Cynik - A Mage Montage of Murder - S5 Mage PVP Posted on 19 Jul 2010 by
Cynik - View Comments
When WoTLK came out for wow, I was rearing to go on my mage in pvp, arenas etc. S5 was taking an age to start so in an effort to pass my time I'd go around hunting down anybody I could find and simply put, e-murder them. Which is where the name of the movie I guess came from.
This movie is a trailer for the full thing which I planned to do later dependent on the success of this trailer, instead I just ended up showing it to friends and never got around to making the full thing.
Though here it is, Pre-season 5 shittiness on Neptulon I think it was at the time?
here's the mage: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Dentarg&cn=Cynikk
I don't know about some of you but I'm sure as hell not giving 'Crack-Entertainment' or 'Robert Kotick' (Activision) any more of my money. Starcraft 2, will undoubtedly kick ass, it will be, a great fucking game. Though why did they have to divide a single game, into 3-4 separate games with undoubtedly DLC's and pay-to-play features to come.
As if I'm going to pay 3 times the normal amount for a game when I've splashed out an untold amount of money over the 5 odd years I've been playing WOW (WOW clean now for the last 7 months, going strong, PRAISE-JESUS!).
There is a movement starting on the internet for those who truly care about the quality of games produced by Blizzard and all those unfortunate game-companies enslaved by the Activision money-machine.
It's simply, stay, the, fuck, away from all Activision games and anything to do with that slimy bastard Robert Kotick. To put in perspective what kind of idiot is in charge of Activision and Blizzard basically, listen to some of his more well known quotes;
"I think we definitely have been able to instill the culture, the skepticism and pessimism and fear that you should have in an economy like we are in today. And so, while generally people talk about the recession, we are pretty good at keeping people focused on the deep depression."
You didn't do shit, infact you've hindered a lot of the quality of these gaming studios with your 'money, money, money' attitude. All you've done is gone along eating up all the big gaming studios and claimed their success as your own strategic genius. Dickhead.
"You have studio heads who five years ago didn't know the difference between a balance sheet and a bed sheet who are now arguing allocations in our CFO's office pretty regularly,"
Thank you ya nob-end, a very fucking noble achievement.
"We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."
Robert Kotick in a nutshell really.
Stop funding this idiots ambitions if you want gaming to go in this direction, by all means, fund the destruction of your past-time. Though if you like games, stay the fuck away from these gaming studios that are under the shackles of Activision. It's the only way to help them, let them die (or until they escape to freedom).
Well It's been almost a month now that I've been a scrub in EVE online playing M.CA (MCorp Academy) a part of the Daisho Syndicate. Already taken part in some pretty large fleet/capital battles involving fully planned out operations of 300 odd people on either side. Had training and lessons given out to take on advanced combat aswell as late evening roams. It's been a blast so far but I'm still pretty useless though we've got a skill plan that should be hopefully change that soon and make everyone in MCA somewhat useful.
Aside from that, me and my brother have been bouncing off idea's off each other for LP's (Let's plays) of games, to record them and put them online. We started playing Baldur's Gate 1 and it was all video worthy and hilarious (my brother killed a halfling and stole his belt which turned him into a woman and we couldn't afford to remove the curse for a chapter or two).
Also he's probably the worst fucking character in our group. He's meant to be this bad ass necromancer but he screwed up his stats on creation and he has like 7 constitution which means he usually dies in one AOE hit. His spells in combat are also generally useless and he tends to relie on meleeing stuff with a staff or throwing daggers....
I chose a fighter which is the tank in the group, goes up front, draws the attention and actually does a fair amount of damage. For a first play through I was quite lucky with stat choice and got it quite it right apparently.
It's a really slow game to get into and once you begin choosing your party members, getting used to the game, get to about level 2 things become really fun and you start taking on larger quests. It's a beautiful game and a gaming experience to be enjoyed by everyone who really cares about games or RPGs.
We were thinking of recording odd chapters or scenes of us playing and bitching between each other on whether to take a certain route of death and recklessness or to go the diplomatic route which almost certainly lead to plot development.
