Life is a bitch

Yep, life is a bitch. Why? It tends to hit hard when you least expect it. After assembly I haven't really felt like I want to play anything, losing my interest in to those games I've been playing for quite long time and just getting bored. Why? That's damn good question and I do not have answer for it.

I guess that's enough info for why I haven't been writing too much lately. And other is that I've been lacking inspiration to do that. And what happened to my plans of writing a lot from assembly? Well I got lot of things to do there, met a lot of new people and just hung around. I think I spent less than hour next to computer during those four days.

But in summary it was nice trip, even if I felt that the quality of said happening has gone downhill. Demo's weren't as great, people weren't as wacky and so forth. But as said I met a lot of new people, couple first evenings I hang around with some "dance gamers" and was it Saturday(?) when I tag along with piraattinuoret, will write more about em later as it's not that much gaming related.

But but swag bag?! Yep this year's swags were just pure win 2 full games and expansions and one expansion only (I guess they ran out of originals?), 2gb usb stick and lots of other stuff. Oh yeah and free energy drinks, nothing beats free energy drinks I tell you, N O T H I N G!

And then I met very interesting person from there, and yet I can't tell what exactly caused it. Was it her eyes, thoughts or a certain thing that I found cute (which shall remain unmentioned to not reveal too much). Most people had very unique personalities there and without a doubt so did I in their opinions. I kinda went over after being awake way too long with the power of ED *grin*.

I don't have anything else to write about at moment to be honest, simply because I can't keep my thoughts from wandering around in to way too many directions. Oh, and I am sorry if this includes less spelling mistakes than my usual text does. Even if this is almost meaningless ranting I still managed to keep my thoughts in text.

RetroGen – Over and out!

Pokémon, don't we all just love them.. 8D

I think that I have stated it before, but I have also been playing Pokémon in hardcore way in past, for many years actually.. But lately my passion for those game has been going down alot, as I kinda feel that the system would need huge improvement instead of the old "I hit you since I'm faster, then you hit me back"-system.. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that system in general and I have loved it since the day one, when I first played Pokémon during the christmas of year 1998..

That's right, it's over 11 years of Pokémon for me and still, somehow I'm bit attracted to those silly little creatures created by Satoshi Tajiri. Sometimes I just feel that the game should evolve bit, other than just giving some dual battles and random contests.. Nice idea could be to try something similar to the Final Fantasy battle system, which would make the fights lot more smoother.. Well I personally would love to play Pokémon more again if they did something to make the fights bit more lively and upgrade the system little..

But my latest hardcore Pokémon session doesn't actually involve the original games in at all.. So what is it then? Well it's a web site, dedicated to hatching and collecting Pokémons from their eggs together with a huge community, based around breeding Pokémons rather than fighting with them.. Basically you just go around hugging others eggs to warm them, and feeding their hatched Pokémons.. So in other words it's just alot of clicking and trying to get clicks in return.. So simple, yet so addictive - just like everything based on Pokémon tends to be.

Reason why I originally joined there, was mainly because my girlfriend likes that site quite alot, so I have been randomly just clicking through her eggs daily, but finally last evening I thought that I would give the site a shot and try it myself.. To find out what makes the site so good.. Because to me, it seemed just like another "Gotta catch 'em all" ripoff, and never have seen that before in the internet...

While checking how long actually I were there yesterday, I realized that I had spent total of over 10 hours running around clicking random Pokémon eggs and hoping to get some clicks on my party as return, just to get my first Pokémon to hatch there.. Took total of 7h 11min to achieve it, and during that time I had clicked ovet 1150 times others eggs and Pokémons..

By the way here's the link to my page there:
*Click for Del's party*
And here's the link to my girlfriend's page:
*Click for Lymi's party*..

Would appreciate if you took the 1-2 minute of your time to go click through what ever happens to be in those parties~

Was it fun then, clicking for over 10 hours?
Absolutely. I don't know why it's so fun even, since the system isn't really the best out there for clicking other people eggs and the site feels bit slow overall, but it's still fun to try get some more clicks for your own party and get together with other people sharing the same love for those cute creatures created by some crazy japanese, who liked playing with stones in a matchbox..

As for other Pokémon related stuff, I'd really hope to get to try out the DS versions of Pokémon soon, and really looking forward how the SoulSilver and HeartGold versions will turn out, since there has been lot of promises about them and well.. LeafGreen and FireRed versions just plain sucked. And as for more sad news, only bit over month ago, my Pokémon Crystal's cartridge battery ran out and I lost my save in it, which included also my very first Pokémon, Charizard named Charmy.. Which also happens to be my favorite Pokémon btw.. And also lost over 120 other lvl 100 Pokémons within that save, which included even some very rare ones like original Mew gotten from real life Pokémon event years ago (had ID number of 00100).. Also lost countless hours of memories of my old best friend who died few years ago - needless to say, that it was a very sad morning to find out what had happened~

Del signing out~

That was... EPIC...

Have heard that phrase before? Well it's by far the best way to describe my latest HoN match.. It was just so bloody epic fight, first of all.. We had a horrible start, and before I even knew, I had 0 kills , 8 deaths and 3 assists on kill.. In other words, I had awful stats to start the game besides opponents had gotten shitloads of experience and gold from killing me and few of my team mates..

We had only played for bit over 10 minutes of the game, and opponents had 28 - 6 lead in kills.. And people already started giving up and some guys already wanted to concede.. BUT, kills aren't all that there's into Heroes of Newerth and that's one of the best sides of the game..

