Cataclysm & First Person Mario

Besides the occasional one hour gaming session on Steam I have not been playing any video games at all due to the fact that I am just swamped in real life with various obligations. I do have a boxed copy of WoW: Cataclysm still sitting on my shelf unopened and I do intend activating at some point to check out the new landscape after the earthquake that forever changed Azeroth. Another few motivators in resubscribing to WoW for one month is that I need to sample the Shadowmeld sound effect for something and I am also now using the mobile authenticator using my wife's iPod Touch, so it will be cool to have my new corehound pup on all of my characters.  One day when I get a chance I will get back into the game to at least check out the landscape but certainly not for a few months.

Join me on Steam:
 Secret Cloud Steam Account

By the way, check out this awesomeness:

PvP videos Old & New

I have been a fan of PvP for many years now & have created many videos outlining my trials & tribulations engaging in combat with other people across the world. To me it has become a new-age version of multiplayer chess where a collection of minds compete using the tool sets provided to them. Sure some would say that a chess game is completely fair from the start where each player has the exact artillery to offend & defend with versus as an MMO which would have advantages & disadvantages due to gear & class imbalances. I loosely defend my comparison by saying that on the launch day of any MMO everybody starts out of the gate with choices that can either cripple or advance them to success. To put it in perspective, if you joined a chess match halfway through the game I can assure you that a fair portion of your army would be defeated & that it would be your responsibility to outsmart your opponent against all odds. Also, a majority of your opponents are not constantly progressing either. Picture a million chess tables where players are constantly joining late or getting up & leaving the table while their opponents continue playing. So although PvP is typically an imbalanced game I offer that each player has the opportunity to compete if they are willing to figure out how & why others are successful. Though I can enjoy PvE experiences quite a bit I tend to spend most of my time in the MMO world participating in PvP due to the unpredictable nature of playing against real human beings & I thought I would drop off all of my past videos here. Though I have been involved with the PvP systems in many MMO games I have created most of my videos during my experiences in World of Warcraft as their PvP system has always provided countless hours of fun. I did however create one Warhammer Online video which you can see below. You can find the full collection of my gaming videos at my youtube channel: www.youtube.com/playerversusplayer

Be sure to watch in HD either from this page or as larger HD videos directly from the youtube channel. For this blog entry I will start with my newest video & progress down to my older videos:

"Knight of the Living Dead" lvl 70-79 World of Warcraft Battlegrounds (Wotlk)
featuring Nightkeeper - Blood Spec Death Knight


"Feral Shifter" lvl 30-39 World of Warcraft Battlegrounds (Wotlk)
featuring Anxient - Feral Spec Cat Druid


"Master Assassin" Tier 2 Warhammer Online Scenarios & World PvP
featuring Acid - Skirmish Spec Shadow Warrior


"Deadly Vending Machine" lvl 70 World of Warcraft Battlegrounds (Burning Crusade)
featuring Hologram - Arcane/Fire Spec Mage


"Soul of Fire" lvl 30-39 World of Warcraft Battlegrounds (Burning Crusade)
featuring Hologram - Fire Spec Mage

World of Warcraft Battleground Bots

World of Warcraft Battleground Bots - How to identify bots & how they affect stealth classes:

direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU6ntX7Dar4

We created this video to outline the current state of World of Warcraft Battlegrounds. Bots have bypassed the Warden system in place by WoW and are running rampant. It seems that people don't seem to understand just how complex bots have become so in this video I give some key identifiers to help you know the difference between a bot and a real player. I also outline how some of the bots that auto-follow teammates can severely affect the gameplay of stealth classes. I hope this video convinces the community to understand just how bad the problem is right now & urges the developers at Blizzard to take this issue seriously. Personally I don't enjoy investing time in developing characters while being passed in levels by botting software. On top of that, half of my battlegrounds don't feel like an MMO experience anymore. They are more like a mix of humans versus bots. If I want PvE in Warcraft there are far more challenging experiences available compared to these repetitious, predictable BG bots. I play the Battlegrounds for PvP and this is not what the current state of World of Warcraft is offering in Battlegrounds.

Feel free to read the thread that I had started on the official forums:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24702152833&sid=1
(23 pages of discussion - 443 posts)

Unfortunately after 23 pages of discussion from a concerned community Blizzard decided to lock the thread with no comment or explanation. In my opinion this was a sad day in the gaming world because this somewhat proves to the community that they would rather sweep the evidence under the carpet instead of face the problem directly. The conversation was positive & held many creative suggestions to assist Blizzard in the fight but instead of addressing the 23 page (443 posts) thread they locked it with no explanation. This leaves me under the impression that Blizzard is no longer concerned with the fight for gaming integrity because after everything is said and done these botters are paying a subscription fee. So it is either a financial decision to allow these gaming practices or they simply just don't know how to battle the problem anymore.

In these modern times these botting/exploiting issues are a very common problem in the MMO gaming world & I am really praying that a company steps up to the plate and truly battles these issues vigorously & relentlessly. The lackluster approach to this issue by major gaming companies is making the trend more and more common. With no repercussions in sight I am noticing that the "if you can't beat them, join them" mentality in regards to botting & exploiting is spreading at an uncontrollable rate.