Mibo Games

Star Trek Online - Glimpse of the new frontier?

2010-01-16T07:59:00.000-08:00

Seeing it is Cryptic Studios who made this game some few things should be said, When I tried Champions Online and played it for a bit, it is the game you play for a bit and enjoy, easy to play and move on, Cryptic made Champions Online enjoyable, but it felt very single sided. Champions Online was the cartoon like game you could fall in love with for its very simple play and understanding of the game and what to do. Star Trek Online falls under the same comb. but let it be said, the game is currently only in Beta!

Cryptic studios seems to love the use of Copy Paste, a lot of the same concepts are to find, and they don't just look the same, they are either what seems to be 100% copy pastes, or they are very very similar.

In Champions Online they had an immense variaty for character customization, since gear did not show on you visibly they took the customizations to a whole new level. every part you can customize, your armor and colors, body and face features, it is extremely hard to pick the same as someone else. Star Trek Online is no less, The same customization options are in this game too possible, this is an really great thing as there is so many ways to make your character unique.

Starting the game you get sent to making your character, the first thing you do is to choose your Career, Engineering Officer, Science Officer, and Tactical Officer. it lies a little in the names what the different ones are. Engineering is more of your normal "Support" class helps others with damage etc, the Science Officer is the one who is your average "over time this and that" type, weakening enemies and doing things over time as well as healing, wheres the Tactical Officer is well, tactics, your stealthy damage dealer.

After choosing your Career(Class) you start on making your unique character. You have an large variety of Species to play as:

Humans

Andorian

Bajoran

Benzite

Betazoid

Bolian

Saurian

Trill

Vulcan

Unkown

The "unknown" species is to create your own species and give it its own special traits. I wouldn't choose this one as an beginner as it is more of an "advanced" thing to do. not really hard, but I will stick to being a "newbie".

So I chose Vulcan Female, don't ask me why, Vulcans are just simply the best! (I guess not really but hey)

So if you chose any of the "known" species you get some preset traits + 2 traits you need to select yourself from a list. fair enough, the unkown species gets to pick 4 traits since non is preset.

Customizing your character is just as it was in Champions Online, they seemingly copy pasted the whole thing and added some different clothing and such(duh not making an super hero here)

As This is the beta at the moment, I assume (really hope) they will had more variety to the released game, the above image shows the only head preset you can play with at the moment, There is the standard things you can do, different hair styles and colors, eyebrows and eye colors etc. you can fiddle around with the advanced head scaling options to get different looks but to get something decent looking you will have to really struggle, as well as let it be said, the head preset of each species seem to be the same, or very close that is.

Body customization there is again only 1 preset, as there is with everything to customize of body features there is only 1 preset. I can only assume they will have more presets to add for the full release. again you got the basic things to change of height and features, the thing that separates both Champions Online and now Star Trek Online away more from most MMORPG's there is on the market is to be able to select stance, how do you want your character to behave, walk, and interact. different stance settings will make your character idle in different ways, like above mine is set to "Cute" which makes her stand and well... be cute, swaying a little and looking around innocently now and then, wheres if it was set to another stance there is called "Robot" she stands still and has very short but fast and exact mechanic like moves. again it just adds to the unique feeling.

The thing that strikes most fun, at least did in Champions Online was to customize your looks, not only bodily features but also your armored look, or as it is in Star Trek Online, your Uniform. Here there is not the greatest selection at the moment, I do hope they plan on having more in the full release here too, but as it is the uniform I don't see it as an "important" thing to do, if someone else has an very matching uniform I guess that is not the biggest problem, not everyone can come from individual ships after all. Once the uniform is selected and customized with colors and such you create your name. there is also some customization options here, you can add a name for yourseld and the ship you come from, and optionally you can add a full formal name and some Bio about your character, something I am sure a lot of Trekkies and RP'ers who want to play will love.

Right after logging in and seeing the first fast tutorials on how to move around, the games looks start to appear, it is not as "Cartoon" looking as Champions Online was, but it is enough to give a nice mellow feeling, the general layout is somewhat the same, how quests function and how the chat is is another thing who is practically the same. Controls are easy to learn, even for people who have never played an online MMO they are easily overcome and it should be no troubles to get started. there are a few moves that separate Star Trek Online from other MMO's you can crouch down to do more damage with your weapon, as well as you can do evasive moves to avoid attacks or enemies by doing a roll in any direction, by double taping either W, A, S or D you roll to either side, frontwards or backwards. A and D will not make you walk right or left while standing still, to do that you have to use Q or E. A and D will turn you.

