NWN2 and AoE3

Neverwinter Nights 2 is more fun on the second playthough. And with the updates and stuff. Hasn't crashed yet, either(except for that one time I minimised it for the 5th time but with the windows key and ithhnnnng'd)

Dat Wood Elf Ranger.

Also spears are much underrated and underused and they are pretty cool guys actually. Just thought I'd pop that in.

In other news, Age of Empires 3

What

the

Hell

The plot so far goes "Scottish knight of St John from Malta(I think most of the knights had lived there long enough at that point to have lost their accents probably)

The Turks attack.

It turns out the Turks are after this Lake of the Moon that gives eternal life

So Are some mythical guys known as the Circle of Ossus

Morgan sails to the ame-PIRATES. PIRATES WITH FIRE SHIPS. BECAUSE BLOWING UP SHIPS IS A GOOD WAY TO MAKE A PROFIT.

And then he reaches the americas, wins the natives over with his charm, charisma and building a hut in their village.

BUT WAIT TURKS. LETS BUILD MORTARS AND EXPLODE THEM

OH NO NOW THERE ARE SPANISH ATTACKING A VILLAGE OF AZTECS LETS STOP THEM

OH LOOK LETS GO TO FLORIDA

OH WAIT HURRICANE LETS BE IN CUBA

OH ITS THAT PIRATE AGAIN. LETS DO LOTS OF RANDOM STUFF SO SHE TAKES US WITH HER TO ATTACK THE SPANISH TREASURE FLEET

WHO THE HELL CAME UP WITH THIS PLOT ITS SO BAD OH MY GOD

:/

Stick with just playing through the campaign of a well known empire, Microsoft. You didn't have this trouble when you were just playing through Saladins campaign or waging war as teh Holy Roman Empire(Neither holy nor roman nor an empire, but still)

Whoever you hired to make up a story sucked.

2nd Christmas already and dat flu

So, first off the happy news!. All my brothers and their partners/kiddywinks were round on sunday and it was really fun catching up and talking to them all. There was a huge joint of beef that was beautifully cooked, roast potatos, veggies and copious amounts of wine. So all in all it was very cool beans.

And now I have the flu. :/

Also skype is down and this is preventing me from being number 1 carry Shen. feelsbadman

Nonosleepy

I really should have had some more sleep yesterday, curse that LoL stream. So many bad players doing bad things :/ This uber pro was on someone elses lv30 account and was proving ELO hell doesn't exist; he was building stupid builds, and not even playing as well as he could, and was still carrying his team to victory all the time. Was so awesome to watch.

But yeah, hardly any sleep, then had to get up for practicals, still, I have the cure.

Some men take tons of caffiene to stay awake.

Some, sugar, others ritalin or the like

Yet others overdose on creepypasta and slenderblogs.

I, not to be out house'd do ALL THREE

SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK. 1.5K WORDS GOGOGO!

...Yes, I'm totally stuck and am procrastinating by catching up on all these blogs. Shush you :P

The only downside is now I keep looking out that small gap in the curtains every few minutes :/

Last week.

So where have I been for the last two weeks, and why has there been no blogposts?

Two reasons; League of Legends and lack of motivation.

League of Legends is a RPG/RTS-ish multiplayer game very similar to DotA, there are 65 or so different champions, each with different play styles and item builds, and the game require a fair bit of skill and strategy, and more importantly the realisation stupid actions cause stupid deaths, something most players don't get.

This leads to me always ending up with total retards in solo queues, which is somewhat depressing, though great when I/another decent person gets the team to co-ordinate and win.

In other news, snow caused one of my three lab practicals to be cancelled, so now we somehow have to do three sessions work in two. :'(

(This went okay, they removed a session and actually we were in and out of the lab like greased lightening, though I'm not sure that greased lightening would be any faster than normal lightening, and how do you grease it anyway?)

Another important thing I've been trying to keep up with is the continuing student protests and the somewhat amusing police response. Dragging disabled reporters from their wheelchairs and across the street is not exactly the hearts and minds approach. Keeping peoples in kettles and then denying it, breaking collarbones and arms and not wearing identity tags are somewhat brutal and not really teh sort of thing to be expected in a supposedly democratic and caring country. That being said they do a hard job and are threatened with violence, so its not really surprising they overreact, but I don't really have a problem with the violence that just happens as with any mass of people, its the underhand treatment, like keeping people in Parliament square instead of letting them out along the march, and then claiming that as a reason for mounted charges and kettling.

Anyway, I would blab on for ages about wikileaks but can't be asked, you probably don't care much/readitallbefore and I have 1.8K words left to do for an essay in for tomorrow morning. So uh. Huzzah.

Wikileaks; "Cablegate"

So, sometime while I was away, wikileaks revealed the first batch of their so called #cablegate files.(220 out of 251,287, going to take a long time at this rate, and a longer time to read through them all).

So far I've read a few of them, and I personally don't see that any of them are that worthy of a -gate, though I'd expect the more important stuff be be released later. Mostly its just pretty basic diplomatic stuff, some of it interesting, some of it not. A fair bit of American ego-centrism to be seen, but that's to be expected.

Anyway, I'll probably blog about anything I find really interesting, and read through a few ones that look like they might provide interest, and I'll probably leave trawling through the rest to epic dedicated bloggers and journalists. I should probably do coursework and revise, anyway :P

One more thing of interest was that earlier this morning Wikileaks was being DDOS'd. There are no clues as to who pulled off the attack, but I think we can all guess. What amused me was that they even bothered, its obvious to anyone that it wasn't going to make any difference; some of it has already been released to newspapers, and its not like they couldn't just create a new site and upload it on there, it would get spread around fairly quickly, this being the internet.

And even if somehow all of that failed, Wikileaks has had the forethought to spread around insurance files(tpb anyone?) that, though encrypted we can assume hold some very important and embarrassing information.

So yeah, apart from that, Last night was awesome, was my friends birthday, so we went to the Headphone Disco, and they actually played a few good songs!..well, okay, good relative to the rest, and only about 9 out of the whole night, but that's far better than usual. So yeah, overall it was pretty fun. Was nice being able to order drinks without shouting into the bartenders ear, at the least, which probably contribute to how drunk I was by the end of the night. I can honestly say I was very much surprised at my lack of a hangover when I finally woke up.