Let me explain bit of the basics of the game.. I don't think we have yet talked much about the game itself but, basically the game is all about destroying opponents main building, that's the main goal instead of just killing your opponents until they give up.. And to help this, there's constant spawns of creeps from both towns walking in lanes and fighting against opponents creeps / defensive towers / heroes.. Eventually if you just let them fight, they will get their way to the base but to make it faster, you usually help them by slaying the opponent creeps and getting gold and experience that way..

BUT.. Those creeps aren't actually all just for grinding for gold and experience, no. Those creeps can also be huge tactical part of the whole game.

So, we had that 28 - 6 kill situation and obviously opponents started to be lot better geared from all those kills and so on.. Or were they? Actually, even if they killed alot they started lagging behind in levels and while our team constantly pushed back the creeps, they just focused on running around the map in packs, trying to find some random guys to gank, in other words.. They became TOO bloodthirsty, and forgot the main goal of the whole game. Sure, they did try to invade our base aswell, but they always got pushed back and most of the time, we also managed to kill 1 or 2 of them.. But they never got our "barracks" until the very end of the game and when you destroy the opponent barracks, your team creeps become stronger than theirs on THAT lane where the barrack was destroyed..

The ammount of lanes differ between maps, but on this "default" map that people usually tend to play, because it's the copy of the original DotA map(Defender of the Ancients, warcraft 3 custom map and pretty much it's own game inside another game, and the original idea for Heroes of Newerth becoming it's own game), there's 3 lanes in total. Middle (Mid), Bottom (Bot) and Top (Top, duh) and our opponents kept constantly pushing our Mid lane, but totally forgot the Bot and Top so.. I kept clearing opponent creeps from there constantly and what do you know..

Our bottom lane actually broke through opponent defenses just with the creeps, and I don't think that our opponent players even really noticed this.. And even now that the kill situation was like 42 - 20, both teams tought that our team was losing - exept me. I think that I was the only one in the whole game, who actually understood the whole situation here, that against all the odds.. We were actually winning.

And soon enought, I noticed a bar appearing on top of the screen, indicating that opponent main building was under attack, (it's health bar appears at top of the screen) and I didn't wait for a single second more, but I teleported to our team creep attacking that base.. And there was just ONE guy with decently low hp, trying get rid of those creeps.. Only one guy of the opponent team had noticed what was happening, and on top of that, I think that he had only gone to their base to heal.. Not to kill those creeps so, needless to say that I pretty much owned his sorry face in second or two.. Even tho my character isn't the "best killer class in game", because it's more of an creep tank and assist killer, but if opponents are low hp and can't jump away or vanish from me, they are doomed..

And so we won a game, that seemed like we were going to lose from the very start.. Too bad that you can't get extra style points from such "come back" game but, it just was bloody epic win, it wasn't one of my best games because I did die alot from their random ganks and my character is kinda slow to run away but.. Guess I proved that HoN is more than just a random PvP game where you just kill opponents to win, helping own creeps and killing opponent creeps can be a huge tactical element to the game. And even if I died most in that very game, I was still the highest level hero in the end and maybe even best geared.. Sorry for dragging this article for bit long, but I can't say it enought.. It was epic epic epic EPIC fight, actually.. More like Legendary tbh.

Del signing out~

Del taking it easy

As you might've noticed.. I haven't written much for some days and main reason for that? I'm just taking it easy right now, not worrying too much about anything and just relaxing while playing good games, watching some Anime, enjoying the company of my girlfriend, doing some work outs (that I have grown to like suprisingly much) etc etc.. In other words, I'm not busy or anything like that.. I'm just.. just.. uhm.. What the heck am I even doing these days? O_o

Oh well, in anycase.. I had such a good runs today in Heroes of Newerth, made meh happeeeh + I can't wait for my next computer to arrive, cheers again Ret for selling it for me and hope you enjoy your time at Assembly '09.. ;)

Oh yeah, good runs in HoN I said? 6 games, 6 wins and now raised my winning percent up to 46%.. My average deaths are going down nicely aswell and what's best.. Me and few other guys so totally owned a premade in HoN everyone of those guys had like over 1700 "pub rating" and winning percent close to 80% but... We.. Few 1550-1700 rated guys totally owned them, and I only died 2 times in total, once because I were just playing around in the enemy base but, gosh.. It was such a perfect game from us, "Pick up group owning premade" I have always loved the feeling after games like that..

Also yesterday I saw mostlikely one of the best players in whole HoN beta, he had rating of close to 1900 already and well.. It was just random game, and it was pretty clear that he would own that game and so he did.. He had like 10 kills already after 7-8 minutes of the game and he was lvl 17 with pretty sick gear when others were barely lvl 9, it had to be the fastest concede I have ever seen and maybe ever will.. Seriously, nerf those scouts.. xDD

Del signing out~

Assembly '09 1st beginnign of 1st evening

Ok, so at last I got time to sit down and grab my laptop to write something up. I've been watching this Memenot Mori or something like that trying to down Yog'Saron for quite few hours and they just plain suck. I just wonder how so crappy players can get sponsored? Or have they been paid to suck? I highly doubt.
But to some brighter things, 1st compo that I saw was of the decent quality. Gamedev, there ws nice entries and remake of classic Finnish game "Slicks 'n' slides" and surprisingly enough it was made by my friend and crew around him. For tomorrow, there will be loads of lil happnenings including street soccer that I apparently will be participating in. And lil fix for earlier statement they ar trying to get Yogg'saron HARDMODE down... So I guess I get to watch it for long time. And apaprently they are trying to be 5th in the world to get it down so yeah good luck have fun but stop dying in the voidzones!

RetroGen - over and out... for a moment

Yawn...