Though yeah any LP's made would be uploaded up on here first and maybe on a youtube channel too. If you have any suggestions email them to me (contact page) or put it in the comments.
I've got a small gap between exams and decided I'd use it to refine the layout to something more fitting of my vision for the website. Something a bit more streamline as compared to the 'wide and proud' one we have now.
Made a new logo to begin with and I think this is the one I'll be settling on now as the permanent logo for Cynik. It may look a little 'Doctor Who' at the moment but it will come together when the new layout is finished which I'll start and finish tonight as the idea is still fresh in my head.
Anyways aside from that I'll be working on a new EVE-Online article. A game that I've played on and off sporadically barley getting past the tutorials before getting bored. Though that's all changing with the upcoming changes bound to arrive by the end of 2010, beginning of 2011.
Some very exciting stuff which actually prompted me to finally go watch Cowboy Bebop the movie which I've been delaying to watch for a long time. The whole universe and premise of the anime is amazing. The ability to live on the fringe of society as a space dog, wandering around care-free enjoying life in a hostile environment. Those were my immediate thoughts for the possibilities that EVE-Online could have in the next few years.
That article with the new layout should be coming tonight, until next time, space cowboy...
I sat down the other day reminiscing with my brother about the good ol' days when we both shared a single computer from about the age of 8 to 13-14. In the days were games such as; Age of Empires I & II, Diablo 2 & LOD, C&C 1 & 2 & RA, Counter-Strike and Project-Entropia dominated our gaming childhood.
How many countless hours did we spend on those merciless time-stealing games? Though when I thought back to it, I remember how it all started.
Me and my brother young kids, 7 and 9 walk into a gamestore and ask the staff if they could recommend a game for us as we didn't have a clue as to what we were doing.
So the staff take us on this fartical adventure through the shelves and we land on RPG's and they take out an evil black gaming box entitled "Diablo 2 made by Crack-Entertainment".
I remember asking him are you sure? It says 16+ on the box and he said "don't worry your mum can pay for it if she's happy with you buying it".
Now thinking back on that, they literally were peddling crack to kids helping them bypass all age restriction and all other non-addictive time consuming games availible.
Needless to say the next few years would be crossed off as the Diablo 2/LOD years and though we spent a lot of time on those games it was a lot of fun and we learnt to share. Though unlike my brother I did play a lot of club sports at the time for local clubs (cricket etc) and for other sports teams for my school (Tennis, Football, Basketball etc).
Though I imagine when the effects of all the people who wasted their life from beginning to end with World of Warcraft are felt you'll find being able to legally give crack to minors via addictive games might change in later years.
Especially in places like China, America and Australia I suspect the most anally retentive entertainment review boards live in those countries.
ANYWAYS, in terms of exams, I've got till the 28/06/2010 till I'm free again where as in the meantime I'm running around trying to organise university places and study as-well which when it's all over will be a huge relief.
Well back to pouring over my Business Studies book AND THEN AFTER THAT I'LL READ IT ;D;D:D HAHAH rorflmaromlmao.
Perhaps one of my most enjoyed and fondest memories of early gaming on the PC involved getting your mum when you were 7-8 to buy you a PC magazine ONLY to get the free game demo's that came on it.
It's how I found out about Age of Empires, Command and Conquer and Warhammer: Dark Omen to name a few.
I'll be honest I never actually did play the full game when I was younger, I just kept playing the demo over and over again but it was just so much fun and so enthralling/entertaining you just had to try the demo battle again.
Whether it was the unique birds-eye view of a Warhammer battlefield or the extremely entertaining cut scenes and voice acting I don't know but I played this before I had played Shogun Total War.
Now this is something that begun my deep respect for the whole Warhammer and Warhammer 40k world, for it's rich and entertaining lore (fluff). The pictures painted by the writers were so polemic in execution you would get really pumped to outlet that enjoyment of it somewhere.
Now back then I couldn't really afford to go out and start collecting an army straight away due to the financial restrictions of an 8 year old but, as if mercifully came this game.
