods he has. Then live in a cave. My own Dragon Cave (since my skin is an EnderDragon), and overlook my surroundings. And what a view I have (ignore the “Mine” markers. All markers are from Rei’s Minimap which Jeet does use).
The entrance, sucks IMO (looks nothing like a cave). I hope to improve it when I get more stone, and that requires more mining and less pickaxes and torches being lost.

Starting hasn’t been as easy as it always is for Jeet. But I bet alot of people would agree with me. Someone said that he always gets the best seeds.
I started playing in Peaceful to help guide me (it’s been a LONG time since I played legit), but set a “trial” of this then switched to Easy to allow monsters to spawn after passing that trial.

I’ve been struggling of trying to find animals for their food (even though the hunger bar is frozen on Peaceful) and trying to find the resources needed to start making the machines that Jeet uses.

I need to make my own mine too instead of depend on what I can find out there. Haven’t found much in Iron, and I still need Redstone to make Copper Cables to start making the machines. Have made an Iron Furnace (made my first Machine Block with the 9 iron I had found) to speed up cooking time a bit.

I got a tree farm on the top of the mountain, with two Rubber Trees. Yeah, I did find my first Rubber Tree from IC2. It was about 200 meters south of the cave.

In closing, one reason I did this is I know I can quit if it gets too hard and go back to the W2TS. All thanks to MultiMC.

-WARNING, MORE SPOILERS-

I’ve decided to continue playing. Made a list of all the side quests I haven’t done and put them in sections. This helped me to know what ones I can do before I have to do the point of no return. So I managed to save the Quarians and got the Geth to join the war.
I just wanted to list the things I really like, and the things Bioware could of done better.

Things I liked;
– Boarding the Geth Dreadnaught. The 0g docking tube was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in the Mass Effect series. It reminded me of Dead Space.
– Visiting Rannoch. It is beautiful, and working my way to the AA guns was pretty awesome. Reminded me of Crysis in a way when it came to the Geth Patrol.
– Trying to assist Thessia as it’s under Reaper attack. It really makes you grasp the seriousness of this war.
– After three failures of not knowing what I’m supposed to do, killing the Reaper Destroyer on Rannoch. This fight strangely reminds me of the final boss battle of Yoshi’s Island (even though I never played the game. Saw a video).

What Bioware could of improved, besides the ending;
– When it comes to buying guns, it would of been nice if they showed a comparison of your current weapon + its mods.
– No option to view your squad’s loadout between missions?
– What happened to the weapon markers of when you buy weapons so you can tell them apart, from ME2?
– Mail should be allowed to be sorted.
– Normandy should of had a VI Shooting Range in the Shuttle Bay. Instead of having to go to the Citadel to test out weapons.
– The Citadel’s Shooting Range needs another dial to control difficulty of the targets. That way you’ll know what gun is best for what enemies, and the power needed.

Three other things to discuss. The first thing is the Reaper on Rannoch after killing it. How it said that they are there to kill, to keep organics from being doomed. This is the first “makes no sense” part, and even Shepard admits by saying “Organics and Synthetics don’t have to kill eachother!”. But still, it got me thinking. Maybe it’s just indoctrination trying to fuck it up.
The second, the Prothean VI. It mentions the weapon wasn’t originally designed by them, but several sapient species over the billions of years. They all added a few things to the device, but were terminated by the Reapers before they could complete.

Another thing about the VI that seems to, at least to me, say the “indoctrination theory” is false. The VI talks to Shepard, then senses an indoctrinated being approaching. If Shepard was indoctrinated since the ME2 DLC “Arrival”, wouldn’t the Prothean VI detect it? The video, however, says the theory is still possible @ 5:25.

And the third thing. I’ve decided to just hold off of doing Priority: Cerberus Headquarters ’till the DLC is released this Summer. I imagine this is the best thing to do seeing how they’ll add new things based on what the player has done. I feel Bioware would want players to do this if they want to see everything.
I currently have for the War Assets: 7011 Total Military Strength, 50% total Readiness (haven’t played Multiplayer), and 3505 Effective Military Strength. This is from doing all side quests, and all Search and Rescue things of scanning planets. I hope this is high enough for a “good ending”.

-WARNING, ENDGAME SPOILERS-

What I saw in a video (wanted to see where the “point of no return” was), was true honor and sacrifice to save Earth. Unfortunately it causes a major setback of all Mass Relays destroyed, stranding every race in the galaxy.

It also causes the Normandy to be partially damaged but not destroyed. It crash lands on an unknown planet. The crew survives, but they’re stranded. It’s there the credits roll and the game is over.

It’s safe to say ME3 has no freeplay after the main quest. Seeing how everyone’s stranded because of no relays. And that’s not even the “best” ending. The “best” one has the Citadel destroyed on top of it.
Was THIS the Protheans were planning to do if they were able to finish their weapon to stop the Reapers? You could call it drastic, but maybe they didn’t have a choice.