Then today we went to Nandos, which was nice. I had a half chicken(I wasn't expecting a huge amount, but blimey their chickens are small), chips and garlic bread, then I was going to have mango sorbet, but they ran out, so I had vanilla ice cream instead, which was nicer than expected. Filled me up nicely :P. I had teh hot sauce of course, being housin, and it was very tasty as well as being spicy, something a lot of hot foods do not have. Hot sauces should have ample amounts of taste as well as heat, or you might as well just eat Capsaicin.

Democracy? More like police state, amirite?

So Nominet, the semi private company which controls the .uk part of the internet are discussing plans, at the request of the Serious and Organised Crimes Agency(SOCA) to change the terms and conditions to allow the removal of a website if there are reasonable grounds to believe its related to criminal activity, so in other words, a request from the Police.

Now, this may seem okay, but we've already seen the Police do not seem to have the required faculties to tell a joke from criminal intent and giving them the power to remove sites without a court order does not seem the action of a democratic country that values free speech.

In fact, why don't they just get it done with already and add hooks to the English Flag? When they do, I might just move over to Best Korea, or China, at least they admit they don't value free speech.

Suddenly Britain being a police state in Civ games is not so bewildering to me.

Now, if you want to tell nominet what you think of this;

If you have any comments on this issue please email policy@nominet.org.uk, and include the title, "Dealing with domain names used in connection with criminal activity" in the subject line.

Bank Protest

Now, what, you may say, is a Bank Protest? Well, its where you all go and withdraw your money from your bank on a certain day.

Now this action if it happens of course, will cause a total destabilisation of the economy, followed by a collapse of the government.

Why on earth would such a thing be beneficial!? you cry.

Well, in order for things to get better, they have to get worse. It become increasingly apparent that the only way any change will be made in our governments is not working with the system, but by destroying that system, and rebuilding it.

When we speak out, we are ignored, thus, the only choice we are left with is to act.

Now, this protest, if it comes off as planned, with have far reaching ramifications; however, it would be for the best, at least in teh long run. short run it would suck pretty majorly. Anarchy is not a coo guy, which is why we have governments, even though they are corrupt.

So I'm of two minds, on the one hand, better future is a very cool guy, on the other hand, disruption and such is not something the human mind can walk into happily. Also I have my money in a ethical bank, so most of these reasons are moot. So I dunno, its up to everyone to decide personally, I suppose.

Anyway, for more info(and a way better explanation than I could give, go to This site; (theres a button at the top left to translate to English :P)

So, tl;dr

Withdraw money from banks

>Crash global banking system

>revolution

>???

>profit?

FUUUUUU

So I loaded up my blog today, saw a vid ad under my post.

It started and I had this really bad feeling

Bad feeling was confirmed. Somehow a certain pseudo religion(can't say its name or I'll get even more of it) ad snuck onto my blog

There was much ragefacing.

Stop COICA!

So, as many of you know, the government of America is seeking to pass COICA: a Bill that will effectively allow them to take any website they like off the web, without any process. And when I say website, I mean website, not illegal content on a website.

Here, have some carefully cooked pasta:

The "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" (COICA) was unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on 11/18. The COICA, designed to stop internet piracy, is among one of the most vaguely worded and draconian pieces of legislation ever proposed.

We firmly believe in compensating artists for their work.
We firmly believe in paying for content.

This bill goes far beyond stopping pirates.

This bill gives the federal government the right to shut down websites based on vague and arbitrary evidence, even if no law-breaking has been proved. We need to rally and let the world know. If this becomes a law, the government could immediately remove any website. They would be able to prevent access to anything from youtube to google.

This law would apply internationally as well. The entire internet would fall under the purview of this bill. The potential for abuse is staggering. There are no hearings. There's no due process. Any site that offends the sensibilities of the federal government would simply be gone.

Aside from that, here are some other articles to read about COICA: EFF, BlawgIT , Now, I cannot speak for their integrity, though they seem fairly unbiased, but these are the ones I have seen and I'm too tired to find any others before I go to bed.

We would, however, like to emphasises that though some of us may inhabit 4chan, or be pirates, that we are not representing 4chan, /b/, nor are we part of Operation Payback. This is NOT a raid, we are not trolling, or doing this for the Lulz. We are instead merely concerned citizens of the internet, standing up for our right to freedom of speech.

If this bill goes through, this is what the future of web surfing could look like. You know when you were at school and every time you went to a site where it mentioned games you got blocked by the schools web security? Imagine that, but you can't get round it with a proxy. Video very much related.

Internet Freedom Under Attack - The best bloopers are here

The Petition against COICA is here, but that is by no means all that is needed to stop it; If the Government listened to advice(That is, non corporation advice) this Bill would never have got off the drawing board.

For those of you have Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, these are all good places to start, and I urge you, as a fellow internetter, to not pass this by, don't leave it to other people, don't expect this problem to disappear, because the only thing that is going to disappear is our rights.

I also want to highlight that just because you are not American(I'm not :P) does not mean this does not affect you, and even if websites are just blocked and not taken down,( the wording is somewhat ambiguous, from what I have seen) there is no doubt this will cause other countries to pass similar acts, and even if that were not the case, Freedom of speech and non censored internet is(or at least should be) a human right.

Right, now the DnD I was going to attend has fallen through, so, goodnight, Internet :)

Back.

So I was reading through a few other blogs, and a little thought came to mind

"Hey, didn't I have one of these things?"

So, I decided to try again.

First things first, Hot Topic pulled the Rage Guy shirt after certain elements of 4chan initiated "Operation Black Rage" In which they made racist rage guy comics, posting them around, trying to get them out. Somehow this worked, despite;

1) Some channers trying their utmost to foil the scheme because it was full of people thinking 4chan owned memes

2) KnowYourMeme having an article up revealing it to be a hoax after about a few hours. It seems Hot Topic staff have not yet mastered the art of "Google"

That being said, their pulling the shirt before the whole thing escalated to the point of mainstream media notice probably served them well, since now the whole thing will be entirely forgotten in a few months.