Ookkey, Heroes of Newerth is awesome game and WAY too "addictive" even if I get my ass handed to me too often... (Usually balls served as side dish) It's simple game mechanics makes it easy to pick up but god damn hard to get even on decent level. We were training today a lot, and we got a bit better (I don't die idiotically every secoond but can survive up to minute... (nah only couple death per match now)). And I am afraid that it will continue tomorrow too. So here we get again into roots of this blog "gaming as we think ti should be". We are gathering a lot of information and we have will to get better so we are newbies in this game so to speak, and I and most likely Del is quite much able notice difference in HoN already. But without further due I head to bed (great part of active gaming!).

RetroGen - Over and out.

So what exactly is hardcore gaming?

Like I said while ago, it's not nolifing or pro gaming. In simplest form you could say, hardcore gaming is passion for the games and learning the the games inside out. Well, just saying that doesn't explain much.. I could give an example of actual hardcore gaming, that me and RetroGen started few days ago out of curiosity/boredom.

Basically what we did, was that we started playing Evony again on completely different server that had been running for about bit over 1 month, and this time without any help of alliances and we decided to go on "solo" to see how fast we could build up cities from the scratch and we actually got pretty amazing results.

Because of our earlier experiences, researches and overall knowledge on the game system, we practically could build non-stop something without breaks. Always having something to build, selling and buying on markets and got the resources flowing. So already from the very start, we could play at max speed even if we just started on the server. And after we formed an alliance, just the 2 of us, in no time we started passing other alliances in ranking and after about 24 hours of play, we had already passed 50% of the alliances on the server, just the 2 of us.

Want to know how fast we were?
You can try it yourself, go to www.evony.com, create an account or if you already have one, start on a new server.. Try if you can achieve over 8000 prestige in just 24 hours, I personally got over 10k prestige at 25hours mark, because I had one longer research going so it went bit over my original goal but I were quite satisfied still.

So did we nolife much then?
Absolutely no. Like I already said, hardcore gaming isn't about spending every second with your computer. Sure, we did spend atleast 6-8 hours in evony, but we also did other stuff same time, like Ret went to store at some point, I had my workout while I got over 30min long buildings going and so on.. That's the good side of most browser games, you don't have to sit there at your computer 24/7 to be good at them. Sure, it helps to spend lot of times for games but.. I for one, dislike nolifing right now because of my girlfriend, so I try to avoid getting hooked too much into the games at the moment.

However, if this didn't yet explain you what's the basic idea of the hardcore gaming, I could try and say it in bit more simplier form:

Hardcore gaming is playing always on the edge of how good you can be. Basically you find what's the limits of the best possible way of playing a game, and try to reach them. In games like Evony it's easy to see, since you can build as much as your resources allow you to, so you have to spend them wisely and try not to run out of them, while still maintaining the fast building speed of your town same time. Trust me, it's harder than it sounds - especially if you don't know the game already. That's why forums and guides are always a good place to start a game, instead of through the "trial and error", like I did in Heroes of Newerth (HoN). Getting asskicked from the very start without even knowing how the game mechanics works, it's not something that I call fun..

Anyways, more in-depth article on how our "Hardcore Evony" project is proceeding, will come soon, perhaps even today, so look forward to it~

Del signing out~

Making up for absense...

Let's begin with saying that I knwo how blondes must feel most of the time... I've been feeling "airheaded" whole day and I have absolutely no clue why. But then to topic it self.

I got bit sad again for my self, I saw one friend of mine being really happy for reaching certain point in game, point that I thougth as just another stepping stone for success, point that didn't really matter for me as it is only small part that aids me in future. This has happened to me before in game, people being genuinely happy about reaching something I would think inferior, why I can't feel that joy anymore? Have I become too competitive? Have I forgot how to have fun while gaming? No I havn't, but then again I usually play in different level and I don't have too many friends who does. I wonder if they too feel this way every once in a while.

And don't get me wrong, I am happy for em for their achievements. Somtimes I may give nasty comments unintentionally, sometimes I do it on purpose. But often they make me think "why I just can't be happy about little things in games too as I do in life".

So how I like to live? Even when I don't have problems with money I prefer to live really simple life, I don't need luxury around me (except my computer and tv (tv is for XBox360 (xb360 is for development))). I have my foldable sofa that works as bed same time, I have my computer desk and I have my chair, then I have my bookcase... It's HUGE. That's quite much what I am not in games, don't you think?

RetroGen - Over and out

Elitism

Anyone who have played with me longer than couple days can sign that I am "Elitist jerk and arrogant bastard" as I like to put it. I was talking yesterday with my old friend about wow, and that little elitist in me raise up when we started to talk about raiding and he told that he've been called elitist lately cause of his attitude and he don't really mind that so I went and asked about his DPS (part of performace in raiding) and he told 5 to 6k... HE's a god damn mage and has uldaur gears, I did same DPS with my lol hybrid you should be healing enhancement shaman back in Naxxramas so I kinda told him about that. I wouldn't had taken him in to my raids (no Toast raids weren't mine) with taht DPS and I am not sure about his performance either, how well he can dodge void zones, as they seem to start to get progress in Ulduar10 at last (hey guys there is new raid already coming that should've been clear ages ago and you should farm gears).
But anyways back to topic, elitism what it is exactly is and am I really an elitist, let's see waht wikipedia has to say about it:

Elitism is the belief or attitude that those individuals who are considered members of the elite—a select group of people with outstanding personal abilities, intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes—are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight or those who view their own views as so; whose views and/or actions are most likely to be constructive to society as a whole; or whose extraordinary skills, abilities or wisdom render them especially fit to govern.[1] Alternatively, the term elitism may be used to describe a situation in which power is concentrated in the hands of the elite. Those opposed to elitism are considered supporters of anti-elitism, populism or the political theory of pluralism. Elite theory is the sociological or political science analysis of elite influence in society - elite theorists regard pluralism as a utopian ideal.

