The Fourth

As Guild Wars is about to celebrate its 4th year, players are now shown what’s under the hood for the 4th Anniversary update.  And with it, there are a lot of things to go through.  Some of them are questionable... but others are long in the making.

The most anticipated new feature is updates to the storage system.  Now players are given the option of acquiring an equipment pack which is used to store their armor and weapons.  Along with the equipment pack, players are now given the opportunity to purchase additional storage panes for their account.  It’s announced that they are offering the storage pane for US$10.  But some people have already pointed out that the pricing is not very economical.  In some stores, including online ones, one can get a new copy of Guild Wars, regardless of chapter/campaign, for the same price.  The cost of that new copy of Guild Wars would come with 2 storage panes plus 4 characters to use, which some people will end up using as “mules” for their items.

While the cost is indeed questionable, there are other purchasable items that players can choose from.  One of which is the makeover package which will enable people to redesign their characters and potentially mix different hairstyle, face, skin tones, and character height to their liking, including using different design options from other campaigns.

It’s too bad I won’t be able to fully look through all the new stuff that went into this update... at least, not right now.  I will be able to sort through it all.  I just need to get through several days of Nine Rings.

Disabled But Not Broken

Recently an update was published to the Call of Duty: World at War game for the PC platform.  That update came bundled with the game’s first Map Pack.  The update also comes with some fixes and changes to make the game play better, or at least that’s the intention of it.  Like many PC games that get updates from developers, there’s a list of changes that went into the game.  People would look at the change list and see what has been implemented in this update.  I am one of those people.

As I looked through the fucked-up mess that plagues the franchise forums, I came across a thread in regards to the game’s bipod.  As soon as I read that, I knew something is afoot, and with it I get a bad feeling on what I was about to read.  After following a few leads, I came across a thread where the poster expresses his frustration in the disabling of the bipod while in the prone position (aka laying down).  As soon as I heard that, I was also up in arms over this.

The big machine guns in the game all has one universal feature: a bipod.  The bipod enables users to mount their machine gun on a ledge or on a flat surface.  At the cost of mobility, you gain something much more: a machine gun with high accuracy and faster firing rate.  Sure, mounting the MG on a ledge may not always be ideal.  But when you stare down a long hall or alley, it is one of the best defensive option in the game, bar none.  There is nothing like this as enemies have very little chance to survive once the gunner is locked in.

What baffles me is the reason Treyarch disabled the bipod while prone.  Their excuse is that they feel that there is a potential threat that can possibly lead to a denial of service attack.  Whether or not this affects the client or the server software remains to be seen.  And there has been no widely publicized case of a certain bipod-related bug ever happening.  Yet Treyarch feels that the threat is so big that they need to disable it without telling anyone about it.  That’s right.  The update notes that I mentioned before contained no information with regards to the disabling of bipod while prone.  This frustrates me and throws me for a loop.  It’s one thing to say that you’re going to make a change to prevent a potential problem from occurring.  But it’s another to make that change without telling anyone about it.  In effect, they removed the one defensive option that I rely on because I find the option to be the best when I have the equipment and time on hand to deploy.

This undocumented change thing is nothing new.  Such a thing happens all the time, more often in the world of MMO’s.  But undocumented changes tend to be so small and so minor that it doesn’t affect anyone.  In many cases the change tend to be visual rather than gameplay-related.  This undocumented change is gameplay-related, which changes the way people set up defenses and suppression fire.

I’m ticked off that Treyarch would go behind the gamer’s back and make such a change without saying a word.  Not only did they screw this up but this is another bullet point to add to the things that Treyarch has done wrong with this game.  I have been tolerant on how they are supporting the game.  But this one hits me really hard.  So what happens now?  What will become of this?  Who knows?  I just know that I cannot deploy my bipod while prone even though it would help immensely in keeping enemies away.  Now I gotta deal with the machine gun’s recoil... That’s just fucking terrific...

A Prestigious Undertaking

This ought to sound familiar. As with any online games, I set up small little goals. I've been doing that since Battlefield 2. And when 2142 rolled around, I laid out some goals and awards to achieve. It helps keep me focused and it helps me to continue on playing. Then again, other factors that keeps me playing is the fact that there are friends around to play with. After all, it's a bit lonely playing an online shooting game by youself with nobody else around to trust and rely on.

Call of Duty: World at War introduces PC players the grindfest of Prestige mode for the first time. This particular mode enables people who have made it to the top to simply start over again. But starting over again does not mean that one would simply start from scratch. Prestige has its own share of benefits, usually in the form of a fancier badge icon next to your name and unlocking additional custom class slots.