(http://www.geekosystem.com/hot-topic-ends-fffuuuuuuu-shirts/)

Edit: Scrap that, they've re-continued it.

Secondly, as any of you who follow my twitter know, I've recently become a total moralfag and follow anyone internetfreedom related, resulted in a huge, huge increase in the rate at which my twitter feed moves. This resulted in me happening upon this article which I found very amusing, since if I remember correctly it was not that long ago that Obama was criticizing china for their censorship(And I do), while at teh same time pushing a bill that will allow the American government to blacklist and refuse access to any website they deem bad, and while this may be intended solely for the combating of piracy, it could be used for much less idealistic reasons, and as most of these bills are, is being rushed through so as to avoid voter attention. Not a promising sign.

Now obviously, the links about COICA are somewhat biased, however, even when viewing this bill from as unbiased a viewpoint as I can, this still, really doesn't seem like a good idea to me, sure it could stop piracy, but its too broad, too brutal, and way, way too easily abused.

In Other, slightly less internety news, alcohol, depression and lack of food coupled with a natural tendency to procrastinate(Yes, I procrastinate, who'd have thought it?) do not contribute well to coursework completion. :/

That being said, I opened my bottle of Glenfiddich 15 year old, added a dash of water to release the esters, and boy is it lovely.

Barbeque and Leaving party

So at like, half seven last night someone phoned me and was all "where are you get over here!" And I was all derp because I had been meaning to go to the party and I had gone to bed feeling congested instead.
So anyway, I picked up the cram bag and left for the far reaches of hornchurch, via the dreaded public transport, stopping what I thought was a short distance away to get alcohmaholz, of course, once I got off the bus I remembered it was like, a 2 mile distance instead of the short stretch I had thought :/ So, being totally housin and stuff I ran/walked there, which was quite fun, turning up all like *puffpant puff pant*
The Alcohol I had got was a bottle of Jura single malt and it was really nice :)
Teen drama aside it was a great night, really nice meeting up and catching up with people, we stayed up till about 4-5 chatting, had a few hours sleep, at which point I realised teh Cram bag was in fact not a cram bag, but was actually an artic jacket... so uh, yeah. Still warm though :). then went to the cafe for a hueg fried breakfast, which was lovely! I had two sausages, two bacon, an egg, tomatoes and chips and it was so lovely you cannot even.

Shorts, Whisky, Washing machines.

I got some running shorts today! and it appears I am at that happy stage where small running shorts are tight, and medium running shorts are a bit loose. Wut. But despite that Imma still try and do a run every wednesday and maybe saturday. We'll see how it goes. Probably going to wear knee supports too. Last time I did a two mile run my knee kept collapsing and it was weak for days after. Screw you body :/.

On a better note, I got a bottle of Aberlour single malt whisky for like, £20, which is liek, a fiver or so off, which is good :).

This house is like a illusion, everything looks all nice and then suddenly you realise its borked, like the washing machinewhich decided to break with my only set of bedding and towels inside it. (effing washing machines, how do they work?) :/ So now I have to go back home earlier than I would have liked :/. Plus side, I do have internet and TV now, which is coo, spent last night watching TV and interneting. was pretty fun.

I RAN SO FAR, SO FHNNNNGGG

So today I ran two miles. That may not sound like much... but boy it was :/ ran it in 27 minutes, which while much under the amount my brothers still in the forces can achieve, was pretty good for my first run. Went with my brother, well, I lie, he dragged me out with him :P

It was very painful :'( But it felt good after I had done it, so eh. Have to do it again, and keep running the short distances, try and build my stamina up.

Apart from that I played(and livestreamed) "And Yet It Moves" a funky little indie platformer game(available here http://www.andyetitmoves.net/ for $10) which has quite a unique art style; kinda a blend of real life pictures and drawn landscape, which looks pretty good overall, and then the soundtrack is all acappella, which is... interesting to say teh least, though hardly very catchy, I have to say.
The gameplay is pretty impressive, with you rotating and exploding gravity, to get through puzzles, like getting bats through a cave so they can hassle a iguana to get it out of your way, to trampolining around obstacles. Anyway, its well worth it if you like puzzle games.

Bhhnnnnggggg

Oh mang. I came back from uni to discover my parents had renovated my room! I now have a high bed, which is positioned over the boiler, and now has a chest of drawers under it, and so I have the whole floor as space, instead of the srs small amount I had before! In fact I even have a desk, so I no longer have to attempt playing games lying down :P. But yeah, srs coo'. Its all newly cut pine and it smells so lovely, though I did sleep close to the wall, since there is no barrier to stop me falling off.
Apparently only children fall out of bed, so if I make my next blog from hospital with 5 broken ribs, you may all mock me greatly.

Also I now have even more books out of the uni library, trying to get as much work done before I go back to uni to make it easier and stuff, want to get at least a first, can't really see the point in going to uni, getting in shit tons of debt just to get a pass, since the days of having an advantage simply by having a degree are long gone, now every tom dick and harry has one, so its gotta be good. :/

In gaming news, I have almost completed teh campaign of teh original Titan Quest, just got one boss left, a proper titan. Its pretty lulzy, every walkthrough and stuff is all "this boss r so easy X boss is so much harder" and half those bosses seem to have been removed, or totally nerfed, and him super buffed. Pretty lame ://

Bills and books.

So since wednesday I have been in the house for next year, and its pretty nice, barring a few broken things. Can't wait for uni to start really, pretty lame being here by myself, though hopefully one of my otehr flatmates will be here next week before I go back home for a month

Also I had sweet chilli baked beans and rice yesterday and it tasted EXACTLY like chilli con carne, not even joking, was pretty lulzy, also I've been watching teh TV more(Last years contract with virgin hasn't quite run out yet), in fact, as I type this the channel has just changed to Poirot, which is pretty cool.
On the subject of meals, first day here I ordered a pizza, figuring it would be quicker than like, cooking for myself, and it took over an hour to get here! I had to like, crawl to the door I was so hungry, I was just about to phone them up, in fact I had the number half dialed.

In watching teh TV I have realised just how many of these injury lawyer firms there are out there, I mean seriously. wat
also I came here to set up the internet, sort out council tax exemption and get away from parents for a week and I have had to pay a bill and fill out forms for the water board. Wat.