Combat controls are also great in both Champions Online and Star Trek Online, Cryptic have been geniuses when it comes to combat, while most developers today seem to think collision detection is nice, just throwing a spell in a direction the enemy is and it hits is great, gives realism but can be tiresome in the long run, what Cryptic Studios have done is to make combat controls for most players, both those who want to up their player experience by being more playing, to the casual player who loves the feel of the game, I personally end up more in the last part. I love the feel of this game, and when I see an enemy, I don't have to worry about either collision detection or even targeting my foe. all I need to do is simply press the attack I want to execute and face my foe, it automatically targets the target I want, and it might just be the feel (of course it is) but it always targets what you want to target, so you can interact a lot more with the game, while attacking. Wheres most games you have to often stand still for every move and attack, you can do evasive moves, run, and interact a lot more with the game itself, while attacking.

After playing through the "entry stages" of the game you enter the entry stages of space flying. The controls for flying are good, very good, but at the same time clumsy. first off i will say that flying in space in Star Trek Online, beats EVE, by miles. Yes that is correct, playing Star Trek Online and being in space makes you feel that you are more in control of what you are doing, and that space is not a flat place where you can jump from one flat layer of space, to another flat layer of space. What makes the controls easy and nice to understand, are the same that makes them clumsy, you can either use the keyboard alone, or you can use the mouse and keyboard together. Using only the keyboard renders it a little bit more complicated to move around, you don't have that nice flowing control as you would by steering the ship with the mouse and then using the rest on the keyboard. Unless you are in combat, do not bother with the keyboard only is my way of seeing how it works best.

All in all the game is an great game so far, currently only in the beta it is very smooth with very few bugs, in fact I encountered non, this gives an promising coming of the game, fits perfectly for any age and any type of player, the more hardcore players may find it to get a little to easy in the long term, for casual players this is an perfect nice game to play, even for non trekkies it would be nice. I really would recommend this to anyone as both an entry level MMORPG and more advanced levels of gaming, the game lets you either excel if you want or stay at the calm path, just as Champions Online you can play it laid back relaxed or you can take the game to another level. The controls and the flow of the game really enhances the gentle feeling it has.

There are some things that is not so good with it, it has it's flaws as any other game on the market. the first thing I can't stand is the chat, what looks like an direct copy paste from Champions Online with World of Warcraft add on fonts makes it unbearable for me. This game also has that exact same font a lot of places (absolutely most places I see) this does drag the feeling down, for me I see it and can't focus it away. the chat is also a bit "clumsy" might be why they have it as the smallest feature on the UI once you enter the game for the first time.

The other thing that I see can kill a bit is the requirements

in FAQ's it says:

Minimum:

OS: Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista / Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 Ghz or AMD Athlon X2 3800+

Memory: 1GB RAM

Video: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 / ATI Radeon X1800 / Intel HD Graphics

Sound: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Soundcard

DirectX: Version 9.0c or Higher

HDD: 10GB Free Disk Space

Network: Internet Broadband Connection Required

Disc: 6X DVD-ROM

The recommended system specifications are:

OS: Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista / Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit)

CPU: Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon X2 5600+

Memory: 2GB RAM+

Video: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 / ATI Radeon HD 3850+

Sound: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Soundcard

DirectX: Version 9.0c or Higher

HDD: 10GB Free Disk Space

Network: Internet Broadband Connection Required

Disc: 6X DVD-ROM

To fully play and be able to enjoy a smooth FPS and not be choppy you almost have to double the "Recommended" requirements, this does drag the feel down as many people today still don't have an expensive system to play on, most seem to have entry level computers to mid ended computers and with that one wont be able to notch everything to max and enjoy it at it's best. it was the same for Champions Online too. it is not the biggest problem in the world, but many people will not be able to enjoy the nice and mellow graphics the game give at its fullest. and as simple as the game is graphic wise it's a shame (simple in the way of being basic but beautiful)

Once I have played more and gotten to see more of both the bad and the good sides I will do another review.

From me this game gets an current rating of:

8/10

Long awaited it has been!

2009-04-25T13:14:00.002-07:00

It's been some time now, many things have passed both great, good and bad.

In world of warcraft I became 80 on my Death Knight, cleared all content available excluding Ulduar that just released, it has come to an halt with my wow playing, atleast for the part of gaming it raiding and alike, beeing social and such i might do. but all sorts of raiding I wont be doing no more.