Some people took the liberty of going Prestige, either out of curiosity or out of boredom. Some do it for a goal. And others do it simply because they can. The latter, however, is due to a configuration exploit. But I won't delve into that. In any case, those who took the time and effort to go slow are the ones who have earned it. And out of all of the Prestige badges out there, only one remains the most interesting and fancy: 5. It's not about getting to the top. That can be done at any time. To me, it was about what looked the most different and distinguished from the norm. I have seen many different players. And Prestige 5 appears to be the most different yet not overly common amongst the general public. It was there that I set my goal to achieve this.

With over 270 hours logged into that particular profile, I have finally arrived at the final stretch. All it takes is racking up the points in order to earn the next level/rank and unlock various attachments for my weapons. But that final bump on the road is now gone. And I am on my way to finally getting as much as I can done with a variety of challenges. But there is one particular challenge that I know will never be completed: Martyrdom. I refuse to complete it, knowing that this is the one challenge and perk that I despise the most. I shall never degrade myself to using it... unless it just happens to be on a distant public free-for-all server.

Fooling Around

With much anticipation, another April Fool’s Day joke has everyone in Guild Wars becoming a miniaturized and cartoonish Gwen.  Or in the world of anime, we call it Super Deformed or SD for short.  With thousands of SD Gwens running around, it’s too good to pass up various screenshots and video presentations.  2008’s Stickman was okay at best but it didn't leave that much impact.  For 2009, it seems that this is one of the best treat so far.  And hopefully it can only get better as April trickles along.

On a different note, April 1st marks the end of March.  And with it, an empty promise from Treyarch.  When their first Map Pack was announced, it was stated that they will release the pack on March 2009.  The month came and went.  And while the console users are able to play on the new maps first, albeit with a price to pay, the PC gamers are left out in the cold waiting for their new maps to come in.  This has the unfortunate side effect of bringing out some of the worst and dumbest people known to man.

Yet while the idiots over at Treyarch are trying to fix the remaining bugs slated for their 1.4 release, “JD”, Treyarch’s community relations guy, posted an update regarding both the patch and the map pack that was supposed to come out on March 2009.  The update was not an update but rather an excuse.  So instead of simply releasing the map pack, which are nothing more than maps, they decided to simply lump the maps together with the patch/update and create a super-mega-huge download for everyone.  Terrific.  It’s confirmed that the map pack will come with the patch.  What I do not understand is why can’t the pack be released separately and independently.  This can make organizing what patches or updates are needed so much easier, instead of getting an old and outdated patch that needs to be patched over by a newer patch.

Internal Affairs

I don’t usually mess around with things that goes on the inside.  I’m not much of a people person when it comes to dealing with certain rules, views, and such.  But oddly enough, I am seeing two major conflicts that ended horribly and it’s only the 3rd month of 2009.

One of the conflicts involves an individual who happens to be caught with a cheat sitting on that person’s hard drive, through the use of PunkBuster, an anti-cheat system developed by EvenBalance.  That individual now handles duties for managing a part of the gaming league for the Call of Duty: World at War game, despite having not just one but two entries on PunksBusted’s MBL.  At first it was kept under the rug, until it was thrown out into the open when an individual challenged how the rules are set up for a dying game.  Everything with regards to that challenge spiraled out of control and it ended with the removal of the thread containing the said challenge as well as the removal of 3 separate individual accounts, two of which had absolutely no involvement on the situation and was inactive from the forums for many weeks.

Deleting a thread over the incident is practically wrong, and does nothing to improve the relations between the players, who are the ones to support the organization.  Deleting a thread does nothing to support the organization as the organization then has the power to dictate on what they say is absolute, the truth, and that all decisions and judgements are final.  Locking or closing the thread would have been the most sensible thing to do, given that the thread can then be used as reference as to why things are the way they are now.  However, very little can help that organization now...

Should an individual with thread administrative power be caught with something as filthy as this, the most honorable and sensible action would have been to resign and pass the duties on to someone else.  That would have been the best option.  Except, the person is instead shuffled off to manage a different game league within that organization.  Ugh...

The other incident came at the hands of an individual’s unusual joke with regards to the selling of Guild Wars account.  People who play a variety of MMO games as well as some first-person shooter games will know that the EULA says you cannot do this.  Yet this is often a gray area.  How so?  Well, let’s say for instance that the individual does not want to play the game any more and wish to sell the game to an interested buyer.  That person should have every right to sell the game in order to recuperate the amount of money, if not time and effort, spent on the game itself.  Sure the developers and publishers won’t see a single penny of it.  But that’s because the first sale has already been made.  There is no loss, as the only part being changed here is the ownership.  Much like how used CDs can be purchased, games can be too.