Also reading "Molecular Biology of the Gene" by Watson, Baker, Bell, Gann, Levine & Losick (Srs science books have so many co-authors) and its so awesome you can't even! bit heavy going at times but its srs interesting and stuff.
but this is just one of the 9 books I have decided I must read, narrowed down from about 30 on my reccomended reading list ://///
luckily any books I take out can be kept out till october sometime, unless someone wants to recall them

Trainers.

So I went into London and went to Run & Become to get some special trainers! And oh mang, they felt so comfortable in comparison to the last lot of trainers I wore, which made my ankles hurt chronic. So yeah. All is well, hopefully this should stop my legs hurting and stop me limping! Which is definitely a good thing.

Scotland, Exams and future plans

So, first things first, I went up to Scotland for my brother Q's wedding, which was the day before my birthday. We broke the journey up and down into two legs, first up to my Aunt and Uncle in Cumbria, which took about 6 hours, then up to Glen Coe on the west coast of Scotland, we went via sterling and that took another 4-5 hours, hence why we didn't do it in one jump. 11 hours of driving straight would not be very fun.
So we got there on the friday, and it was pretty good, free from the internet addiction(didn't take my laptop for a reason) I had no choice but to talk to family, which was fairly fun, it was interesting catching up with people.
Then on the Saturday it was my birthday, and because my brother is in teh Royal Marines Band and forces people tend to be big on buying drinks for birthday people... well, suffice to say I didn't lack for drinks :P
So after that(and surprisingly waking up without a hangover) we went to the wedding, and it went nice, weather wasn't too bad considering it was Scotland, and the scenery was really nice.
Then we had Venison Pate for starters, Chicken stuffed with haggis(Which was really, really tasty) and slices of the wedding cake for afters. Was very nice. Then we all started drinking :).
The journey back was broken up like teh journey there, and was pretty uneventful, EXCEPT I BOUGHT A DRAGON PLUSHY AND HE IS SO AWESOME YOU CAN'T EVE-
*cough*

So yeah, that was Scotland, when I got back on the Tuesday I checked my results and I resultgasm'd! I passed the whole damn thing! Twi-okay maybe thats too far. I only got 60% overall, and my lowest was 47%, but that was in the core module I totally failed one bit and didn't hand like two pieces of coursework in, so eh, Fairs fair.

But yeah, while I was up in Scotland I talked to my brother Q and asked him about his knees, and it seems he has the same sort of problem I do, and he is the fittest person I know. Climbs Munroes and doesn't afraid of anything. He does a mile run in like... 8 minutes or something. But anyway, it made me realise that my knees are not going to get any better, so I might as well do stuff, climb mountains, and just man up and ignore the pain.
I wanna climb mountains and stuff! ( for those who don't know, a Munroe is a mountain over 3K feet tall from sea level, there are like 260 or something) that said I have a fair way to go, I need to be fairly fit to even think of attempting one. So Imma start doing all sorts of stuff. Tomorrow Imma go into london and get a rather expensive pair of trainers that are shaped to support the arch of my foot or something(another thing my family has in common. Thanks genetics)

So yeah. Should be good.

Exam results

So within the next couple of days I should get my exam results. Quite nervous, Almost certain I have failed one module( It was pretty faggy and full of hard maths :/) but I should easily have done the rest. Have to wait and see I suppose. I will probably raeg or happy blog depending on the outcome.

Late nights, early mornings

So I have been getting up at 6:30 AM to gbo help mum on the allotment, weeding and watering and stuff, then going into town most days, then helping with the dinner. Then been staying up late, getting between 3 and 5 hours sleep each night. I am tire :/

That said, Going up to scotland halfway through next week, for my brothers wedding! Should be pretty awesome, they have Chicken and Haggis as teh main meal!11!11one. But yeah, Imma take my laptop, but I don't know if the hotel is going to have wireless or how good it is going to be, so I might not be on much next week.

Wrist support!

So, I finally got round to getting a wrist support today and it is awesome because now I can click without having pain! All the better for being able to play gamez and stuff!
I should really have started wearing wrist supports a good couple of months ago really, back before it started hurting, when it was just slighlty achy, but hopefully there is no permanent damage done :)

Friends 19+DnD

So we were all samurai(Apart from the guy who wasn't but lets ignore him) and I was a battlemaiden of the Utaku family of the Unicorn clan and then there was my friend whos birthday it was playing a wasp bounty hunter witha bow, whcih is a pleasant change from his usual trololtanks, then there was the rules lawyer who got darkness wrong and he was some housin mantis dude, and then there was a Crane and the guy who was playing the generic quiet spellcaster he always plays.

And we were going to some mountain ranges and I was hoping there wouldn't be caves or impassable places because being a horse rider makes you noway near as effective without the horse. But then we were ambushed and I was all ALALALA and I charged and I rolled a 7 and ended up with +23 to hit and I stabbed the guy through the chest and killed him, meanwhile the spellcaster was all HNNNGLIGHTENINGSTORM and threw a lightening bolt or something. I don't even all this magic. and then wasp was all pewpew and killed that guy. Then the sneaky mantis dude ran into the trees.
Then I let go of mah spear and drew my Nagimaki and charged and rolled a critical so did 3 times damage and cut his head off.
and basically we owned them

So, Horse riders can be amazingly effective with just a few feats. The horse related feats I took were these :
1)Way of teh Unicorn which is a feat in the oriental book, only available to the unicorn clan, and basically its like mounted combat, so I don't have to make ride checks every time I attack, and also gives me +2 to attack when mounted, which stacks with the +1 higher ground from being on a horse, in addition to the +2 if I charge
2)Spirited charge, which means you do 2* damage with melee weapons from horseback on a charge, or 3* with a lance or spear
3)Rideby attack which allows you to move after a charge, which is useful for setting up the next charge, or just getting the hell away from whatever you just charged, very useful against large creatures

Mounted combat is very useful since it allows you, once per round, to make a ride check to negate an attack, so basically you make a ride check and use that as your horses AC, this can be very useful both in the beginning of the game when you cannot afford barding(it costs 4* the amount as for a medium sized creatures equivalent armour) and at later levels where you have a much higher ride check than you could have AC

So the long and short of it is that mounted combat is very good for attacking people and doing damage, but you love a lot of your awesome if you have to go in a cave(Don't be a silly and try to pull your horse into the cave, its not going to work :/)


Oh, I almost forgot, there was a barbeque and beerz and there was greek sausages and chicken and watermelon and it was very nice and I enjoyed it muchly ^_^

Lights, cameras, ACTION!

