TItan Quest is gnarly.

Yeah I know another non-WoW post. I'm still looking for a guild =)

Typhon getting a beat-down!



Hmm I tried to embed the video, it worked but it was way too wide. Damn blogspot and it's super-narrow format. Video fixed! =) The HD version is better, this link.

If anyone wants to play some Titan Quest, let me know!

Fishing quest.. what what?

Well hello, there! Runic Potion, Deviate Fish, 10g, and this nice little grey item that went directly to the vendor! New fishing quests are good so far!

Update: 2nd reward from the same quest:Not bad.. and with the 3rd try at this quest got another grey "Whale statue" that sold for 11g. Looks like this particular fishing quest that has you fishing the sewers of Dalaran is fairly profitable.

3.1 commeth

Probably old news by now but... 3.1 arrives tonight with some extended maintenance. Anyone looking for a hunter or 2? =D I'll check monster.com, and if that doesn't work, the usual channels.

The honeymoon is over

I've been posting about Steam lately and excited to get some new games to play while waiting for Ulduar to roll out. I've had a mostly positive experience with the service and recommended it so far. Over the last couple days tho, my opinion of the service is starting to lessen.

First of all, I haven't been able to get Sacred to work multiplayer at all. I get distinct errors when trying to join and create multiplayer games, and so far have had zero response from anyone at Steam reguarding this issue (using the forums). Now this game I got for $5 and it was released in 2004, so I am not going to throw a hissy-fit. This is pretty lame to start with. I will probably head over to the forums of the developer, but last time I was there it was a bunch of ppl complaining about Sacred 2 problems.

Now Sacred 2 is out, but for some reason the good people who bought this game from Steam have yet to recieve the latest patch for the game, which came out nearly 3 weeks ago now. I beleive this patch is neccessary for multiplayer to work in this game too, although I haven't read the details. In any case there has been no real response from Steam to it's customers reguarding this issue, except there was one post about a week ago that said that the "guy" (yeah one dude) who is responsible for doing the patches at Steam was out of the office or something and wouldn't be able to address this until the 14th (tomorrow). Yikes. (steam Sacred forum here)

Then there's Titan Quest. The game Sacred has been compared to, and it's another Diablo II clone. The "Gold" edition has been on Steam for $19.95 and this was going to be the next game I got, however guess what.. more problems here too. Apparently both the original game and expansion play fine (both included in "GOLD"), but the CD-KEY is invalid for the expansion. So you can play these single-player, but multi-player is a no-go. This has recieved almost no recognition from Steam, they keep selling the product, and every CD-KEY they give (for the expansion part of it anyways) is invalid. /facepalm. (steam Titan Quest forum here) I have heard that the Direct2Drive version works ok, so that's where I'll pick this one up from.

Looking over some of the other steam forums, there are more problems like these with other games. The biggest negatives I can see is lack of communication and support from Valve on their forums. Another is that you can't really take any action on your own (if you do a charge-back, for example, because you didn't get what you paid for then your steam account may be banned and the games you purchased held for ransom) Sound like fun? Not to me.

At this point the only games I'll get from Steam are ones I'm fairly positive don't have any technical problems, and/or those on the weekend deals. You can see what games they've had on their weekend deals and typically they're pretty good stuff. This past weekend it was Peggle Deluxe/Peggle Nights combo-pack. Fantastic games, $10 was a great price. Now if they would put The Witcher up on sale.. I'm there!

Just be careful. Before purchasing any game check the forums and see if others are having problems first. I'm glad I checked out Titan Quest's forum or I'd be another unhappy customer.

Steam is addictive.

Yes, I'm easily addicted to stuff. I've been sifting over all Steam's warez lately to see if I could find some more goodies to try out. Here's what I've managed to nab:

Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor. $30. This is a brand new release (April 9th) , a stand-alone expansion to CoH. There are new scenarios, new multiplayer maps and game modes, and a few new units to mess around with. This expansion is probably overpriced a bit but damn, the original game is so good I don't mind. Again, if you haven't got into the CoH game yet, do it. They have a complete-pack out now which is all 3 CoH's for $40.

Now for some older, cheaper games. Not like, c-64 old but damn some of these don't let you change resolution or even run in a window. In any case...

Games on Sale! woo! All of these are 1/2 price until Apr 13th.
Sacred Gold. $5. Comes with Sacred, Sacred Plus (fan pack?), and Sacred Underworld (expansion). Game plays like Diablo II, with a bit more exploring and open-world. This means I love it! =) Kill Kill Kill, Loot Loot Loot... fun stuff! Now they released a sequal in December but I will probably wait for the console (PS3) version of that. Up to 16-players online (although I'm having difficulty getting that to work right now on Vista 64) In any case if you somehow missed this game like I did, pay the $5 and have a blast.

Jagged Alliance 2 Gold /Disciples II Gold Combo. $15. JA2 Gold comes with the original game plus the expansion, JA2 Unfinished Business. If you played any Sir-Tech games in the past (Wizardry.. any of them) you know that they don't mess around. JA2 is a turn-based role-playing strategy game where you run a group of Mercs and do missions for cash. It's very involved and has a lot of depth. It's great.. will just leave it there. Disciples II comes with the game plus 2 expansions. It's a strategy game with a fantasy theme. Some people absolutely love the game, although I didn't like it that much at first impression. Both of these games I need to read the manual for (comes with the game in electronic format). 5 titles for $15, and 2 of them are Sir-Tech? Win.

Log in, get a prize!

Without a guild or any real progress to be made I haven't been logging in much. I did, however, crack open an oracle egg and got a nice surprise for Failsauce. Woot! I suppose it's time to find a new guild and hopefully get a spot for the upcoming Ulduar stuff. I've been sidetracked by some other PC games lately. Since getting the new PC I got a steam account and had to find out what I'd missed over the last few years.

Company of Heroes is just fantastic. I'm sure a lot of you have played this. I purchased the "Gold" version at Best Buy for $30 (which included the expansion, Opposing Fronts) but now I wish I had got the "relic pack" from Steam which included CoH Gold and also Dawn of War platnium (the original DoW game plus it's 2 expansions) for only $50.

The amazing quality of CoH made me want to try some other Relic stuff. I picked up Dawn of War II and was very impressed. It's a bit watered down as an rts but it does take every advantage of my PC and is extremely well polished. The single-player campaign (you can actually play it co-op as well) is more like a cross between Diablo and an RTS, with loot drops, leveling up, and skill point allocation.

Lastly, based on amazing reviews, I nabbed Empire: Total War. I've only had it for a day so it's a little hard to give it a fair shake but so far it's extremely slow and I'm missing why the reviewers think it's so great. Trying to put armies in place is sloooooow and their pathfinding frustrating. I'll have to give it more of a chance but right now I wouldn't reccomend it.

Big thumbs up for Steam tho. No sales tax, great weekend specials, and no discs/manuals to keep track of, it's all electronic.