I recently managed to get it again a few days ago and with some minor hiccups got it up and running. Straight away the intro's and the entire premise for the campaign you set off on are amazing for its time. You are a veteran officer of the empire who's had enough of serving lords and emperors out of honor/duty alone.
Hiring himself out for coin the mercenary captain finds himself against a warband of goblins in the first part of the game and it introduces you nicley to the mechanics of the game. Also, on a side-note, THE CANNON IS FRIKKEN AWESOME!
As the game progresses you become aware of the empire being under immense strain on all sides from many enemies and on top of which an invasion of the dead lead by dark sorcerers are heading from the South into the empire. Naturally, the emperor summons you to deal with it and you begin acquiring some very fun and interesting characters which is the premise for the earlier part of the campaign as you first encounter the undead hordes.
I don't want to spoil it for anyone reading so I'll just end it with; It's a fantastic piece of nostalgia, still holds up today and is very entertaining, the dialogue and fluff is great to listen to and in itself worth playing through the game.
It's definitely worth your time if you're into Warhammer or Warhammer 40k and the age of 22 I'm having a blast going through it again (even though my first play through was being a demo-whore on the same level).
Yesterday, the UK on a record turnout voted on the next government. As the exit polls came in people initially dismissed them but found later, much to their shock they were far accurate than previously critisced. Labour was indeed removed from power but the Tories didn’t really manage to get any momentum and capitalise as the Lib Dems support was diluted in a huge turnout (generally beneficial for the old parties).
As a result, we’re left with a Hung Parliament. Myself being a Lib Dem supporter, perhaps one of the better scenarios came to fruition today despite loosing 5 seats I think we did quite well out of it. For example the vote from the 2005 elections in an overall percentage had gone up despite a massive turnout. Which means maintaining and building on last years voting percentage they got this year FAR more votes, therefore in my eyes I’m quite happy with the result.
Mentioned already by many mainstream political pundits that the Lib Dems may have lost some seats from the last general election, they gained a considerable amount of power. Some are even arguing if the Lib/Con partnership goes ahead that a few Lib Dem MP’s will find their way into the PM’s cabinet such as Vince Cable to help steer Britain out of this HUGE deficit.
Regardless, the Lib Dems now, thankfully have some say in Parliament as to what policies are made in the country and I hope Clegg pushes the one that will open the door for real Liberal changes and that’s election reform. It’s all very interesting I personally stayed up till half 4 to watch it all but I guess all we can do now is hope that the Lib Dems get their main priority (election reform) and the Conservatives get theirs. Otherwise a rag tag alliance of Lib/Lab + Irish/Welsh/Green support is going to be a heavy and embarrassing PR mess for all involved especially with Gordon Brown at the head.
The title of course as always of any article ‘attempting’ to strike the reader with a sense bewilderment at the bravery of the writer to give it such a title. Unfortunately people from ‘Beasts of War’ (BOW) may disagree with the notion that they are on a warpath for dominance in the field of miniature commentary/reviewing though truth be told, they blow away their competition with masterful ease.
The sheer quality of the product that they output on a daily basis is very impressive; it is in my mind head and shoulders above anything that comes close enough to them to be called competition. Well, what is BOW? It is a group of people who have setup what seems to be a miniatures review show e.g. DnD, Games-Workshop, Flames of War etc. It is quite fair in coverage and attempts a unbiased view of all ranges with regular debates on rules, units, fluff (lore) of each range.
With Fantastic commentary from people such as Warren, John and Darrel and the BOW team each episode of either ‘Unboxing’, ‘Rules Discussion’ or ‘On The Table’ is thoroughly entertaining and worth the time given by the team in creating each video.
BOW has their own website though it has been under development for what seems to be to the fans at least an eternity. Boasting so far an impressive looking first page they have released an Iphone app to accompany the 3rd edition of ‘Space-Hulk’ from Games-Workshop which is from videos seen on Youtube helpful to the whole ‘Space-Hulk’ experience (e.g. Miniwargaming’s review of Space-Hulk).
Though the core of attention from the team has now been switched to the website they have had a fairly long love affair with Youtube in which they have uploaded a monstrous amount of videos of very high quality covering the range of miniatures mentioned previously.