So, while I was playing M&B(Mount&Blade) earlier today, I was interupted by a knock on the door, which turned out to be one of my flatmates asking me to help them film! So I went and was the cameraman!!11 It was fun :)
Directing/cameramanning is difficult and very interesting though.
Yeah. thats it. can't be asked to say anything more. Rawrz

Happy Days

So, it appears it was just being refurbished. :/
That said, there was no notification or anything. Just pewwrecked. Then an email to say it was opening tomorrow :/

It begins

So, tomorrow is the first of many exams. I should really have done more work and procrastinated less, but procrastination is sooo much more fun. Ah well. Just have to do the best I can, I suppose.

St Georges day.

So, today was St Georges day, the day of our Englands Patron Saint, and as I said on saint Patricks day, I estimated a very small amount of people out. I was not wrong.
It was criminal how few people there out. we went on the Wiven-run(basically a pub crawl through all the pubs in Wivenhoe) First pub had basically just regulars in it, but not a sign it was St. Georges day, not a flag or anything in sight.
2nd pub was pretty much teh same, and the third pub was definatly the best, it had live music and actual St. Georges decorations! it actually felt like a pub, too, which was nice. So yeah, as you can tell by the fact we went to like 3 pubs out of about 8, our pub run kinda failed due to several reasons. Still good though.
I've already ranted about how annoyed I am that people celebrate other countries patron saints but not our own, so I shall not repeat myself. /Rage
So yeah, ENGLAND NEEDS TO LERN2PATRIOTISM.

Monday Tuesday Happy days... No more.

Happy Days is no more.

So, what was Happy Days, you ask?
Happy days was a burger chain sorta shop on campus, doing nice portions of relativly good quality food at student prices till late at night. Perfect for half drunk snacks when afraid you might the whole flat on fire, or when just too damn lazy to cook for yourself. So in other words a nice plaic.
Which is why I was so :O :'( when I came back from holidays to find a gutted shop interior instead of happy days. Also we have no clue why it is gone :/

We will remember you, Happy Days *holds 2 minutes of silence*

Back at Uni!

So, after a good three weeks(in both the time and enjoyment definition) at home, I am back at uni!
Got back and realised I hadn't cleared up as well as I thought I had.. half packet of biscuits left open, and I hope my huge jar of marmite is okay :/
Also, stupid campus shop is closing at 6 on weekdays and 3 on weekends because of the holiday(its still technically the holiday, I'm just back to get ready and have revision and stuff). Suxtastic.
Still, my room was locked( I had this random paranoid thought that I had left it open all the way on teh trip back to home, even though I always lock my door when I leave the flat) and everything was okay(the cleaners even left my sprouting onion in my cuboard!11!!!11one!
First thing I did when I got back was connect to the internet(I'm not addicted, I'm not! I'-okay I am :/) and play a match of Starcraft with Confuz, which was funfaic.

Being home again was.. nice. Always nice to spend time with parents and brother, specially when you have been living away, and the food was even more lovely than I remembered ^_^.
So yeah. Now for shit tons of exams :'(

And then it tore the roof off.

So my guy was some kinda tour guide and we were in hippy californya and the bank got held up by some guys in bike suits and then they shot us and time stopped and we were stuck and some giant horuskinda thing opened the doorway and the police negotiator managed to get it to attack us and I sat there unarmed as they killed it. And then we went to my guys house and he picked up shit tons of survival gear and a shotgun because nothing stops bears attacking like a ten gauge to the head.
And everything was dust
Really
Really
Really dust
Kinda like OSHIT EVEN MR MUSCLE WON'T CLEAR THIS SHIT.
So, we went to the police station via the grocery store and the Irish guy knocked over a cat and it was all gooey then we went into the general store and picked up alcohol and stuff and then there was a catgirl and it attacked and lazor'd the Irish guy and he was on minus hitpoint(pretty much all the wounds he took were due to his own silly) then I shot it in the face witha shotgun and it was all wat, then I shot it again and it was all fuuuufleee.(oh, and the cat goo and catgirl were related)
Then we went to the police station and was all FIRST AID HERE. Then we discussed and I did my most RP ever and we were all WE NEED AN RADIO HERE. And we went to the museam and fought knights on horses(where the Irish guy decided to pick up the radio without thinking and set off the alarm and we were all NUUUUHHHHRRR) and we were all EAT SHOTGUN BICHES and they were all fuuuuuudie. and then we went to the local broadcasting booth and it was all blue and we woke up in some god wannabees place(I called him the polite Gentleman) and we got given powers.
And then it was cool and I went to look around and there was some huge snake thing(http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080808015446/megamitensei/images/a/a5/QuetzalcoatlSMT2.jpg) and we were all FUUUUUU and we were all "We should be safe here"


And then it tore the roof off.

And we were all fuuurunaway, and we ended up in an alley and were cornered and our weapons THEY DID NOTHING.
And then we were all HHHNNNNNNGGGGGG and we got powers and we were all *insertmagicstuffhere* and it was all nuuuu and it was afraid of us and it was cool and yeah.
We won!
It was fun! ^_^

The Attic

Yesterday I undertook a expedition to that most dangerous and forsaken place.. the attic.
That land where the dust lies a metre thick, and strange containers holding mystic treasures await discovery. I scaled teh ladder fearlessly, holding the tools of the attic goer(duster, scissors and parcel tape) as I searched for a box marked "General-to be sorted" I opened it up with great trepidation.. what wonders lay within? And there was stuff. And I took some of said stuff down because it was my brothers, and the rest I left behind as I resealed it, leaving it for another generation to find. Then I went looking for my real objective, the box marked "J's games", I slowly opened it up, revealing the stash of games, a multitudinous amount of amaze.. okay, more like half a dozen games, but even so..
I gingerly removed a few games, the game "Starcraft" and the trilogy of "Neverwinter Nights"
My mission here was done, I hastily resealed the containers, and fled down the ladder, sealing that forsaken place off again for another thousand years. I then tidied up and spent the rest of the day sneezing and coughing due to all the dust I had inhaled :/

Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay

As you can tell from the title, I found out what WFRP stands for :P DAMN ACRONYMZ.