Elitism may also refer to situations in which an elite individual assumes special privileges and responsibilities in the hope that this arrangement will benefit humanity or themselves. At times, elitism is closely related to social class and what sociologists call social stratification. Members of the upper classes are sometimes, though inaccurately, known as the social elite. The term elitism is also sometimes used to denote situations in which a group of people claiming to possess high abilities or simply an in-group or cadre grant themselves extra privileges at the expense of others. This form of elitism may be described as discrimination. Such elitism has social psychological consequences.

Yes, I am an elitist and I would say that most nerds are according to sources in this post. And I am losing train of my thought again so I quit for short this time. I will get back to this subject later date though, don't worry.

RetroGen - over and out

So where have we been?

As you may have noticed there havn't been too many posts lately. Mainly cause we've been busy with things that has absolutely nothing to do with gaming, and after that we got too many games to play... Both me and Del got in to HoN (Heroes of Newerth) and we've been own... I mean being owned quite badly last coupel days there. And for those of you who havn't played it nor heard about it, it's DoTA with SHINIER (uuh shiny...) graphics and well working engine. Game is already surprisingly stable and I guess it's more aabout squishing the little bugs and fixing balance stage that we are participating in.
My opinion about that game thus far is FREAKING AWESOME (that's 7.5 to 8.0 out of 10 and hoppe that there won't be any 10's too soon). We got clan DRGaming up and running yesterday, we've been training how to play as a team and some 1vs2 matches and have fun in general. Game it self looks great and don't seem to have too high requirements from machine to play. Voice over IP that's build in to game works PERFECTLY and soudns good, so you don't need to worry about getting ventrilo for your clan games. ngame chat system has little bugs and could use little tweaking here and there, clan system seems to be working nicely and is easy enough to use that even snakes *snicker* could create clan without problem.
And again my thougths are wandering where ever and my post most likely looses it's red string again... how many times it did before? And I need cookies before I go back to play HoN so take care.

RetroGen - Over and out

What makes us to play the games? Part 1

It's been a few days since my last article, so apologies for lack of them lately.. Just been enjoying my life and having fun playing some games, chatting with my girl etc but, that brings me the question.. What makes us to play the games? Hour after another, day after day, month after month, possibly even years? Is there some trick to it, or is it just coinsidence that people tend to like some games more than others?

After talking about the subject with RetroGen, he mentioned something like "interest to the subject" but.. Is that really all? I say, definetly no. It can't be all there is to the matter, I mean.. City building/Economy simulator games haven't been really that close to my heart ever and yet I have been playing Evony daily for over month already.. I mean, I like the genre, but can't believe I would play a game with nearly no graphics, lagging system (mostlikely due bad programming), non-existant gameplay and not really that much things to do in the end.. It is a good game to play while doing other stuff at the same time, like writing an article about gaming, but why to choose it over other games that have similar "casual" style of gaming and perhaps even better system?

Well, RetroGen did say couple possible reasons for it.. First of all social interraction, playing against others, chatting, writing mails and overall doing things together? Would that be the answer? No, it's definetly a part of it but there's still tons of games where you are lot less social, but they still keep you playing hours straight.. Like for example, I'm right now watching Final Fantasy series, played by "The Speed Gamers" on stream (www.thespeedgamers.com) for one week straight for charity, and those guys clearly have been playing the same games for years and Final Fantasy games are single player games.. Besides do I interract with other people while watching it? No, I'm just playing my own games and watching it occasionally.. Some people do chat there all the time, and that's part of the whole event, but I'm not really there too much.. So what interests me there?

Seeing someone else playing the game that I have played before? Well, it's one of the reasons why I got interested in it.. But it's definetly not the reason why I have been watching this for hours.. I guess it's mostly because I enjoyed playing it myself.

But what makes you to enjoy games? Graphics? Gameplay? Sociality? Interest to the subject? Uniquenes? There could be so many reasons for it, but what makes millions of people join with you? And what makes one game so special from others? I will think about those things and write about them once I come up with some answers, but until then, fare thee well ~ and keep enjoying the games..

Del signing out~

Indimitation

Sigh.. I were so exited today.. Finally seeing someone with a great army attacking me in Evony, and I was ready for it.. I had every single attack of his planned out so that I would've lost max 20k archers and maybe some wall defences, but he would lose over 150k archers, 20-30k ballista, 40k pikemen and tons of smaller troops but.. Since the main attack took 2 hours, he became bored and started attacking my valleys with 1 scout attacks.. And I didn't wish to cause any extra work for myself on getting those back.. So I retaliated by sending 2 scouts on those valleys, but it gave out that I was online. So after a while, we started talking and because I'm such a smooth talker.. At the same time, I were able to talk the situation over, so no more attacks would be dealed with.. But still somehow managed to keep him continuing the attacks.

But.. When the attacks were just 6 minutes away, I noticed how scared he became of me.. Even tho I tried to be as passive, as possible.. He was very indimitated of my existence online, and became scared of what he was facing for, I guess he could slightly tell from my messages that I actually did want him to continue those attacks.. So when there was like 4 minutes to first attack, he pulled his troops away.. Coward! D:

Oh well, the situation is now over.. And neither of the sides really lost anything, exept that I lost possibility on gaining like over 1 million honor for practically free.. Which makes Del very sad panda.. Guess I'll just have to continue building my honor with hard word and attacking others myself, instead of random guys, who think that they are strong bringing it for me.. :(

Del signing out~

What are Del and Ret?