Being a large fan of the ‘BOW experience’ I personally cannot wait for the team to finally launch their website hopefully in the coming weeks and begin developing what seems to be, one of the greatest miniature community on the internet.
Best of luck BOW and here’s hoping for a fruitful future.
I remember many, MANY moons ago I was once deeply involved in Games Workshop. Though as time went on and with the event of my mum chucking out my old miniatures I pretty much just forget about it.
Though I do remember one thing which I promised myself one day I'd do which I always wanted to do....
..To make a terrain table to play it on, even though I don't have any miniatures left, I'm going to make a table!
I've already checked out a local builders shop and found some 18mm thick plywood boards perfect for the task only thing is it's more cost-effective to buy the whole thing so I'm going to have it cut in two and make two huge gaming boards.
Just deciding what theme to make the two.
The Dominance of Blizzard Entertainment Posted on 14 Mar 2010 by
Cynik - View Comments
Blizzard has been for roughly 13 years the standard of quality for PC gaming even though calling it the standard on hindsight is slightly absurd to say that as not many game companies spend an equivalent amount of time, devotion as blizzard.
Some come close, such as Valve though other than that, I can't really think of a company that comes even close to the quality of Blizzard.
After having read and viewed many interviews the recipe for success seems to be long term thinking/investment. You'll find many companies today, churning out sequels every 1-2 years and releasing almost baked products though just never fully polished.
You'd think with Blizzard showing the way of how it should be done, more companies would try to imitate this instead of stealing their UI, game designs and trying to imitate their success by trying to replicate their games. I would hope that in years to come people look at Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, the Unannounced MMO and see that if you invest time into a game you will get a superlative game that no other company who spends 2 years on a game will ever be able to compete with. I mean they don’t need to wait for those games to come out to see, they simply need to look at their past achievements.
If I was ever in charge of a large budget for a gaming company, I would take that threshold, set by Blizzard and run with it though of course you have to be a programmer of some sort to become a games designer which is I think part of the problem. Not all programmers are good game designers just because they can code which is probably why we see such an immense level of fail in a lot of games coming out today.
Bottom line is, Blizzard is the standard for quality and it would be my hope that these game companies look and try to replicate Blizzard’s method of developing games otherwise they will continue to be unchallenged and dominate the quality aspect of the gaming market. Like I said Valve are the only ones that come close and I respect them greatly but 2 companies out of how many that adapt a quality over ‘short-term profits’ threshold is not good at all.
The more companies that adopt this method, the more successful they will become and in turn the more money they will make realistically. As a bonus we all get to play more quality games and not have to wait every 5 years for Blizzard to release a quality game.
Some new changes for Cynik.co.uk coming soon Posted on 13 Mar 2010 by
Cynik - View Comments
I think for a while I internally debated what my own personal website should be and making it an Entropia-Universe blog filled that gap in direction for a while.
However recently I've been toying with the idea of making the website more of a general entertainment blog where I post mainly about music, games and movies (my take on them).
I am at the moment writing down ideas for the above mentioned project and hopefully something of that nature should materialise on this website this weekend.
Hey just been quite busy irl recently had very little time to play EU. Got an electric guitar, learning to use it, studying for my exams coming in a couple months and leaving my job to get more time to study.
Though don't fret when things get a little bit more settled hopefully i'll get back to the grind of firing lasers repetitively into a mob for 2 hours a session :P
Watched Avatar 3D incidently. It was a very mixed experience - for me the whole experience hurt my eyes for whatever reason and wearing the dolby glasses were uncomfortable as well as making the entire picture darker by a considerable amount.
There were some interesting scenes when they were moving through the jungle and the starting scene where they were coming out the pods - it actually felt as if you we were looking into a long room that was suddenly in the cinema was cool.
Though other than that, I wouldn't recommend 3D as a cinema experience, I would have to be honest though I would have enjoyed it more as a non-3D flick despite the fact Avatar was pretty cool and a typical Cameron film (brilliant).
Though was it me or did ALL the animals in avatar look like Pokemon?