So uh, basically I was a male elf(though the gender hardly matters with elves, with the most manly elves being pretty damn effeminate) who was an archer, as is rather generic, and I shot people and rolled rather low damage. But still fun.
We rescued a brothel,
And one of the party punched a guy in the gonads, and rolled a critical, and the location of the critical was the gonad, he then hit again and took the guy down to half health. This was the boss XD

So, the WFRP system is a d100 system, using d10 for damage and some other checks, although perhaps it is better to call it a die percentile system, as the majority of actions are accomplished by rolling under the ability score, so for instance my elf had a 58% to hit(which is good, btw), I have to roll anything under or equal to that value. The exception to this seems to be magic checks when trying to cast spells, where it seems to be a simple highest = best.

The background and world in this is the world of Warhammer fantasy(the miniatures game, which I used to play) which is a very gritty world, and that kinda reflects through the gameplay and enemies, the gameplay is very harsh, with wounds being very few compared to attack, for instance, I do a d10+3, I have 11 Wounds and..I think a toughness of 4(might be three though) which means I remove 4 damage from every attack, which means I could almost kill myself with a single blow, and this doesn't really change at later levels, since most of the careers seem to give you the chance to get two extra wounds, which isn't really much compared to damage ramping, which is quite different to DnD, where as you get stronger it become less and less likely you will get one hitted. that said, it is impossible to die in WFRP except on a critical, though when you are down on the ground with 0 wounds I think they get auto criticals or summat(bit shaky on the intricacies of the system, though due to the critical effects you might often be as good as dead, with chances to be paralysed, lose limbs, etc.
The character system in WFRP is.. strange, it consists of tons and tons of careers, such as boatman, hunter, soldier, burgher, peasent, messenger, etc etc(it is a large amount..and that's just the starting classes) in fact someone said that by the time your character was maxed out they would have 5 careers.
The way careers work is that when you get a certain amount of XP you get to raise attributes(such as weapon skill, agility, intelligence) by a certain amount per career class, so for instance the Kithband class I went to(I think that's it) allowed me to increase my WS(weapon skill) BS(ballistic skill) and my agility, int and willpower I think. Also it let me increase my wounds by two total our of my secondary attributes.
The other things you can buy are skills and talents, which are done similarly, you just buy the skill, there are no ranks, you buy it so you can use it, and you roll the value of the stat that pertains to that skill.
The final ability is talents, which are bought, and roughly compare to feats in traditional DnD, giving you stat bonuses and stuff.

I cannot really comment on the magic in this system as I only saw someone use it, looked pretty good when I glanced through, with a fair few disorientating and utility spells as well as flat out damaging spells, which is always a good sign. not as wide a choice as DnD(though really, half those spells are useless) and certainly a more useful looking spell list than Anima.
So, how did this system play? Pretty well I'd say, it was very easy to grasp the concepts, looks simple to 'level' up the characters, nice combat system that really lets you know when you get better, rather than so many where the higher your character level goes, the more it seems just the same as before, albeit with some nifty abilities.

So, did I enjoy playing this system? Well, yes, yes I did. Would I recommend it? Definitely. It may just be my fanboy self speaking(Warhammer was pretty much the first gaming system I started), but I have always enjoyed the Warhammer setting, and this RPG is definitely a good addition to it.
And I really cannot believe these are the same people who made Anima :/

PS. I just noticed I am using my Warhammer fantasy book as my mouse-mat :P Wharra coincidence

Pub time!

So last night I got a phonecall from my friend, and was expecting times for D&D today, but instead got invited down teh pub. So I accepted, of course!
And it was cool and we nerded it up while drinking alcomaholz and playing pool and I somehow won!
Leik as in I didn't lose a game :P I also proved that I play better drunk, as I missed nearly every shot after one beer, and hardly any after two pints and a JD&coke. Its a varient of the Drunken Master class you know.
Drunken Pool Masters unite!
(admittedly a few of those wins was the opponent accidentallying the whole black. BUT IT STILL COUNTS DAMMIT.
So yeah.. it was fun. got a game today, some system called WFRP or somesuch. Not a clue what its about. I don't even the whole everything. See how it goes though, expect a blog.

SURPRISE DND

AND WE WERE ALL BLAH.. AND uh.. we sat there,.
and we talked
and uh
someone snuck into a castle to capture a princess
and uh
we waited outside.
and uh
There was no combat.
and uh.
Wasn't actually that bad a session of anima actually, though no combat, I finally levelled up, too.

The prior warning to this session was about an hour, and I had to go help my mum put up the vent thingies on her greenhouse, so I went straight from there to the DND(luckily within walking distance) though it was hot :/
I had my sheet for the anima on teh interwebs, which was lucky though :)

And then we played Starwars RPG and someone tried to pick pocket me and I was all *grabs wrist* "Thats not a very good idea, you know" And I was a jedi and it was cool! and I was some kinda alien who was dextrous and wise but weak of constitution!(+2Dex, +2Wis, -2CON) and I have some kinda mask because oxygen is poisonous to me or summat.
I also hit someone and was all VRRRRMMMM and stuff.

The Staarwars RPG system seems quite good actually. Not that different to 3.5, though supposedly its also like 4.0 a bit. Havn't really read the rules. Plays well though. Good fun. You get to shoot stuff and hit stuff with things. And uh. FORCEPOWAS YOU CAN DO STUFF WITH THE FORCE AND ITS ALL HNNNNG!
So yeah, not much of a review on this system. Maybe when I read the rulebook more. But it seems really similar to 3.5, so may not bother.

Anima

So my guy was all HNNGG and he fell over then we went into a room and he was all AAARRGGGH and was shot and almost died then he was healed by the Russian bear wrestler, and then we went to a walkway and he was all BOOM and critical fireballed people, then we went to another room and he made someones head melt! and he had a crippled leg so cannot make any successful physical checks!
oh, and then some douchebag plot device villain who we couldn't beat was all HNNNNGG and stuff then failed and everything went black and stuff.
Also we were on an airship.