Del = Perfectionist
Ret = Perfectionist

Del = Passive
Ret = Active

Del = Neutralist
Ret = Positive

Del = Dedicated
Ret = Obsessive

Del = Realist
Ret = Determined

Del = Curious
Ret = Seeking

Del = Thinker
Ret = Visionaire

Del = Labourer
Ret = Scholar

Del = Dreamer
Ret = Creator

Del = Soft
Ret = Rough

Del = Protective
Ret = Offensive

Del = Submissive
Ret = Agressive

Del = Simplistic
Ret = Fancy

Del = Smooth
Ret = Edgy

Del = Socrates
Ret = Archimedes

Del = Tolkien
Ret = DaVinci

Del = Gamer
Ret = Gamer

But notice ladies, these are only our gamer sides mainly.. How it's in real life? That you'll have to find out yourself ;)

Del = Flirty
Ret = Flirty

E-fame and e-peen, mine is bigger than yours! 8D

So what does e-peen exactly mean? Well, in short it would be translated as your "internet penis", and the longer it is.. the better. But just saying that doesn't explain too much now, does it?

So usually e-peen is something rare or hard to achieve in online society. And well it doesn't really have to even be online, but it's always something that you would like to brag about online. It might be some very rare weapon, even totally useless but rare or it might be some extremely hard boss encounter that you somehow managed to finally beat, and you want to brag about it. Or it can be a very high kill/death ratio in Counter Strike or some awesome score in online bowling game or even highest score on original Donkey Kong.. But it's always something that people think it's hard to achieve and because of that, they want to brag about it.

Basically you could even brag about your real life car or sports achievements and when you do it online, technically it would also be "making your e-peen longer".. Basically e-peen is just something to make you become more famous and aknowledged in online communities.

For example in world of warcraft there's tons of people just seeking to make their e-peen longer.. Sometimes they do ridiculously useless but hard things, just to gain slightly more lenght to their penis or take a weapon or armor that they don't even need, but it's more rare than their original item. In some cases people do just retarted things and maybe even piss off their team just to grasp little bit more e-fame.

So is it always bad thing to try making your e-peen longer?
Answer is no. Trying to become famous or aknowledgement is never a "bad" thing, since it's just part of human nature and gives people some goals to aim for. So in many cases it can even make people play better than they usually do. Only bad thing about e-peen would be, if it hurts, insults or annoys your friends and team members to achieve it. But if it doesn't do any bad for people playing near you, it's all for good, I mean.. Who wouldn't want to be bit more famous in places where they like to be alot?

But the funniest thing is.. That even girls can have penis online. There's no such thing as e-cunt or e-clit but it's always known as e-peen. And Just like boys, also girls like to be aknowledged and famous, not like they are that different from the guys online, which also bring me to one of our upcoming subjects - can you really tell if a "girl" online is really a girl, without seeing or talking with her first?

Will talk about that later.. But for now, thanks for listening, hope you enjoyed and have a great day.. (And remember to go measure your e-peen occasionally, is yours really bigger than others?)

Del signing out~


No matter how gay your character might look like, with the rarest weapon of that time.. You are guaranteed to have a very long e-peen.

[Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros] - one of the most rare weapons of early World of Warcraft.

YouTube buildings <3

I hearts them. <3

In web browser games such as Evony, there's usually certain time that buildings or troops takes to be ready. But YouTube buildings are the best!

What are they then?
Well, actually it's just normal building that takes about 10 minutes to build, just enought to watch some episode from YouTube series, such as the "Let's Play" ones. So once the episode is ready, you just go back to put new building to build and go watch next episode..

Oh and btw those LP's are just awesome entertainment, watching someone else playing the games that you love so much, and listening them to comment it while playing or giving tips etc, it's very fun to watch really.

I personally might start a "Let's Play" serie too, once I get my computer to handle recording better again.. (My better computer is currently broken and I really should fix it soon, atleast before Diablo 3 comes out, but it'll be my main recording source.)

Anyways that was pretty random but, there's few subjects that I might tackle on bit later.. So look forward for it ^^

Del signing out~

What's going on in near future.

I tend to have way too many irons in fire at once but somehow I manage to pull em out eventually, so it is now too. And so I am trying to set em in order that I should complete em. As for now I may jump and do thing I've been thinking long time: C# and XNA basics, but I have to apologize as it will be in Finnish.
That project wont take all of my time and it will most definetly will take a lot of time. But for those of you who understand finnish I will post more info when I've decided base line of tutorials and avoid colliding with wall too hard. As for now I think there will be video as main format and text to add support material for it.
And this week in gaming for me is Dragonica, Evony and Anno 1404. After few hours of Anno I have to say that game is made of pure AWESOME and anyone who enjoys resource management games. For warfreaks (like me often), it may not be the game for you. Even though I think even you should give shot for it. Anno kinda took me away from Dragonica for now but I try to find time for it too. Oh yeah and add my math and physics studies in to that heap oh and ofc I should get some work done as well...

RetroGen - Over and out (for now...)

Project: "Beat Evony"

The question is.. How do you beat a game that has no real goal like.. Max level or PvP rankings or anything besides score tables?

Well there's few things you can achieve in Evony, one is naturally the ranking systems that are "Prestige" and "Honor", Prestige is gained by your overall achievements and it usually tells how much the player has played. Honor then again is achieved from attacks against other players and NPCs.

They also scale little, depending on your title and rank (needed for getting more cities), you gain less prestige if you are higher ranked. It's a reference to medieval Lords who gained less prestige among people if they already had achieved lot of things. And they only got aknowledged if they did great attacks against strong opponents and so on. Also honor works similar way that, if you attack higher ranked player than you, you get more honor and vice versa.