It has been quite some time now that I see raiding as beeing "pointless", Lost its charm one might say.. Every old veteran in wow that played before TBC was, can in 90% of the cases atleast say that wow was ruined the day TBC came, I could make a miles long list of why I miss the old wow. nontheleast I got several years of it under me now, and it was only some two weeks, not even that I discovered a long forgotten treasure.

There is a game I played before I played World of Warcraft. a game that i was very fond off, but at the time wasent that much of me, it was then at the realese of Windows Vista I came to think of it and wanted to play it again, but to my pity, it was still only available on win XP.

As said though, I found it again not long ago, and to my surprise it was available for play on Windows Vista and my work kept me from it, so therefore I present you, in my humble own opinion one of the best MMORPG games i've ever played so far in my life! (and one of the games who first of all introduced me to the MMO scheme years ago)

Now This is a game not for the lazy ones you might say. There are several things I love about this game, and few I dislike.

There are two key points that makes this game at first glance really seem swell, first off, its free to play, the second is that the game has an real life economy, what that means is that if you got 100 ingame money, or peds as they are called in the Entropian Universe, 100 ped would equal 10 US dollar. the game ratio is 10ped to 1 Dollar (10:1). You can, and many people are, have, and still am getting quite rich .. or nto rich but atleast they get a good ammount of real life cash from playing a game, this game.

now there is just one tiny catch, not a bad one but for some it might be. there are two ways of either starting good, you can deposit real life money, this means you "pay" for the game, you pay with real life money, you get ingame money for it. that is one way, and by far the easiest way to get started. the other way is to use the games built in play to start off. there are two things you can do to earn money as a "newb" one is to run around in the Entropoian world picking up dung, and fruits of the grround. sh*t job aye?! well the other thing is to gather sweat from mobs and animals around the world.

Ill say right away that i'm lazy, I gathered sweat from mobs for about 10 minutes before I spent 20 US dollars to get started, once past "starting" theres some different things you can do to earn money, you can either craft different stuff like cloths, weapons attachements, armor attachements, tools attachments, weapons or armor I might not be lying when I say that doing this, seems to be the best way to earn monetas, when ingame you can choose to switch on an option for the chat wich allows you to see every Global or Hall of Fame people get. if someone finds, crafts or kills something worth more than 50 Ped you get a so called global, this will then be shown with your name for everyone to see in the chat that you collected a global. some can wait months for even their first globals or HoF's, others might get them fast. Myself.. as a friend of mine called me a Lucky bastard ive had my share of globals from my few days of play after coming back already, and only some days ago I got a Hall of Fame worth 130 US dollar.

Clicky to mage bigger

My ingame name is Kenpachi Mika Zaraki for the ones wondering that, now on the screenshot you can see my HoF beeing in the last 24 hours.

Now the second thing you can do is to Mine minerals or enmatters. Even tho I got my first Global mining it is not what I really fancied, some find this the most fun and it seems to be the second most profitable thing to do in the game. not really much to say more about mining others than its two different kinds you can do, mine stones or enmatter as oil for example. you run around blowing bombs up either on the ground, or far deep into earth, if your seeker alarms you follow where it tells you to go to get your goodies.

Now the third thing to do. Hunting. This is what I myself am most fond off. with all my heart, I love it, you basicly just run around and kill stuff, personally I run with a loss each time but I honestly dont mind that, afterall, either if one is crafting, mining or hunting, everyone share a same goal, to hunt those big hall of fames.

Last time I saw on the All Time High, Hall of Fame the 1# in the different ones was:

Mining - 150 000 Ped (15 000$)

Hunting - 90 000 Ped (9000$)

Crafting 220 000 Ped (22 000$)

now, that is alot of money.

Ok so i have said all the good stuff about the game pretty much, I will say one bad thing, not knowing if it exists but I am pretty sure it is.

now this game is not only of the genre MMORPG wich is really fun to play, but it has a real life economy, and the dynamic of the game makes it like a big ass slot machine, now you can as I said before play it 100% free and get far, but it requires some luck at a certain point, no matter if you pay or if you play for free. if one manages to play for free no matter you are fine i guess, but if one choose to pay, I can easily see it might suck people in to a evil circle of "slot machine addiction"

The rest of that case speaks its own story. overall this is a great game, either free or paid for, ive waited long to play it again, and well, ill tell you this, if you look on youtube of how it is now, the graphics are far from stunning, they are simple, bulky and weird. however, quite soon there ill be a change to that, The game will be running on CryEngine 2. now shoot me if you want but only that should make this game able to sail to the top of beeing thee most beautifull looking MMO there is as off today. I have yet to see a MMORPG becoming as gorgeous as Entropia Universe will be. I cant wait for it.

