Gold League... Ouch

My self-esteem took a serious blow after losing my 4th game in a row. In the gold league the players are better and they follow strategies they have been polishing for a while. Instead of sulking, I'm gonna continue to play as random and hopefully play lots of games with lots of setups and strategies. The only way to improve is to learn from mistakes, and with all of mine I should soon be in the top!

SC2 Beta Cont. #1 in Silver League!

For those of you who haven't played the SC2 beta much, being nr 1 in the Silver League might sound like a great achievement, and I admit that I do not have a great understanding of it yet. However, reaching nr 1 in this league was my initial goal, and I am not sure at all what is next. I jump into gold league?

Most of my games were won by establishing a decent defense, and then sneakily going for air units that the enemy can't counter - annihialating his workers. At this point in time, most people will be annoyed and will send an untimely attack - forcing them to surrender with no real means of getting back in a good position.
Sure, this can backfire alot... Especially against very agressive players that either outnumber you early - mid game or players that are able to scout and counter you.

One thing that annoys me slightly is that there's a bar when you and your opponent are loading that shows who is favoured (based on your stats / total games probably). So let's say I play this game and Blizzard tells me that the other player is 'favoured' or 'slightly favoured'. What does that mean? Well it means that if I beat him I will get more points, and if I lose the game I will lose less points. It is SO useless for me to know this before the game. Would I give up faster if I saw he was favoured? Dunno, maybe if I think about it.

Starcraft 2 Beta, some experiences

Well finally I got a beta key, or rather a beta account from a friend. It's been ages since I first started playing SC1. Everyone where I lived used to play it, and even if they didn't - they would still do some games with the rest of us.

So, ages passed where I didn't play more than once a year at max, and I never got really good at SC1. It's all about trying and failing - and I am definitely not one who likes to fail. I am a really bad loser, so I started working on that in SC2. I'm a beginner, so I should be allowed to fail. In addition to a new attitude, the game will remove all history on me (and my fakenick) so I can go all in.

When I first started a game, I noticed how smooth everything was. It was like going from 10 to 60 FPS in Counter-Strike. Auto mining rules, no longer does the spread of workers make or break the start. The new units in the game open up for more strategies, as some do more damage to armoured, light, flying etc.

The ladder is currenty bugged, so I am doing 'placement matches' against people with different skill levels. Since most people aren't 'seasoned' yet, we all do many flawed builds, some more idiotic than others.

I'm definitely getting this game. It is really fun to play, and seems extremely balanced. All the expert builds have weaknesses that we need to exploit.

That's enough for now!

Alpha Protocol!?

Just saw some screenies from this soon-to-launch game. It looks promising. Might actually try it!

Sigh... summer time and exams.

It's definitely noticeable that people are starting to take some more time off raiding. This is the third raid in a row we would have to cancel, but the socials and friends in the guild came and helped us. We wanted to do heroic tries on Sindragosa and Putricide, to get LK HC some tries - but alas. We did them all normal. I did get my trinket from Sindragosa though, which is brilliant enough.

Oh yeah BRB gotta take an exam.

Pesky Tower Defences...

So here I am again, back to playing Warcraft 3 Tower Defence games...
They are so addictive. It's the same stuff over again, building towers to stop those creeps from reaching the end - but still damned addictive.

BRB, playing TD.

Part 1: World of Warcraft

WoW is a game that I have been playing since it was released. I've taken some breaks, mainly in TBC but I am now back to full-time gaming again. I've played a mage since beta, and I still find it the most interesting and enjoyable class to play in PvE. PvP? Well I stink so I don't think PvP is very fun. At all.

My guild and I are currently at Lich King Heroic 25 in ICC. As so many other guilds around. Sindragosa and Putricide each still require a load of tries, though, so we will need to get those two on farm before we can utilize all our tries on the mighty Lich King that we so desperately want to kill and loot.

Until you can get to The Lich King, there are some obstacles in the way. If' your guild just started heroics, you will have a fun time taking down Marrowgar and Gunship, those are easy mode. The next boss you would want to try is Rotface 25 HC which is not that much harder than in normal, the ranged classes just have to be a bit more awake. After Rotface you should test your skills at Deathbringer Saurfang 25 HC.

Deathbringer Saurfang 25 HC:

I am going to say that this is a healing-intense fight, but in the end you will realize that the DPS needs to be pulling their best effort to get through the fight. If you lack DPS on the adds, they will start dying one by one. If your dps is not good enough after the enrage, your healers will go oom while spam-healing the marks. If you're a mage, make sure that you are not supposed to be the one taking aggro on your add before you use Mirror Image - or they will instantly pick your partner. DBS also gives a debuff that starts ticking for damage, try to iceblock it instantly to reduce the blood power that Saurfang gets from it. This fight is easy mode for the DPS as long as you can pick the right targets and kill them quickly enough. The healers MIGHT need a bigger adjustment period to get used to how the healing in this fight works.

Stay tuned for more.

DeRn's Gaming Blog is Live!

I've been thinking about this for some time, and I figured it was about time to start a blog in which I share my gaming experiences in new and old games. Being a gamer, I play extremely much. I play many games, some for hours over periods of time and some I play just to finish.

I realize that this is the first topic and that nobody at all might read it, but I talk to myself at times so why shouldn't I write to myself?