- Cynik
Website Overhaul - New Planets - Itemisation - Eco Skilling Posted on 08 Feb 2010 by
Cynik - View Comments
As can be seen the website has undergone a major transformation from a physically crippled and borderline offensive looking website to something presentable. It's a start atleast and the work will be ongoing till hopefully it fits in line for what I have planned for the future of this blog.
Anyways MA has announced that something huge will be coming in mid February regarding the new planets. If it is a launch date for one of if not all of the new planets then that would be awesome.
I've already spoke to many different people about the new planets in connection with the item situation on Calypso. FPC/MA have over the last few years been phasing out items such as clothes, weapons, armours, tools and even PED itself. Instead we were given the massive and most would agree unneeded influx of animal oil.
Now it being 4 years since I last played I find this a huge drawback to the now Entropia Universe. I found the gold PED icons in my loot window to be a simple sight of joy which you really just don't get seeing loot windows today. Having plenty of items appear in a loot window was also a great sight to behold if you were lucky enough to play in the early days.
If I had it my way I would have reversed that situation completely and whilst were on the subject of Items I feel it my duty to outline where I feel FPC/MA are heading in the wrong direction.
When you make the top level of gear so unreachable for people coming into the game today and tomorrow, you destroy those hopes, aspirations and ability to ever get there. What chance do people today really have of ever getting to that level of gear (Mod FAP, Imp MK2, Full Shadow etc)? Unless they hit it big in mining for an ore worth loads they won’t be able to afford hardly any of it and that has nothing to do with playing the game well.
This is where the current model for the game falls down because there was a time if you had a brain and knowledge for being good with your money you would be able to make a profit in this virtual universe. As it stands now, if you don’t have these ultra-economical weapons you stand very little chance of making a profit in hunting at all on average.
My solution would be to tackle the hugely inflated prices by actually allowing these items to drop again though off different creatures. Also it’s fairly obvious all the ATH’s and ‘Uber items’ are manually inserted into the game when it pleases MA/FPC or when an old account is deleted then the items recycled back in the loot pool do we see these items drop. I would suggest either every month or every 2 that one of each of these items drop or have the chance of dropping.
It would certainly help tackle the huge inflation of prices and give more people who are the top level access to these items that they simply cannot afford due to absurd prices. It would also give hope to those lower down that there is actually a point in playing smart, working hard to be the best.
I highly doubt FPC/MA would take this route and is also why I hope that the new planet partners either decide to drop equally economical or even better items from there planets creatures which go ahead and greatly balance these items back to their old prices in 2005 where you could buy a Mod Merc for 22k (nowadays they go for 190-250k)…Though some suggest the prices are dropping due to a lack of interest in the game and demand to buy these items. Even so there are ridiculously high and will stay so till more are dropped or unless every fed up vet leaves the game in a hurry waiting to get rid of their uber items in rush. Though 20k In my mind up to 25k is a reasonable price for these uber items anything beyond 30k is absurd.
Anyways on a more positive note, I’m getting ready for the new planets, re-organising my armours, weapons, attachments so that I can skill up economically on lower end mobs to have atleast 2k PED to throw at the new planets and acquire some of the new items that they have. So I want in the meantime to be able to put myself in a strong position before then. So by then me, my brother and cousin would be able to form a working 3 man hunting party aiming to get these items or to generally try out these new worlds and see what they have to offer. As I’m speaking I’m still working on a new eco setup for myself to able to make the 3-4k PED last until the new planets arrive. Hopefully they won’t be a big failure!
Whether loot is really dynamic or not I don't know but this sure does help a bit, it could be that they look at how much you deposit and give you a taste of the big time to keep you depositing.
Regardless on my 6th Troxxie, (I aggro'd 3, first 2 were no looters) I get this suprise. The first Trox I killed actually dropped 30 PED of loot, the 2nd 8 and the 3rd 6 which I then went to go change my weapon. Which was a good move.
So today after some good news from my examining board I decided to chip in today. Went on a skill binge and bought loads of skills as well changing my proffesion from rifle to handgun. I now have 3k+ in Handgun and i'm a level 16 laser pistoleer (hit).