At the end, Shepard is faced with three options. Destroy the Reapers, join man and machine, or control them. All three options, he (or she if a FemShep) still dies. And the Relays STILL get destroyed. It all depends on how much War Assets that were collected if Earth is saved or not.
Destroying or Controlling the Reapers also destroys every robot, including EDI and the Geth. But joining saves EDI at the end. But it also merges all organic life forms with synthetics; makes them all cyborgs.

Shepard did say, once; “Whatever it takes to stop the Reapers. Even if it kills me.” Yet no one knew this would be his only option.

Other people are upset that the Normandy “chickened out” after Shepard chose. Because it shows Joker trying to escape the shockwave of Sol’s relay with the ship damaged already. Then it crash lands on that unknown planet and they act like “Well, this is our new lives” without even worrying about what happened to Shepard.

If that’s not all, in one of Mass Effect 2’s DLC’s, they plainly mention when a relay blows up, the system it’s in goes with it. Which would of destroyed Earth and our entire system, making what Shepard did pointless. Not to mention it would of wiped out the military forces that were trying to save Earth. The irony.
Yet somehow, it didn’t. My guess is the beam isn’t an asteroid. Yet it still blew up the relays. But, the Normandy… again, no one really knows. The words “doesn’t make sense” have been used alot.

I…I really don’t know what to say now, only that my desire to play this game anymore has dropped big time. For them to just… stop the game right there when no one knows how anyone would survive without the relays. And what about Joker and the rest of the team? How are they going to get off that planet?
They could of at least made a small area of the Normandy team calling for help or trying to repair the ship.
But, they didn’t. They just leave you guessing. Maybe in a future DLC (hopefully it’s a free one). This is possibly The End of the Mass Effect series. Cause it’s unlikely there’s going to be a Mass Effect 4 after this.

I do have to agree with the comments I read on Amazon.com. The ending is disappointing. One thing’s for certain; Bioware sure knows how to do drama.
And the only thing they can say about it? “We’re sorry”.

Since Mass Effect 3 was announced, I wanted it. But it’s not on Steam due to copyright issues. A day ago, had an idea to see if someone’s made a full walkthrough of ME3, so I can “play” it while watching someone else play it. And sure enough, there is.

As I watched, I liked what I was seeing. And that eventually lead me to buy it. Started playing yesterday evening.
The opening is alot different as I thought it would be. Basically, the Normandy is impounded and Shepard is detained due to what happened at the Alpha Relay. They know he didn’t have a choice but don’t want to start a war with the Batarians. But Earth calls of the incoming Reaper invasion, knowing Shepard has seen them and would know how to deal with them, before the Reapers wipe out the human race.

But we all know what it took to bring down Sovereign in ME1, and that was just one Reaper. Now it’s hundreds of them and their numbers are increasing, popping up on other homeworlds and showing no mercy. What’s worse, they’re making their own Husks. Fortunately from what I’ve seen so far, none of them are any harder than the ones in ME2.

As for repeating characters from Mass Effect 1 and 2, yes there is. So far I’ve seen Anderson, anyone that survived in the suicide mission at the end of ME2, the person you kept while the other gave their life in Virmire (Ashley or Kaidan), and even Wrex if you weren’t forced to kill him on Virmire.
There’s even a few people returning who used to work for Cerberus, that now want to work for the Alliance. But here’s the weird thing. In my last playthrough of ME1, I chose Anderson to be the Councilor for humans of the Citadel, yet Udiana is.

The Normandy has been redesigned (you find this out later on after doing the opening missions). All Cerberus markings have been removed to make it an official Alliance ship. The Lab is gone, and now you can get into the Shuttle Bay. It’s there where the Armory has been moved; just like the original Normandy.
The need for minerals is gone. So have ship upgrades (since there’s no need to upgrade anything). The minerals that were collected in ME2 are now being used for the supposed Prothean weapon against the Reapers. No one knows how it will help, but people grow desperate for any light of hope against this threat.
Wouldn’t you if you were trying to fight an unrelenting enemy with no known weaknesses?

There’s one thing I don’t like. In ME1 when it came to side quests, it told you the planet, system, and cluster the quest is in. Here in ME3, I have to use the wiki for quests that are all “Find and return” with little to no knowledge of where to go.
This wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the added risk of Reapers finding you when you’re searching by scanning systems, and you’re forced to complete a mission (not a “find this”) for them to leave. Eventually, I will run out of missions.
About ready to see if there’s a walkthrough that will disable this so I can find these things without the Reapers finding me.
I can also try to use this more often, as it has a list of all things that can be used for the final battle.

Anyway, I won’t subject you guys to any more spoilers. I’ll let you know what I thought of this, “shitty ending” everyone’s talking about. Even if it does make me regret paying the money, it’s done and I wanted ME3.
I also want Crysis 2, but that’s another future blog post.

Shortly after the good Railcraft update, I told angry in hopes he would be interested in Minecraft again. He explained that he wouldn’t due to really getting back into Wurm after extending his premium status, and suggested I come on my old char, Dragonhead, and check out Volcano Forest one year later.