And that was the Tabletop RPG game we played today [well, it was today when I started this post :P ]( Not really proper to call it D&D, since its a different system)
So basically, this game was played using the Anima game system, which is a d100(for those who don't know, d100's are not actually 100 sided dice usually, you just use a d10 for the units and a nother d10 for the 10's) system, which basically means you get big numbers when making checks.
One of my gripes about this game is the large amount of tables, when making attack rolls(which are opposed by block and dodge rolls by the opponent) you take the amount you beat it by and look at a table.. when making a skill check you look at a table, which can bog the game down a little, though thats lessened if you have a sheet with all the tables on, or the DM screen.

The rounds in Anima are 3 seconds long, as opposed to the 6 second rounds of traditional D&D, although what with all the table consulting and the having to add up shiz with calculators it actually ends up taking a lot longer to play a round of Anima than of D&D, which is kinda ironic, as your Anima characters will kill the enemy in less time than your D&D characters (and my group take quite a while per encounter, because we are quite slow, usually because we get distracted and stuff) , but it will take longer to do that encounter in Anima. :/
We've played Anima a fair few times now, too, so its not just us being new to it, although we certainly are more experienced at D&D.

Theres kinda a mixed reactions to my friends about Anima, I'm kinda Meh, and someone else just doesn't like it, and the rest like it to varying degrees. Supposedly its more flexible, though I don't really see that, especially with magic which is a lot more restricted in terms of choice, though a lot more open in terms of spells you can cast. though Zeon (Mana basically) takes stupid long to return and you kinda have to ration your spells or you risk having none left next session, which is a bit :/
It seems fairly balanced, with no one class being amazing, and the way it does special actions, such as a called shot is quite good, with different penalties that can be decreased by weapons and advantages, but the classes don't really feel that unique or different from in any other RPG,
There certainly seems less to do to make a character, with almost no special abilities as far as I can see, which seems a bit weird for supposedly flexible system, it seems a simple hack and slash type of game, which gets a bit boring, on the plus side, it is quite easy to make a character, though the only real things to distinguish characters is the weapons you use and the advantages and disadvantages, although I suppose that's true of most systems.

Its got a few innovative features, like the Elan system, which is basically a way to record a deities favour, and you get points for doing things specific to your deity, which can get annoying if there isn't really much chance to do that thing in the game, so it can become just another thing the DM has to deal with. There are different Elan levels that can give different powers, its not that bad an idea, but it doesn't really feel amazingly awesome.

So basically, do I like this system, or recommend it? Not really, no, its okay for a change every now and again, but I find it neither more flexible nor quicker or in any way more fun than standard D&D 3.5, though there is only a few source-books, much less than 3.5
So basically, far from "Anima:Beyond Fantasy" I'd say its more "Anima:yet another generic RPG"
Not that Impressed. Anyway. Back to procrastinating on the internet and reading the rules for Pathfinder (Aka D&D 3.75) Expect a blogpost if we ever get round to playing it

Dragon Shamans.

We got caught by cultists!
I was all BLARGH!
AND I FLAMED PEOPLE!
And then I got hit in the arm and was all ARRRGGGH
And then the cleric healed it and I BLAARRGGH'd some more
Then I hit people
Then we won!
Then we rode off into the sunset!

And uh, that was my D&D session today in 5 seconds
Basically It was leik, last minute, made my Dragon Shaman character last night, started D&D at 2PM(got told it was happening at half 1, don't you just love forward planning?)
I quite like the character class, actually, very interesting, with an good blend of attacking and buffing abilities, they basically have a good Hit Die, average base attack and two good saves, breath weapon, which is good, though in no way comparable to other blasters, for instance the Warlocks eldritch blast.
The basic premise of a Dragon Shaman is that they are guiz who adopt the viewpoint of a dragon, almost worshipping a totem dragon, to the degree they gain some of the dragons powers(because you know, MAGIC!) The powers and skills you gain are variable, depending on the type of dragon you choose.
The other main ability is their auras, which are basically some neat buffs, such as DR, extra damage, energy resistance to a certain element and other such stuff.
So basically, they are quite versatile, a second line combatant, like the cleric, though far more buff focused than the cleric, they can be a much better fighter, though their healing abilities are comparable to the paladin(that is to say, pretty crap)
Overall they are a pretty damn cool class to play, very fun if you do them right, able to hold their own in a fight(I had the most HP of the party) while providing some nice team play aspects, and with a little thought the auras you have active can change the way the campaign pans out quite dramatically. This is one of the four new classes introduced in teh Players Handbook 2, The one main problem I have with the Players handbook 2 classes it the lack of class specific feats(or even feats that would provide general bonuses), basically the PHB2 feats are just more feats for PHB1 classes, and it makes me sadfaic :/

So overall, would I recommend this class? Well, if you like characters that can be both supporting and good combatants, this is a great class, that average base attack coupled with a few buffs and stuff will make you quite nasty in combat, especially since you can use your breath attack without provoking Attacks of Opportunity, while you buff you and your allies with your auras.
Also known as YES.

One of the things I noticed was that the auras are set as a free action, allowing you to change the aura to resistance{which provides a +aura bonus*10 resistance to totem dragon element} use your breathweapon, with your allies only taking a few points of damage if you roll highly, which can be quite useful to weaken enemies as you all charge in.
The Aura of Vigour can be used to keep your allies alive longer in combat, and to reduce the amount of healing your cleric has to do, while the senses aura is good to keep on while travelling, to give you that bonus at spot or listen, the better to avoid ambushes with.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to trawling this CD full of D&D books for some brilliantly broken feats I can apply to my character.

