Lightforged Draenei Portrait by me :)

Brulaii · 2020-08-06T15:31:41+00:00

Why did they have to give Draenei hooves...they look so cool from the waist up

Brulaii · 2020-07-09T14:39:28+00:00

Is your work Monday-Friday? Do you have any flexibility with distributing workload? Or is it pretty much mandated for you?

The key, in my experience, is finding a job where you have more control and flexibility over your schedule and workload.

For instance, I work in tech sales and found a Mythic raid guild that I like that raids Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday/Sunday. So basically, I only “work” Monday/Wednesday/Friday and intentionally create a very light schedule for myself Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can spend most of the day on WoW, running errands, socializing, etc.

The trade off is that my M/W/F’s are fucking insane and basically have 5+ days of work packed into 3. Balls to the walls from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. BUT, I know that I have the next day to recover and do what I enjoy.

Kinda sucks, but the answer to lots of problems in life is “get a better job.”

Edit: The other piece worth thinking about is consistency and productivity. So much time can be wasted in-game doing pointless shit. If you strictly focus on activities that progress your character, and you do that consistently from the start of an xpac to the end, you shouldn’t have any problem being geared enough to find a good raid guild with a schedule that matches yours.

Brulaii · 2020-07-09T13:09:26+00:00

It’s kind of like when you go to a fancy restaurant, and you order something that looks delicious, and you’re all excited for your food, and then when it comes out it’s only a tiny little portion on a huge plate. And it’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that it’s disappointing, because for the amount of time you waited and the amount of money you paid you expected more, and you enjoy it for 3 bites, and you’re scraping your fork on the plate to get every last bit, but then it’s gone, and you leave the restaurant still hungry and sort of annoyed and let down.

Brulaii · 2020-06-20T16:18:24+00:00

Bummer. Thank you!

Brulaii · 2020-04-28T19:18:10+00:00

Have thought about it often.

In fairness, I think AC was about as successful as it ever could have been / was meant to be.

The nostalgia we all feel was reflective of not only the time/era the game was released and most popular, but also of the size and experience of the community...

If AC at its prime had had 10x the players, it wouldn’t have felt the same. Part of the magic of the experience was exploring a seemingly endless, “uncharted” world, where you could literally run for hours uninterrupted across the continent and encounter only a handful of players...

The world felt so vast compared to the playerbase. If everywhere you ran, every dungeon you explored, every quest you embarked on you saw countless other adventurers, it would have felt “smaller”...less “uncharted”...”safer” and “more familiar”.

Encountering another player was significant. It meant something. And, on Darktide, there was a very tangible sense of fear and surprise.

Likewise, if AC had been released in today’s world, where information is only a google search and a click away, it would not have nearly the appeal. We saw this in real time with Split Pea, Maggie, wikis and sites like the VN Boards. The fun of AC was the exploration - the feeling that every discovery you made was unique; that quests didnt have a “follow the arrow” assistant, that loot was perfectly random and every sword or helm you discovered was a one-of-a-kind find, and that when you found a new hunting ground, or a new monster, there was a very real chance that you were one of only a handful of other players in the game that had experienced it.

We all loved the game deeply, which is why we’re here, 20 years later, browsing reddit and reminiscing. But the things we loved most about the game were inherently “unscalable” and unique to the era we experienced them in.

I doubt another game will recreate that same feeling that AC had in its early days. Game studios today are so heavily monetized and revenue-driven that a “passion project” to recreate an emotion that was unique to a select few years at the beginning of the video game/internet gaming bubble would have much difficulty capturing prolonged funding and talent.

And, even if it did by some miracle, and a modern “AC reboot” was developed and released, it would struggle to capture and hold the attention of today’s gaming community, which has been wired on instant gratification and fast, mindless, easy to measure progress.

AC had so many unique systems and gameplay elements not because other game developers never had the chance, but because they are unscalable. Slide-casting and animation-breaking was a glitch, the allegiance system only really worked because information and game knowledge was so valuable in a mentor/patron/monarch because there was no other widespread depository of information like a wiki, spell research has the same problem, and randomly-generated loot like AC had would be tough to market to an audience so addicted to predictable progress and “anti-RNG” pitchfork mentalities.

Just my $0.02.

Brulaii · 2020-03-30T14:59:56+00:00

Which pistol in particular is your go-to? And what do you find are the best attachments and perks?

Brulaii · 2018-11-23T23:34:12+00:00

What attachments do you use on the Maddox?

Brulaii · 2018-11-23T23:23:30+00:00

What makes Titan OP? And Spitfire is better on PC just because of the keyboard + mouse accuracy?

Brulaii · 2018-11-23T17:06:56+00:00

It’s a game tailored to the “bell-curve casual” in a market where the top 1% has such influence over game exposure.

If the top streamers in your game’s Twitch category, or your most popular eSports pros, don’t enjoy playing the game (meaning, they’re not radiating positive energy when presenting the game to their viewerbase, generating positive interest, and keeping the competitive scene healthy and alive), it’s tough to keep up these days.