Ill leave with that for now, if you ever decide to try the game poke Kenpachi Mika Zaraki ingame!

Cheers!

The Darknesss Creeps Closer - Hunter goes DK

2008-11-04T03:30:00.000-08:00

Years have passed, wars been fought. The Scourge creeps closer than ever before. Itt has been quite a long time now since the powerfull agent Kel'thuzad was driven away from his standing. A glorious victory.

"As we carried on something seemed to be wrong, one after one of the ones that was there that day, seem to vanish, reports come from across the whole of azeroth, family dearest run away from their loved ones in fear, no one knew why."

As it lay in the back for abit, no one of the adventurers belived that anything was goin on, yet little did they know, one of their owns had a poisoned mind awaiting to blossom. and as the wrath of the lich king drew closer and closer, the poisoned individuals drew him closer, their hatred for their loved ones grew. Those few who still had some sanity, where the ones from the tales that ran away, to never be seen.

But it was to late to run, there was no escape from the dreadfull fate that drew the Peacfull Blood Elf Hunter closer. as the day passed as they always did, she little knew what her fate was, the lich king crawling closer, sending his mighty armies upon the world she hesitated to kill them, her friends slaugtherd infront of her eyes, not beeing able to move, nor wanting to act. her heart and soul was lost, as much as she tried she struggled to fight back, but it was to late, her skin was darkening, becoming white almost dead. She knew now, that she was dying, but her fate was not to be in peace, but to be in service for the Lich King and his army.

She wanted to run away from it all, to be far away from her loved ones that she still had around, that very night she decided to run away, several days passed, and weeks went on as she resided in Winterspring, a peacfull place, hunting, feeding and living on the things she alone made, far away from any living man, women or children. tho the day of the lich kings return drew closer as the days passed, the skies where painted red.

one day as she went out to gather wood she looked up to the skies, it was unusually red, dark and the presence of death along the lands. it was then she saw flying necropolis' in the skies, sending their undead armies onto the ground, in a wild rage she ran to see what and where they where, well ontop of a nearby hill of a small invasion army she lifted her bow, steadily aimed for what seemed to be some sort of commander, a big Abonomition commanding the minor ones around to slay creatures nearby, rip trees out of the ground and worse. she helt her aim for quite some time, unable to let the arrow go, slowly lowering it she realised, she had become just what they where, her bones showing from her dead white skin, her eyes had gotten a faint blue glo, her hair was undone, her chain armor was sitting loosley on, she decided to approach them in person, to see how they responded. would they fight? would they embrace? no matter she knew her life was over, Death was futile.

As she slowly walked down towards them she walked straight towards the Large Abonomition, as suddenly he heard snow crackling behind him he turned around swiftly and with a dark creepign voice yelled "Whos there!" but he suddenly silent, and all the minions around fell to their knees in the sight of her, kneeling down for her. Stopping sheslowly raised her head to look at the abonomition, His face was covered in fear, a great beeing of the scourge was frigthened at the look of her, he slowly walked backwards, his words sounded as if they where sneaking out of his mouth "Sorry... Knight Senitza... Me Sorry for yelling.. Don't Kill... My order to lead minions..." she decided to try as hard she could to say nothing, to stand still and not look frigthened, her dilemma was to either run, or stay to see what and why they where affraid of her.

The large abonomition called forth one of the minions, a small ghoul carrying a bag on his hip, the ghoul dragged a parchement out from it and and slowly reached it out to her. she took it and as soon as she held it the large abonomition said again "Read Knight, Master wants you to read and come"

On the parchement it said:

If you with your own eyes read this, you are chosen and have followed the right path, the path to death and suffering, endless pain, for you are one of the ones we want, the human kind are weak. we are stronger than ever before.

you will come to us, you will get trained, you will be spreading death, and help the master to win the war.

Your psat does not matter, your future is everything, you will serve the Lich King as a Death Knight.

She scrambled the note in her hands before setting it on fire in her hands crusing it, her breathing raising she felt the strong hatred for the lich king and his armies, for her mind had not been completly tainted, her sanity was intact, her powers and her beeing was converted to what she would become.

She Looked up at the abonomition as she grabbed for her axes, her eyes burning blue as she slowly started to walk towards him.

- SO it is you and your kind, that took away my loved ones and drove me away from my home.

-No.. Knight Me only do orders!

