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Join me again as I update you on the adventures of my two Warcraft characters, and not only wrap things up for one but try to for the other.
Give Me Back My Raptor!!
Those of you who read my last player’s diary will know that I reached the point in the Stranglethorn troll quests that I lost the Lashtail Hatchling I’d somehow adopted during my first quest in the area. You’ll also know that I wasn’t very happy about it. I was going to get her back, no matter what… nothing would stop me…
… except something was.
I had no choice but to leave. To train, become strong enough and then come back for her. Hopefully she’ll remember me although I have a feeling that for drama I’ll probably end up having to fight my own raptor… maybe even kill her. That would be sad and I hope to god that won’t happen.
With that put on hold for now I ventured off for my next set of quests, crossing the cliffs over to the Cape of Stranglethorn.
My time was spent doing the usual sort of quests; finding things, killing things to find more things and so on. Then I was told of a ‘sad’ troll hiding behind one of the tents and speaking to her put me once again dealing with local trolls, more of the same group as the ones who had kidnapped my hatchling. After taking her quest and going towards the bat totem she told me to find, I activated the quest and suddenly I was a lot more familiar with the aerial creatures I’d been encountering along the way (and in some cases, shooting down).
This was all in aid of spying on an outcast and seeing one of the same trolls who was holed up in Zul’Gurub there talking to him made me want even harder to go in and complete this questline. After all, it was likely that I’d have to kill some important people that he cared about right? At the very least, it was also in aid of stopping other terrible things they were doing so no one would have an issue with it.
Bringing the news back to the hidden troll, I was tasked with killing the outcast and that suited me just fine. I felt someone needed to pay for the kidnapping, so why not this one who was wanted for some weird revival ritual? I made my way down to the area I’d spied upon him, only to find that he’d already left before I could kill him. And left a portal wide open.
A portal into Zul’Gurub…
I had to go inside anyway to complete the quest and Zul’Gurub was where I wanted to go. Teddired’aka is still in there after all… Of course, inside I found myself restricted to linear paths as part of the questline and that was a shame. However, I did get to beat on the outcast and destroy the body of a powerful but dead troll priest. I’d have gotten two done, if someone hadn’t interfered.
After that I was placed outside the place I wanted to be at. No raptor, only quest completion to show for it. With no more quests to finish in the area I moved on. Along the coast and found myself in the piratey settlement of Booty Bay.
I might be still raptorless, but I will get her back. One day…
Finishing Up Ashenvale
So last week I had discovered that far from having finished all but one quest in Ashenvale before I went into Stonetalon, I’d actually got a few quest markers left on the map. I’d journeyed as far as I could to reveal an untouched corner of the map and helped the Night Elves set up new settlements and take on the Warsong who were logging the nearby area.
The quests took me all over the place, from taking on and defeating smaller parts of the Burning Legion demons who had come through…
… down to the burrow of Dar’danil where mad druid spirits haunted the once sacred halls and one lone sane ghost roamed forever in Cat Form.
After all this, I had one last task to do at the Warsong Lumber Camp, which involved a little Grand Theft Auto of the Warcraft variety… my god, that Shredder was a pain in the neck to aim blades with – especially the enemies who swarmed me and tried to destroy the vehicle when I needed to take it back to the camp to compete my mission!
Once I was done there, I ran along to the other quest markers and found that actually the majority of them were end-of-quest markers. Bar one dungeon run, I was done. It was time for me to head back to Stonetalon and continue the quests over there. I ran down to Mistfallon Post and picked up for next set of quests, as well as another new flight spot.
I feel like I’m gonna have some fun here, now that I don’t have to worry about backtracking anymore.
Game bugs come in many shapes and sizes. You’ve got the funny, the annoying and the frankly absurd. This one falls into the last two, more the second than the third though.
Vanquish’s PC version has been discovered to have a strange bug that involves the framerate you play the game at. If you play at 30fps you take less damage from enemies than if you play it at 60fps. No, really. So if you’ve been wondering why you’ve been struggling while playing the game on your higher-end machine, this gives you a nice excuse to legitimately blame the game for once.
This weirdness was discovered by NeoGAF user .:Wesker:. who tested out this with one of the tutorials, recording his results for all to see and they’re pretty clear cut. An effect that triggers upon hitting low health activate after six or seven seconds of taking damage while playing the game at 30fps, while it takes only a couple for the same effect to kick in during gameplay at 60fps. That certainly seems like something isn’t quite right there. While it’s not been officially recognised yet, the theory is being supported by a decent amount of anecdotal evidence in the thread and other players are reporting the same results when they test it out too.
It’s not the first time though, Valkyria Chronicles also had a similar issue and that was patched eventually, so now the bug has become known and reported we can probably expect Vanquish will get a similar fix soon. Until then, it might be best to wait a little while to play the game if you don’t want to play at a lower framerate.
Or you could see it as an extra challenge and just get really good at the game. If you’re that sort of a gamer.
Time for the weekly look into what’s happening in the world of Kickstarter gaming campaigns.
First as always, an update on previously covered campaigns and we have a fair mix of both good and bad news this week. Starting with the bad, we don’t have any campaigns that have concluded without having met target, but we do have a number of them running out of time with a lot of funding to make up. These are Soul’s Light and INTERSTELLAR ROGUE, both with a decent amount to make up, 4 days and 9 days to do it in respectively. Trouble For Hire is also running out of time, but is a lot closer to goal so could end up reaching its target in the last few days. It has another 7, so we’ll see.
On the other side of the story, a few campaigns have finished a success. These are OtterBash! and Q-YO BLASTER, with another campaign, Forsaken Castle, due to wrap up in less than 2 days having more than doubled its goal. Two other campaigns have reached their targets too, although they still have time to run. These are two from last week, Kynseed and spaceBOUND.
First up we have a game set in the near future, in the midst of a new Ice Age.
You play as Edward Jones, a man sentenced to life for the murder of his wife. The game is a first-person viewpoint game, in which you as Edward need to learn to acclimatize and survive the harsh wintery landscape you have been sent to as part of your punishment. You have been sent as part of the government’s ongoing mission to determine the reasons behind the climate change and the increase in radioactivity in the area.
BLANK has a €5,000 goal of which it has made €800 so far. It has a further 16 days to run.
Abstract Arena is set in an abstract-themed artstyle world, as the name suggests. The game is described as “a top-down action-shooter game” in which there up to six different ‘shape’ ships can fight at once. Each different ‘shape’ has abilities that are unique to it as well as those abilities that they all share. There are many different features listed on the campaign page including 12 different gadget to use, free-for-all and team based matches, LAN play or local split-screen multiplayer and full support for x360-like controllers.
Abstract Arena has made €70.88 of its €300 goal and has 18 more days to run.
Next up, we have a re-launch of a campaign I previously covered just under two months back.
Fake News! is the rebranded Lizard People game, and the concept is much the same. This is a card game for 3-7 people in which you have to use your hand of cards to form the best fake news headline you can and impress the player who is the ‘editor’ at that time. The one that impresses most gets the point and ‘trends’ on social media. The player that reaches 5 trending headlines first wins!
Fake News has 18 more days to run and has made $2,102 of its $15,000 goal.
Lost Cities is a game by Reiner Knizia, and will be coming to Windows, Linux and Mac with a success here. The game is about explorers on expeditions to discover lost cities and other related finds. You place bets on expeditions and how successful they will be. After three rounds of adventuring, the player who has had the most success will win. You will be able to play against the AI or actual players, with gameplay continuing even if your opponent is currently offline.
Lost Cities has a goal of $3,000 of which it has made $339, with a further 16 days to go.