As I cannot vouch for being present during the time of the incident, the issue I have is how the situation was handled.  A few threads were created in order to discuss on what to do and how to handle this.  Yet many where calling for the removal of said person from the guild that he belongs to, akin to a lynch mob coming together to force a resident out of town.  This is downright sad and it gets worse than that.

When I logged on, I found that certain details were different.  We were no longer part of the alliance that we have been in for a while and a note was posted on the guild message in order to bring people up to date on what’s going on.  Yet when I went to read the details, I find that I cannot add any input to the matter because the forum thread it points to is closed/locked.

What irritates me more is the fact that I was not aware of anything going on that would have an affect with the guild itself.  The thread mentioned very little details and nothing was posted in order to provide information as to what happened during that time.  When I directly asked my guild leader about this, I found that everything that has happened was due to a poor joke on another individual’s part.  And now the entire guild are being punished for “lack of leadership” or the lack of action.

I have discussed a variety of things with another officer who voiced similar feelings about the entire mess.  The situation was handled poorly and regrettably we’re no longer a part of the alliance.  But what happened has happened.  It’s time to move on.  I, though, will hold a grudge and a vendetta against them.  It’s not because I am unable to let go.  It is because I despise how they are and how they are set up.  So here are my parting words for those few who are so uptight and stingy about their rules.

First off, the alliance chat rule needs fixing, or removed altogether.  For such simple words like ‘suck’ or ‘hell’, you are being more retarded in trying to limit such simple words just to provide a clean channel.  Using the game’s built-in chat filter should not be a reference tool to what can and cannot be said in the game.  Some words will be censored out naturally due to the limitations on how the filter is set up.  This is an obvious problem.  But don’t throw a hissy fit over some dumb shit where people can’t say certain words just because it’s commonly used in everyday language.  Vacuums suck and wind blows.  I raise hell when I have to fight Nazi Zombies in a different game.  And I certainly can say a shitload of worse thing to make your damn head explode.

Not having contacted about the ongoing situation not only hurts me as an officer of the guild that I am with but it also pisses me off as well.  You judge not just me but the entire guild based on the action of one individual who happens to be throwing a joke.  You’d think that you fucktards would have a sense of humor when it comes to small things like that but I guess I was wrong to assume such a thing.  Fuck!

Granted, this was all discussed on a variety of medium but I have heard nothing about this and there was no thread on the forums to indicate that there is an issue at hand which needs to be resolved.  Every thread that was brought up were closed almost instantly and nobody else can add anything more to this.  It’s not just that it has to be those involved who need to be present.  It’s because you assholes are deciding the fate of an entire guild based on a small incident.  You spit in my face for some of the dumbest shit that happened and you try to force your rule down on me when I rather have no part of it.  Rules may be rules but some rules are meant to be broken.

You bitches are too uptight and need to get your heads out of your asses and start thinking for a change.  I don’t care what kind of upbringing you have.  Start thinking on your own instead of relying on someone else’s guidelines to steer you in a direction.  This is not a single road that everyone takes.  I walk the path where I am free to say whatever the fuck I want to say and to use whatever fucking word I want to use.  If you want clean chatter, I am happy to oblige for as long as you do not harass me over some little shit like saying “what the hell...?” and “this sucks.”

I don’t need your fucking forgiveness and I don’t need your damn blessings.  I know fucking well enough of the teachings that you guys received because I have been through it before, endured through it before, and I am still my own self thinking on my own.  You assholes are hypocrites in what you believe in and you should be ashamed for doing so.  Ever heard of “Forgive and forget?”  Yes, that classic phrase that you bitches should have been taught and know by heart.  You guys speak so proudly of forgiveness and shit.  But when it comes to this, there is none.  You think that this is for the good of the alliance?  I hate to admit it but I’ll agree to that for once!  Because I’m glad we’re no longer part of your hypocritical crew.  Ever since you raised a hissy fit over the words that I used, I have NEVER once felt comfortable chatting on that channel.  Not ONCE have I ever had the feeling that I felt “at home.”  Not ONCE have I ever felt that where we’re at was a comfortable environment.  I guess you can say that this separation was bound to happen eventually.  Needless to say, I am glad we’re no longer bound to your dumbass chat rules and your retarded way of handling minor issues.  So long, bitches.  I hope my words of wisdom made your head explode and your eyes/ears bleed.