New DK PvP armor, next iconic set?

The way I understand it, despite having a massive budget Blizzard maintains a relatively small art team to preserve the "integrity" of their art style...this supposedly is meant to explain why it takes them so long to come up with new art. Lately I have felt like that the majority of their sets are starting to show stagnation...they're getting a little stale and end up producing sets like Shadowflame that look like the face-melting went a little too far.

Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Guide/Review: Sarcasm Edition

Warning: Vulgar language, adult jokes, and copious amounts of sarcasm ahead!

By now I somewhat expect everyone has formed their opinion of the single player campaign of Mass Effect 3...and while in my opinion the game is 99% awesome and 1% wtf-ending!? Some have argued that it is not worth its price. Thankfully for me, Bioware thought to include a multiplayer function, which actually is one of the more fun multiplayer games I have played in a while.

In short summary, it's a "Horde" or "Firefight" (Failfight?) sort of game with 4 players which fend off progressively larger, tougher waves of enemies from one of three enemy factions (Cerberus, Reapers or Geth) on one of six maps. Its a team game, with each player getting the exact same amount of XP and credits at the end of the match, meaning Goblins will hate it (though I have yet to encounter many "M&S"). There are three difficulties; Bronze (the LFR of ME3, everyone wins), Silver (Normal Mode, requires some skill/coordination), Gold (Hardmode; requires team cooperation and a good combination of classes, but will likely induce rage) and the rewards scale up with difficulty. Each player picks a class, and in each class are 3 subclasses (split into races from the game).


So off we go, complete with Resurgence DLC update!

[MMOs Generally] The terms I am tired of seeing

Rather sparse posting lately I know, I've hit that busy time of year when final tests and papers are due...leaving me little time to write. Doesn't help that I've picked up SWTOR and am thoroughly enjoying my bounty hunter.

No matter the topic, journalism and discourse are ripe with overused terms. The main problem is that so many of these are more intended to provoke a reaction from the reader that is anything except "form a logical opinion and decide for yourself." They frame the issue in a specific, one-sided way that colors any discourse negatively. Personally when I see many of these words, rather than read what the writer has said, I have to fight the urge to just ignore them completely. Alas, the ones becoming all too common in Gaming. I note that many of these are silencing techniques, but I think that makes it all that much more important that we phase them out and promote actual discourse (deities forbid!).

The wrong way to bring women to your game

So at this point it is a fairly well known fact that the percentage of men and women in gaming is starting to rapidly approach (and in some cases surpass!) the actual sex ratio. Though I do not have the full statistics, there is some telling that a large portion of this includes Zynga games. At this point more traditional companies are trying to find ways to get a piece of that market pie. Below the break, a company trying a way that in my opinion is flat out wrong.

A smattering of Mists Beta changes and thoughts

I finally got in! Happy for me right? The game is still very much in the beta stages; in fact I'd call it more of an alpha...it's nowhere near release and I think in some ways this could harm the game down the road. That said, a few interesting mechanics changes have made it in and I thought I'd talk about: abilities with charges, class specific quest rewards, better leveling curve and passive-active abilities.

Edit: A few extra notes at the end!