- And stop calling me a knight! I am a hunter of silvermoon! I take no orders as a Knight of Death from the Lich King!

She started to run towards the assembly of scourge.

-So Be it, Me got army here to deal with traitor! Minions Form, Let her not escape alive!

as they started to run towards her she leaped up in the air landing ontop of the Abonomition, hacking his head he fell, thirsty for death as she had become she laid waste to the whole assembly they had there.

Her goal was now to defeat the Lich King, and to do so, she had to become a Death Knight, she had to break free from him and to again seek her revenge.

Long Time no Update.

2008-10-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

Ok so oughta do an fast update.

First off it is 17 days till Wrath of the Lich King release.

Second in my past times I have not been able to keep track on things. doing this and that at work aswell as in games and forums.

One of the things I have made in the times since last time is an Guide on Achievements. unfortunatly it's so far only available in norwegian. you can find the guide in the links far below.

Others than that I am happy to announce that I am fully ready for the expansion now, might be geek but hey! I got 2 weeks vacation from 13th november so im set with pots and gold to make my way to level 80 playing the new heroclass Deathknight!

That's about it for this small update and soon the lichking knocks on your door..

Link to guide - http://gamingnorge.net/forum/showthread.php?t=13764

It's now official!

2008-09-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

Okay! the big news we all have been waiting for is now on a set date!

the 13th november 2008, blizzard will world wide release the new expansion Wrath of the Lich King for World of Warcraft. with over 10million active players if not more now, this will be huge.

Fingers tingeling, last year when The Burning Crusade was released, the stores opened from 00:00 to roughly 06:00. all over the world girls, boys, ladies and men alike, geeks and fanboys and what not gathering early, many hours before the shop released it to get their copy.

I amongst one of them stood ready to get it early early early, with my preordered ticket in my hand in the freezing weather. this time however, I am gonna be earlier to secure myself an Collectors Edition of the expansion

Quote from blizzard about Collectors Edition:

We're happy to announce that World of Warcraft: The Wrath of the Lich King will ship in standard as well as Collector's Edition packages. The Collector's Edition will come in a special box that contains many exclusive extras to enhance your adventure into Northrend, including:

World of Warcraft: The Wrath of the Lich King on DVD-ROM.
The Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, a 208-page book featuring never-before-seen images from the game.
An exclusive in-game pet: Frosty, the baby frost wyrm.
A behind-the-scenes DVD containing over an hour of developer interviews, the Wrath of the Lich King intro cinematic with director’s commentary, and more.
The official soundtrack CD, containing 21 epic tracks from the game, along with exclusive bonus tracks.
A mouse pad featuring a map of the newly opened continent of Northrend.
Two World of Warcraft Trading Card Game March of the Legion™ starter decks, along with two exclusive cards available only in the Collector’s Edition.

The behind-the-scenes DVD will offer developer interviews and commentary on all aspects of the creation of Wrath of the Lich King, as well as trailers and cinematics from the game, and even footage of panel discussions from BlizzCon 2007.

Collector's Edition owners will also be able to take their adventures from the computer to the tabletop with two starter packs for the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game -- one for themselves and one to share with a friend. In addition, Collector's Edition owners will receive two exclusive tournament-legal World of Warcraft Trading Card Game cards to incorporate in their decks or trade with other World of Warcraft TCG players.

With the Collector's Edition-exclusive in-game pet, Frosty the baby frost wyrm, you'll be the envy of your guildmates and other players as you roam the expanses of Northrend.

A soundtrack CD with stirring music from the expansion pack, a beautiful coffee table book with exclusive concept art, and a Northrend-themed mouse pad round out the wealth of bonus items available in the Collector's Edition of World of Warcraft: The Wrath of the Lich King. Head over to our Wrath of the Lich King Pre-Order page now to learn more about pricing and availability of both the Standard and the Collector's edition.

I must say the most tempting here is that book, and the CD ( I love such kind of music) the pet will also be quite cool aside of my Death Knight.. Whats cooler than having a small cute rotten frozen flying baby dragon next to your Dead Knight arisen from the dead to spread plague and disease!?

here is also how the pet will look like (pic taken from MMO-Champion.com):

This will be an awesome day now lets pray I get one two weeks vacation as planned for this. it beeing november makes it good too, calm month at the store shouldent be to troublic I hope!

the normal standard box will have the CD's to install the game, manuall and all you need to play the expansion and lvl to 80 amongst others!.

for more information about the expansion, and wrath of the lichking itself see either.

www.mmo-champion.com

www.worldofraids.com

http://www.wow-europe.com/wrath/

now the hunt for a good name for my Death Knight starts! any sugestions feel free to leave an comment to this blog on what it should be =)!