Bought a little bit of everything really to raise my levels and ofc I bought a P5a(L). Gonna be a good weekend of hunting hopefully :)
Been playing with my cousin in Entropia "Lord Zaib Ali" and my brother for quite a few days now which has slowed down my skilling but we've done a lot of TP runs n had a laugh.
Hopefully we can all develop together in the game who knows in a month or two be hunting Troxxies :)
On the other side of things got myself my own set of 5b plates for my armor which was pretty expensive but worth it IMO, got it for tt+17.50 each which i'm hoping was a good price.
Got my Breer M1a(L)(x2) from Raven this morning which should help with my skill progression. Though i'll probably wait till i'm maxed out on my opalo's HA/CA, i'm on 9/10 for both at the moment.
Also I finally got my account on http://jdegre.net/pe/unlocker.php which is a great website that has some amazing tools for anybody that plays the game. The account costs about $5 which is well worth the work put in by the author (who I met this morning, lovely guy) and I would recommend to anybody serious about playing this game.
BAM
Entropia Update + Inglorious Bastards Posted on 01 Feb 2010 by
Cynik - View Comments
In terms of Entropia I've made massive strides and improvement in terms of skills. got nearlly 700 in rifle, 90 HP, 24 agility etc. It's all going good there, got a full set of Gremlin to hunt with the SOC too, infact we went on a soc funded hunt into Proteron country n made a tidy 600 PED proffit for the soc :P
Also just watched Tarintinos Inglorious Bastards and I can honestly say I was completely underwhelmed. Felt the movie dragged on for far too long, I never really got attached to any of the characters in the film and if I almost got attached to any of them at any point they would usually die soon after.
I felt this movie was really confused, trying too much, trying too hard and overall leaving me with a feeling of emptiness and dissapointment.
However there were many great scenes, for example, the bar scene in the basement was amazing, the scene were the SS officer was interrogating the 3 American officers on their Italian was brilliant simply because of Brad Pitts lack of care to get the accent right.
Overall Christopher Waltz did an amazing job and was the only thing I could carry away from the film as worthwhile. Everything else was as mentioned above and any sudden plot changes or eventful moments could be seen a mile off 90% of the time.
From the first encounter with Christopher Waltz character at the French country house, playing the nice guy you just knew it was going to build up to some random violence.
I probably judged it way too hard and in hindsight I may lighten up about the film later on though one thing I won't do is watch the film again. It's a sad day when you're eager to want a Tarintino film to end :(
With my application still pending to DK-S and no real remote whisper system in EU i'm having to generally solo the game. I meet the odd old face, catch up, get some tips though that's really slow as compared to when or if I get to rejoin DK-S.
I've been in game for about almost a 4-5 days now. Been sweating, TP running, hunting, team hunting and sight-seeing generally. Made a lot of new friends and seen some monstrously strong mobs courtesy of Marmac (DK - Who also let me borrow his A101 <3).
I did however last night on a Auction Binge buy some clothes with my limited funding being fed up with the noob clothes I was provided on creation. To which I'll probably have to sell some of the more expensive items back.
Though at the moment I've got my TT Vivo FAP, Opalo + a101 and 100+ PED to burn and skill off.
The only question remains, is where to go. I've always loved skilling off combibo's and profited greatly from them with MU items such as Empty Skill Implants dropping going for MU+200-800 back in the day. So that could be something to consider.
I've already got 11 agility and will be pushing for 20 this week and 25 the week after.
Got my rifle to 177 to which I'm quite pleased with hopefully I'll be able to get it near 400-500 by the end of this week.
Though yeah I'm getting there just gotta figure out a way to skill up a considerable amount and profit like back in the old days and were all gravy I think ^^
p.s. I love Iron Maiden (even though that's a pre-requites of being human!)
Where the
men are men and the sheep are nervous. We gang rape frogs in
accordance to holy scriptures written thousands of minutes ago
to our most holy of Gods.
Which Gods you may ask? Why of-course the ancient Gods of
anal fisting and exotic spices.
To these deities is Cynik dedicated to and hopefully with that
devotion we are given divine strength to produce strong and
meaningful content.