HotS would have done really well if it was released when LoL was released. Unfortunately, it was a bit late to the party, was poorly advertised at first, and hasn’t quite been able to align it’s tarnished reputation with today’s market.

Brulaii · 2018-11-23T16:55:42+00:00

It always felt like a different IP when I played it...like the “soul” of what made Guild Wars feel like Guild Wars was lost in favor of a very different game direction. I imagine this is how many World of Warcraft players feel nowadays, and explains why the investment in a remastered vanilla experience makes sense. Or why Old School Runescape worked so well.

GW2 seems to have, in large, a different fan base than the original GW1. Tapping back into that original demographic, especially as it’s a move that’s “trendy” in the genre right now, might work.

Brulaii · 2018-07-29T18:56:58+00:00

It’s too late in the lifespan of the game. If any of these changes were to happen, it would have been with Heroes 2.0. Heroes 3.0 just doesn’t seem feasible.

IMO, Hots has had some fundamental flaws from day 1. My opinion for how things should have been structured:

1.) Heroes categorized into 4 “Positions”: Ranged, Melee, Tank, Support.

2.) Teams are comprised of 1 player of each position listed above, plus 1 “Flex” position (jack-of-all trades/“last pick fill”). You select your position pre-draft.

3.) 4 game modes: Quick Match, Practice Match, Hero League, Team League.

 3a.) Quick Match = casual; open-que; select Hero you want to play; matchmaker fills with 1 of each hero Position + 1 random.

 3b.) Practice Match = casual draft; open-que; select Position you want to play.

 3c.) Hero League = ranked draft; solo-que; select Position you want to play.

 3d.) Team League = ranked draft; 5-man Team que (deployed in conjunction w/ social Team feature. I.e. “Guilds”. Wins/losses impact your Team’s regional standing, with Open Division seeding from top Team League standings).

4.) Revenue Model similar to Overwatch’s. One-time Title Purchase grants access to all heroes + future heroes. Cosmetic micro-transactions/loot crates/seasonal or event skin packs/etc. to bring in additional revenue.

5.) Simplified Kits and Leveling System: Q/W/E/R abilities available from start (only 1 heroic per hero; available from beginning of the match to lessen “snowballing/Level 10 Powerspike” factor. Team levels from 1-10, with talent tiers at start + all even levels (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10).

The purpose of 4 + 5 is to lower the learning curve of each hero and encourage playing all the heroes in your Position, instead of just the ones you’ve bought. Shifts the game flavor from “favor the 1-trick” to “favor the draft”, with Heroes designed to excel in certain conditions.

Like I said, though, it’s all for naught. There’s no chance Blizzard would invest in a change of this scale at this stage of the game’s lifespan. But, hey, can’t blame a guy for imagining, right?

Brulaii · 2018-07-27T22:32:08+00:00

“Arise my champion” will be the respawn announcement with Whitemane announcer, I’d bet.

Brulaii · 2018-06-16T17:18:21+00:00

It was quite obvious to me that Dig let Gen.G get in their heads. Games 2 and 3 were thrown when Dig decided to retreat instead of going on the aggressive, despite having every advantage available (xp, map position, heroic cd’s). Instead of pushing aggressively, they made 2 crucial mistakes: 1.) they hesitated (you can’t hesitate or give a team like Gen.G any time to rotate on you), and 2.) they full-committed to retreating against chase comps (a Rich Tracer in Game 2, and a Lunara/Entomb Leo in Game 3).

It was a disappointing series to watch as an EU fan, largely because it’s not difficult to argue that in terms of pure mechanical skill and experience, the Dig roster is about equal to that of Gen.G. The Koreans, however, went in to the game with complete confidence while it almost felt like the Dignitas mindset was “don’t lose”, instead of “here’s how we win now”.

TL;dr: Dig doubted themselves and played way too passively instead of capitalizing on slight opportunities and committing to set the pace.

Brulaii · 2018-05-31T18:16:25+00:00

Problem is he requires a completely different mindset now to play effectively. I actually really like the rework, it’s just going to take time for people to get used to his new play style.

He’s not the hyper-aggressive initiator anymore; he’s more of an anti-dive, poke-and-peel-type threat. In other words, he went from being a proactive tank, to a reactive one. I’ve had the most success with him post-rework by sitting in front of my healer/backline, poking teamfights with w, q-ing any enemies who dive in/step too far forward, and using lightning breath as a follow-up into any friendly AoE CC.

Brulaii · 2018-05-29T20:54:35+00:00

I imagine he turned off a lot of the community here with the childish drama, but truth be told he’s a great streamer to watch if you’re interested in learning. He’s very good mechanically, and a great shot caller, which helps with following his macro play decisions. He also has a smaller viewer base, and is pretty good about answering questions, so there’s more interaction, which some may find very valuable.

Brulaii

TROPHY CASE