He claimed that some of the stuff I had is still there, including my Cog and Corbita. And how “your neighbor took the rest” which is probably what’s left of Oceanside Retreat. I felt like someone stabbed me in the heart after that statement. But I stuck to my guns and said how I promised I would never come back to Wurm, that it’s nothing but a grindfest and not the game for me, because you can’t pause it like you can Minecraft. The conversation did stop after that, and I went back to Minecraft.

At night, I started feeling like I should just come and see Volcano Forest (to “do it for angry”), so.. I did. And man, has it changed. Angry wasn’t on so I looked around. It still has the old shape it did before, but there’s new buildings now. I also saw some things I didn’t see before. A bell tower, and a new guard tower.
The GUI has been changed graphically, so have graphics in general. They look pretty nice.

As I looked, I ran into several hostiles. It’s like they were saying “You shouldn’t of came back! You should of stayed in Minecraft where it’s safe! RUN, pussy!! Run like the coward you are!”. The total killed by the guards are one Old, two Aged, and one Young spider, and two Mature starving mountain lions. Surprised I didn’t run into any scorpions or bears.

I’ve discovered angry’s friend who we met when we got to the island, Elshar. His village is.. gone, and so was he. All there is, is the road leading around and down to the pier. But even that is changed. The pier has been replaced by a fenced in area with a single house.

I finally managed to make it to the harbor after dealing with all of those hostiles. It too has changed quite alot from being nothing more than a slab of dirt. I did see my old boats. They’ve both been renamed. My faithful Corbita needs to be repaired and now angry owns it, but the Cog fortunately is still afloat. Angry also has a thing where travelers can rest and get sleep bonuses, for a price.

I don’t have the tools I did. I feel like I was “stripped for parts” after leaving. But I deserve it. Later on angry explained through Steam that they were in his house.
Does this mean I want to come back? Yeah. Right. After what I went through just to see the harbor? I’ll pass. I only showed up to see how the area has prospered as angry suggested, and it has. I’m still… angered when he told me “your neighbor took the rest”. Which leaves me to my closing..

In ways I feel it was my neighbor who made me leave. A few months after I founded it with my alt’s help, it was quiet, peaceful, and I liked it. Then that bastard shows up next to me. And it seems he brings all the hostiles to my front door.
I missed that quiet. I felt like I could finally play Wurm the way I wanted to. And for some time I did. Then he came along and ruined my peace and tranquility by hanging around in my Local. I don’t get along with other people except myself (aka, my alt who was my cook).

Or maybe I did. I did have several projects I wanted to do, but never got completed because I never got the required help (as in angry coming over). Yet he claimed I could of just asked him to watch the homestead for me so I could take a break.
It was probably a combination of things. Anyway, I’m still not fully coming back to Wurm. That’s angry’s game; not mine. Mine is Minecraft, and the W2TS.

I still have my old Wurm screenshots to remembrance of the past. Before the founding of Oceanside Retreat. May they always be a memory of my “past life”. When life was good before I got neighbors.

On this day, it turns 3 years old. In human years it’s still a baby. But in dragon years, it’s an Elder. And this one has alot to teach the young games, on why it was such a wildly successful and popular game about placing and deleting blocks.

I still remember the day angry tried to get me into it. I was all “Is this all you can do?”. Unfortunately I still had my ‘LOL SYSTEM LOCKUP!!’ issue with my GPU at that time. But since that was fixed, I really started to enjoy the game. How it felt there was so much, freedom. I could build anything I wanted!

Time went on, angry made me a map with a river going through it, and I turned it into what he calls a work of art. I made a city on one side, and houses on the other. I made an interstate that looped around it, and even wanted to make a subway system for it.

Fast forward into the future, I’m still playing Minecraft in 1.2.5. But alot of my past creativity has been sucked away by failures. Yet I keep playing. And here I am, with a transit system.

Since the devs are busy with their lives and no one else wanted to take the time, I did by writing the FAQ for Tropicraft. It started off as a Titanpad. Due to its size, I thought it needed to be on a wiki, or part of one. I didn’t want people to have to search the entire FAQ to answer one question. Needed to make it neater.

Putting it on the wiki was no easy task. I had hardly any knowledge of Wiki’s coding. I needed to know how to do anchors and other shit, and I had no idea. I tried to ask the IRC chat, but they didn’t really help me.

Thankfully, angry did and got me started on the right foot. He showed me the correct way to do anchors in Wiki. Using that, I finally had it the way I wanted it. You can view my FAQ here.

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Also, angry told me that Portal 2 now has an in-game level editor, and it’s pretty easy to understand too. Within the first half an hour of trying it out, I figured out how to expand the test chamber, add walls, a cube, bounce goop, and how to link buttons and stuff to the exit door or other things. It’s pretty awesome. It’s sorta similar to MCEdit.

There’s still a few things I want to be able to do, but I don’t know how. Such as show the entire tube instead of having to lower part of the ceiling.