How ever, my goals aren't in Prestige or Honor even if they are nice to collect and it's what determines your ranking among other people. But.. My actual goal is the mostlikely one of the "hardest" things to do currently in the game: To conquer an level 10 barbarian town. Barbarians are the NPCs of the evony, and they occupy the empty valleys (which increase resource production) and abandoned player towns. Basically when you abandon a town, it becomes a barbarian town depending on the level of the flat where it originally was built, so I have heard.. Haven't tested it out yet myself tho.

But about lvl 10 barbarian towns.. When max ammount of troops you can send per 1 attack, is 100k and with an item you can increase it by 25% making maximum ammount of troops you can send per time total of 125k and barbarian towns by default have 400k warriors + quite good wall fortifications, it's needless to say that the first attack won't be an easy one. I personally have calculated that 115k archers and 10k ballista should be enought on paper.. Of what I have heard, some people prefer having over 20k ballistas for it but that's not all.

To conquer a city, you have to drop it's loyality down to 0 (and have high enough title to be able to get another town).. But in this case, it's not as easy as it was to take city from player who's offline. Taking a town from an player who's online is even bit harder since there's ways to gain Loyality back unless you manage to attack all of that persons towns and steal all their resources.

But barbarian town regenerates 3 loyality and 10% troops every 6 minutes, and there's limit on how much you can drop it, atleast for player towns.. Don't know about barbarian towns but.. On paper that's quite much regen, since there's the limit on how much troops you can send per time.. So it'll take quite a long time to finish the conquest and also.. There's lot of troop losses, not to mention if the first attack fails too.

However my designed army will contain 50k warriors as minesweepers for first wave before my main army, to take out the opponent traps and "throwable" defences suchs as Defensive Trebuchets and Rolling Logs. Leaving only archer towers left to annoy me. And as the main force, I'll have something over 200k Archers and 10k ballistas, in end I'll just spam it with tons of archers every 1 minute because archers move faster than ballistas, but the first attack will decide my success in any case. Or I'll lose way too much troops in start.



So that's my way of "Beating game" that doesn't have any actual real goal, besides fighting against other players, building cities and rising in rankings. But I can guarantee that even tho Evony does have it's flaws and bad sides too.. It's definetly better than "Travian" for example, which I'm quite sure that Evony aimed for whole time. And it did succeed aswell, just hope that they'll fix the minor flaws in the game, such as horrible CPU usage, but those don't make it unplayable just slightly annoying.

After playing it for over month already, I'd give Evony overall score of 8/10 for being a good game to kill some time with. Also as one of the best sides, you don't have to sit infront of the computer all the time to become better, like most of the browser based games are.

-Del

Programming and me

So as some of you may guess it's about programming this time! I've been interested about programming for a long time. I remember reading a lot of books in my early days without understanding anything bout em but luckily that has changed. *grin*
At given moment I am working on simple 2D engine with new toy from Microsoft called Direct2D. Why? Because I want to learn to use it. I will post entries about my progress and if I think it's clean enough and works well I may actually make it in to tutorial serie or jsut release sourcecode for everyone to check up.
But but I thought this blog was about gaming?! Yes, indeed it is and for me programming, modding, level design and modeling has always been integral part of it. As I (sadly) find most of games today a bit too easy or too shallow, large companies tends to put most effort in to shiny and flashy graphics instead of gameplay and story. But thankfully there is a lot of great indie titles out there that everyone should play and enjoy, yes I am one of them and am planning to drag Del in to same hell... I mean same paradise of happiness *innocent smile*.
I don't think I have anything else this time except that you most likely have to endure my posts from tomorrow till unset length of time if everything goes well, more about that will follow from Del. But anyways...

RetroGen - Over and out

Something little to fill space!

So yeah, as said I've been busy with quite few things last few days and as it seems that Del ain't going to write today I need t ofill this void.
I am now working on graphics that will be used on our blog, but got in to slight dilemma... What colors should I use, shoudl I make something "fast" or more "classical" and "clean". And what comes in to gaming, I am getting my copy of Anno 1404 tomorrow so I am trying to post review of Dragonica asap instead of after first week. Why? Because if old signs stands true I will be too hooked to Anno to quit even for meal.

On other topics, as I mentioned in my first post (or was it second?) we are currently playing browser based game called Evony online. It's city building and warfare game. And today there've been a lot of thigns going on in alliance where I belong, blood has been spilled and generally main topic has been about taking over cities of other players (who most likely have spent some cahs to make em). I am starting to get hang of it and nice resource income lil by lil, but my army? It's utter shit and useless still, though my city defenses starts to work out quite well. I enjoy the city building side of game a bit too much and don't really want to start attack actively quite yet even if I should (need some medals to get 3rd city). But yep once I get my 3rd city up and running, it will be my military and food production facility so all zeh enemies be aware I am going to whoop your bums!

So what's my opinion about Evony thus far? It's well designed and made online strategy game. You start with quite empty city whre you have your open city area and Town hall. You start by building couple cottages and gt your resource fields up. There is 5 different resources in this game: Gold - Gained from selling other resources through market or from taxes, Food - Produced in farms and maybe the most important resource as you need a lot of it to upkeep your huge military forces in future. Wood - Produced in sawmills and is one of base materials for building along with Iron that is produced from (surprise surprise) from Ironmines and last but not least (even if cheapest) Stone from Quarries.
So now you have your resources flowing in, it's time for you to start build some security around your town and build walls for cover. Walls are rather important element when someone is attacking you (are you surprised?)... On the walls you can build few different defensive thingsies like Archer towers and traps. So now we are in faked safety it's time to get researching rolling by bui.ding academy from where you can improve everything you have and will build, like increase production of materials, improve attack and defense of your troops and so on and so forth. And how could we build troops without Barracks? There's no way so let's get military forces up and running and there is a lot of em from workers to archers, from pikemen to trebuches. It can be a bit overwhelming in very beginning questions like what should I do what are best against what, may rise in your mind *grin* and so it did for me. Current fighting engine is a bit broken in my opinion as archers are way too overpowered against most units and there is little tricks that you can use to cover em up so they don't die. And there is a lot more in to this game and I will write more about it later but for now....