Back at home

Whee! I'm back at home! Time for relaxation, good food, games and... revision. Laimsauce.
Not only that, but the sun shines through the window in my room and makes it impossible to play games till the sun is pretty much down. Double Laimz. that said, it does give me an incentive to do some revision during the day, so it can only be a good thing. Another thing that's been helping me revise is the fact something is wrong with myspace, which stops me watching anime, since apparently they all host their anime vids on myspace :/ (and myspace being myspace, they are too busy being emo to fix it)

I went to rock night(Aka Church of Rock) at Brannigans yesterday and it was surprisingly good. I was expecting a big pile of fail, to tell the truth, and there were some laim indie songs, but there was a good amount of awesome music, too. Good times. Not only that, but no headache!
In fact, it was so good I might have to go again next week XD

I find your lack of patriotism... disturbing

So, its St Patrick's day! Queue huge celebrations all over the UK, with green banners being put up, carnivals(maybe?) much merriment and drinking from everyone, not just the Irish!
Now, I have no real problem with this, after all, celebrating others festivals is all nice and fun, helps you understand them, and cultural diversity is a good thing, but what irks me is that every year there is a huge fuss about St Patrick's day, but when the day of our OWN FRIKKING PATRON SAINT rolls by... nothing.. a few England flags put outside some pubs, maybe a few people with face-paint.. and that's it.
And it REALLY irks me, are people ashamed of being English that much they don't want to celebrate our own patron saints day? What do we have to be ashamed off, for gods sake? I mean, I'm no rabid patriot, far from it, but I at least appreciate the country I live in, and appreciate the history of this nation. Its partly the fault of the government, its true, I'm pretty sure the councils in Ireland help arrange the festivals, and over here we seem to be afraid of being English, afraid of forcing our culture on others, Its total and absolute bullshit, if people come to this country they should accept it for what it is, and they should strive to be English, while bringing their own culture and mixing it, not setting up conclaves of their own race and staying apart. If people don't want to experience our culture they should take a hike back to their own frikking country, because with that attitude they don't deserve to stay here.

Anyway, the tl;dr. English people need to be more proud of their own country, not afraid that they might offend someone.

Flatspace 2 review

Flatspace 2

So, where to begin? I suppose a good place to start would be the story, and to be frank, there isn't much of it, it basically starts off by saying.. OH NOEZ NOW THERE ARE ALIENZ.(okay its more suspenseful than that, but mehr)
You have a selection of classes, ranging from trader to assassin, and these influence your starting ship and equipments(for instance bounty hunters start off with a predator scanner which lets them view peoples bounties upon scanning, traders start off with something that lets them see what export and import types a base has)
But in part, that is the beauty of this game, the story is what you make it, you can do whatever the hell you want, there is no real constraints, you can be a bountyhunter who makes a side earner by carrying people from place to place, or a policeman who trades, the possibilities are as varied as your imagination.
There is also a guild feature where you get points in a guild for doing that thing, so for instance the couriers guild, you get points in it for transporting people around. You get rewards leik better ships and weapons for getting certain levels I am reliably told, though I have never actually got anything so far :'(
There is no restriction on the guilds, so you can level them all up at the same time, but I think only the dominant one gives you bonuses and stuff
The gameplay is quite simple, once you get the hang of it, using the mouse to steer, fire and control the thrust( I say control, really, its either on or off, though you can double click to lock, which is handy)
The way you interact with NPC's while in space is interesting, for instance to dock with a space stations you have to select the station (B), use the radio(R), transmit to the station(2) and then apply for docking permission (1) while containing an amount of realism, this is really awkward to do when running for your life from bandits, at least the first couple of times you do it :/

The combat is pretty samey, the best way I have found to win is to fly around in tight circles while the enemy ship fires and misses at you(they don't have the ability to lead targets XD), wait until they have run out of ammunition and just sit and shoot the hell outta them, this changes when you are fighting multiple enemies though, where you have to stay continually on the move, though if you play it right you can get at least half of them dead by crossfire, though you don't get any money for doing this :/

Flatspace 2 has two character types, Normal and Undead, when you die in Normal thats it. You are dead. Game over(which is quite cool, but really annoying when you were getting really attatched to someone :'( ). Undead basically means when you die you can reload any of the save games and continue from there, which is what I most commonly use, because I suck :P

Another important element in a game is the music, it helps involve the player in the game and the music for Flatspace 2 certainly fits the bill, mixing wonderously beautiful songs with fast paced adrenaline pumping ones.

So anyway, I've probably rambled on for far too long, the tl;dr of this review is
Is it worth buying?
YES! If you are looking for a simple but fun game to waste away the hours this game is well worth the price (£14/$24)

Flatspace is an indie developed game released late 2005 and can be obtained from here
http://www.lostinflatspace.com/ or from the devs main website http://www.cornutopia.co.uk

UNLESS ITS A CAPTIVE BREEDING PROGRAM!

Today I had the best BS111(biodiversity and ecology) practical ever! We got on a coach at about ten and went to the zoo! I mean how cool is that! the zoo!
And we went round! and saw lions! and tigers! and giraffes, and elephants (no gireleffants though) and sealions and it was sqeeeeeee

Childishness aside, it was actually a very informative trip(it was kinda a behind teh scenes tour, put on for the university, which has close ties with the zoo), we went to a range of enclosures and the guide told us what it was designed for, the features it had to optimise it for teh animals, they also explained the types of breeding programs and what was being done to increase numbers of the animal, the ways in which they were being trained(not circus training, but leik trained to accept blood tests and medical attention and stuff)
We also went and saw the pump room of the sea lion enclosure, and it was all rather interesting, they pump like 6 million gallons of water through a week( not really sure, Hard to hear with all the whirrrrinng and stuff) Colchester also apparantly has the largest underwater tunnel in teh UK of 24 metres. ONLY 24? Come on people, how are we supposed to create marine cities if you can't even get a decent underwater tunnel made?(though this might have been just out of zoos, again, not sure)

So yeah, it was fun, if very brief(not much chance to look at teh pretteh animalz!)
Anyway, back to procrastinating and doing coursework. Eventually

Its mah first blog!

So yeah, I haz a blog now! I'll probably be doing some game reviews, since that was the reason for me making it(for all those that don't know, I have a really short att-OH LOOK SQUIRLS span, so to stop me just gettting bored and giving up halfway through a game, I decided to start doing reviews, so I have to finish the game! Ingenious, rite!?) though probably no proper full length games till after my exams are over.

I'll probably do other stuff too, I'll post on twitter when I update my blog, so none of you will have an excuse for not reading it! mwaahahhahaa- I mean. uh. Feedback would be appreciated, too ^_^