RetroGen - Over and out

ps. I would give that game 7 out of 10 at given moment. Make fighting bit more strategic by fixing unit balance and you will get 9/10.

In serie of Del fixing computer:

Ðεℓτα_Δ says:
*Reaches gently over the body with his hand to touch most sensitive parts, watching out from hurting it too much*

Ðεℓτα_Δ says:
*After gently touching the machine, she is purring quietly and reliefed again*

(Actual translated Messenger discussion)

Ok guys, Del is out of his freaking mind again. I would bet that he've drank 2beers thus far today.

RetroGen - Over and out

Wait why that guy with bad grammar don't write?

So yeah why I've been a bit quiet for these couple days. I am busy with writing outline for my review of "1st week in Dragonica" and struggling a bit with CSS style I am going to use in our blog to start with as it does look HORRIBLE at given moment.
Also I am busy with planning few longer article series that are one step forward from gaming, and gaming it self.

RetroGen - Over and out!

Drunken gaming..

Just last night a friend of mine called me and he was totally wasted. Well, I had only drunk one beer that night, so it wasn't the easiest job out there to try and understand him.. But it reminded me of the times when I still used to play World of Warcraft, and every now and then our guild used to do so called "Drunken Raids".

So basically it was just your average friday night raid, but people were allowed to get drunk and then join there to have some random fun.. Well, for sure you won't be breaking any speed records by doing that and you die alot.. So if someone joined us and just wanted some items from the raid, they would soon find theirself being annoyed to death from all the wiping and random singing/discussions with the drunken people. But, even if it was "harder" than normal raiding, we DID have alot of fun doing it.. It's like going to bar with bunch of good people, have some great laughs, listen to some good music and not take life too seriously.

So did you ever get any progression that way?
No, can't say we did.. If you plan on doing drunken gaming with friends, you have to play something that everyone is already familiar with, since your coordination skills and working together skills suck while drunk. So it's like a new difficulty level for easier place, but you can't tell drunken people how they should play.. They just won't listen, so they have to know the tactics etc already from before.

But I personally have found that, just like in sports like darts and so on, which require lot of concentration.. Also in gaming, sometimes you can actually focus bit better after drinking 1 or 2 beer and in one of my latest guilds in WoW.. I actually became quite well known from always drinking couple beers during the raid (Finland does have quite strong drinking culture after all xD), and yeah I did it all for increasing my performance.. Suuuure..

-Del

Hardcore gaming? You mean nolifers?

No. Like RetroGen already stated in the first post, hardcore gaming doesn't mean nolifing.. However nolifing can be a part of hardcore gaming, and mostlikely every hardcore gamer starts nolifing at some point of their gaming career.

What's the difference then?
Nolifing means that you spend all your possible time for gaming, coding, chatting online etc etc.. It doesn't even have to be related to computers neither, you could also read books in nolife style.. Infact, I have done that aswell.

But hardcore gaming then again, is gaming with more dedication than what average casual gamer has. It includes nearly always lot of research and passion for the games you are playing currently, and hardcore gamer always likes to look deeper into the games than casual gamer.

For example, just while ago I started the game called "Evony", and only after playing it for 3 days, I started doing research for it's game mechanics, current highest and lowest resource prices and so on.. Searched for tons of information on forums, asked some details from other players and helped some other. And when RetroGen had properly started playing the game, he already started making schematics and calculators for it, in a very similar way that I did. That's hardcore gaming.

Isn't it bit nerdish?
Yeah, I guess you could call it that.. But to become a hardcore or even a pro gamer, nearly always you have to do it in hardcore way, and see lot more efford for it than just doing like everyone else does. Just having someone to tell you how to play, doesn't make you a good gamer.

It's our lifestyle, and it's our way of enjoying the gaming. :)

-Del

Women..

Worst enemy of the hardcore gaming?

Ever since I felt in love, I have found myself spending less and less time with games, especially if I can't stay in contact with her at the same time.

I remember the same thing happening for RetroGen aswell, not too long ago.. Always when I tried to ask if he would've wanted to play some game with me, almost everytime the reply was: "Sorry, I'm chatting with her now".. And now I find myself in same position.

Does it annoy me, or do I feel bad about it? From the hardcore gamer perspective? No, the answer is absolutely no.. Infact, I do feel happier than I have felt for very long time. Even if the games are my forte and joy, still there's something even more wonderful, and it's women.

Then do you have any solution to the problem?
Actually.. Yes I do. First of all, the girl must like gaming aswell, that's the base of it.. If she doesn't like gaming, then either the relationship or your hardcore gamer days are over.. You can't have them both, unless she likes gaming aswell.

While ago, I had another relationship with a girl who does like computers aswell, but only for chatting purposes.. She didn't like gaming at all and well.. I guess that relationship was doomed from the very start, I did have some good time with her too naturally, but since she disliked the gaming.. I can't say that I felt too happy in that relationship after a while, I did play even then too but.. For some reason, I felt like I was "cheating" behind her back..

But this brings me to another thing.. Gaming with your partner. It's wonderful thing really, if you both do like gaming, there's no better thing than actually playing together.

So I wouldn't really say that women are the worst enemy of gaming, you just have to adapt them together, find the joy from the both but.. If you are hardcore gamer and together with a girl who doesn't like gaming, I don't think that such relationship could ever last for long.

-Del

When you know...

When you knwo that you are truly a gamer, it's when you find your self arguing if Nethack or ADOM is better.

NETHACK FOR LIFE!

RetroGen - over and out

[Edit]

Nethack might be more original, but ADOM is way better when it comes to gameplay. Also, it has lot more things to do so..

ADOM FOR LIFE!

-Del

[Edit]

And Del takes everythign too seriously *grin* Rogue style games are jsut awesome :D

RetroGen - over and out

So who is Delta?

I am 23 years old guy from Turku, Finland (Atleast for now). And just like RetroGen, I have also been a gamer ever since I was born.. Starting with Console systems like Nintendo 8bit, GameBoys and the very early 90'es PCs.. Well, I always loved the DOS and old windows platforms, just as much as I loved the very first consoles. Too bad that you can't turn back time anymore, to the days where game makers focused much more into storylines, playability and overall gaming experience.. Rather than just pure graphics like most games these days are, and I absolutely hate it. Games should be enjoyable and fun, not just pretty graphics.

And before anyone gets any wrong ideas, I'm the guy who's currently being drawn away from the gaming because of a wonderful creature called a Woman. She will be my main priority always, and until we are able to live together, it will effect my gaming related career in bit negative way. But perhaps some day, I'll be able to focus gaming again, while maintaining a healthy relationship at the same time. ;)

Anyways just like RetroGen said, we are both just your average normal finnish guys who share the same passion for gaming, but other than that.. We could be just any random guy walking past you on the streets of Finland.

My whole career of gaming would be impossible to remember right now at this very moment but.. To name some games that I played actively / hardcore way, here's the list of those games.

Console games:
* Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 (NES)
* Lot of Zelda games (NES, GBA, GC)
* Pokémon (GB, GBC, GBA, GC)
(Red, Blue, Yellow, Crystal, Sapphire, FireRed, Colosseum, TCG, Pinball, Snap + if have also tried most of the other Pokémon games too.)
* Donkey Kong Country (SNES)
* Yoshi's Island (SNES)
* Harvest Moon (GBA)
* Final Fantasy VIII (PS)
* Tales of Symphonia (GC)
* Super Smash Brothers Melee and Brawl (GC, Wii)
* Guitar Hero (Wii)

PC games:
* ADOM (not multiplayer)
* StepMania (Local)
* Wings (Lan/Local)
* Liero (Lan/Local)
* Worms (Lan/Local)
* Runescape (93 combat level)
* Half-Life
* Counter Strike (Best achievement on public server, 52 - 3 Kills/Death on 5vs5)
* Diablo II (99 Hammerdin online, 82 Hammerdin single player)
* Unreal Tournament
* Warcraft 3
* World of Warcraft (Top 100 ranked Priest in Europe and top 5 in server at best)
* Fly for Fun (First Hero Blade in Europe/America, second Hero overall - in v10 Beta)
* Ether Saga Online
* Guild Wars
* Maplestory
* S4 League
* Drift City
* Dragonica (Currently playing)
* Evony (Currently playing)

And those are just the games that I played alot in past, I might've forgotten some but.. There's also tons of other games that I have played more or less..

If anything more comes in my mind, that I should add.. I'll edit it here, but for now..
Fare thee well. o/

-Del

So who is RetroGen?

So yeah who am I?..
I am 23years old guy from Riihimäki Finland. I've been gamer since 4 or 5years old (NES!) and been playing on various systems. Surprisingly my carreer interests lies in game development. I am "halfgrown animator" as I quit it for few reasons (that had nothing to do with gaming) and currently I am continuing my studies of programming, math and physics.

Other than being geek I am quite normal guy, and you wouldn't be able to recognize my main hobbies if you were to meet me accidently IRL ;P

Recent gaming history:
MMO:
Ultima online
Neocron
Runescape
AO
Lineage 2
WoW
GW
Warhammer online
Age of (lol)Conan
Ether saga online
Dragonica
Other multiplayer games:
UT-UT3
RTCW
AQ2
D2
Quake - Q3TA
D3
Hellgate London
And too many single player games to name em all, recently DMCs (on XBox360/PC), Populous3, AoE3, DoW, HL2-Ep2, PORTAL and NWN2

Dunno, there isn't that much interesting info bout me available, sorry.
And yeah I am very bad when I need to tell about my self so I let Del mock me a bit here.. *grin*

Later this week I try to write something about our wow carreers (place where we got to know each other) and maybe lil info for "how to survive launch of new MMO alive".

RetroGen over and out.

Wait, what? DR Gaming?

So what exactly is DR Gaming? It’s mine (RetroGen) and my friend Delta’s gaming related productions. Let it be videos, reviews, opinions… and so forth.

Who are we, and why would you be interseted what we have to say? Well we are two friends from Finland who most people would call nolifers. Are we? Not exactly, we are hardcore gamers, and we love gaming but still maintane healthy life style (even if some people wouldn’t agree with that *grin*).

“But if you are hardcore gamers. doesn’t that mean you play 24/7?!?!?!?!?!+1″ - Absolutely not! We do play a lot but it doesn’t mean we don’t have anything else in our lives. One of us has currently girlfriend and other is recovering from failed relationship (if you can call it that, there may be more about that subject in future).

So what are we playing now? – Well we found great new free to play mmo called Dragonic by NCSoft. Unlike other games I’ve played from NCSoft this is a bit more casual style game. It’s side scrolling 3D-MMOARPG, kinda like Mapplestory but with better graphics, moves and overall gameplay. Another game that we’re both currently hooked in to is Evony, realtime medieval city building and warfare game. I havn’t yet come up with real opinion of that game but thus far I’ve enojoyed it. Most likely because of alliance I got into. Bunch of wacky people who are really nice and helpful.

I call it here for now and will post “Who am I” post later.

Over and out -RetroGen