WoW Themed Wallpaper

2008-09-10T09:56:00.001-07:00

(Size 168x1050 22" widescreen)

Figured I'd update fast with an wallpaper I have made. nothing special to say about it really.

Medusa's Power!

2008-09-08T13:57:00.000-07:00

(Click for larger Image)

I got Medusa's power in my fists and my hands!

Turning people into stone.

the picture above is the same girl as I used for the "Good and Evil" one, this time I shreded her beauty and turned her into forever lasting stone!

I was... Pure... In Old Times!

2008-09-07T06:32:00.000-07:00

"What to do.. Where to go... So many choices... Every single one of them leading to suffering.. and.. Death!"

So the decision is now final!

Wrath of the Lich King rolling closer day by day, the unkown of exactly when it will hit! World of Warcraft moving in to it's "Third age".

There are several new changes in the expansion wheres most know of them, or atleast the major ones, as for example level cap raised to 80, the introduction to the new hero class the Death Knight. I will be making an Death Knight and has now decided on what race (or im 98% Sure)

I have chosen Orc Male, regardless of the poll and what ive thought off before, reason for this is, when making my Death Knight. I want it to be.. Brutal and mean looking. I am horde so I went through all races to see. Troll male is just crippled, not mean looking and I dont see it evil that an rastaman with glowing eyes hits me dancing some weirdo dance, troll female is same as male only they dont look crippled, was an ok choice but again the weapon size is abit small. Blood elf male and female are the ones I thought off most. male was a choice i thought of for a long time, however weird animations made me take it away despite the arrogant mean persona they are. the females ... well.. having a Two handed weapon that looks like a small one handed one makes you cry inside. to be a mean Death Knight holding a butter knife with two hands.. just no. Orc female.. well they stand so weird when hitting, if you walk up to an enemy facing it straight on and start to attack it, well your char will look really weird as she stands abit tillted. taurens where both male and female a valid choice, but failed due to beeing abit to big, aswell many helmets look abit weird on them, they are huge and mean, weapons sized with small cessna airplanes that they wield and smash around then in a grinting madness of cold breath. after slashing their cessna planes around they call for their mounts.. and the big huge tauren steps onto a small thing looking bone horse half its size that screams in pain as the tauren rides off..

wait what? ok so left are Undead male and female, and orc male. Undead male.. good classy, big weapons, far to big for the mount, however. the fact that it seems horde side is infested with undead's of all classes from before also I find their animations to be sort of.. dull.. that goes for female aswell. left with the winner the orc male, the have huge armor, weapon size far enough OK and animations not to weird nor to cool, their running animation is also in my opinion the coolest ingame. on a horse they might be ABIT to big! but hey they make up for it in the rest. now seeing Death Knights have abit different presets of hair and faces etc upon creaing it seems, it MIGHT change but I doubt it. So now its back to more nerve wrecking waiting for the expansion, its like waiting for presants on christmas eve really..

The movie Wanted review

2008-09-05T13:53:00.001-07:00

No Spoilers ahead

Time for a fast new blog! Today its about the movie in theaters now named Wanted, starring James McAvoy as Wesley Gibson, Morgan Freeman as "Sloan", Common (musician) as "The Gunsmith", Thomas Kretschmann as "Cross" , Terence Stamp as Pekwarsky and not to forget "HAWT!" as always Angelina Jolie starring as "Fox" (oh irony right there mrs.foxy)

Anyhows I don't want to put so many spoilers in here now seeing and respecting that the movie have not yet come out yet in all countries aroundthe world. Fastly here though I can safly say its one of those movies again you just "got to see"! just like Iron Man. the storyline in the movie is in my optinion sometimes quite blurry. however it is of course an action movie, and the impressive gore and shooting scenes I found it amusing to watch brains flying with a bloody mess in slow motion up close. ok you cant see the brains but there is alot of blood. the unreal feeling one somtimes get when they "curve bullets" is an example of what makes the movie both cool and daft at the same time, personally I liked the movie quite alot, the trailer can make it seem quite daft and "oh yet another hoparound shoot'em up movie" one can sort of say that it is so, however thus its somewhat blurry storyline, it sure has its aha moments, humoristic moments aswell. this is althought not a movie you watch if you want to be thrilled!

the acting I'd say is quite ok, I have always liked James McAvoy's acting, he always seem to be a "pussy whimp gone bad" for some reason, in wanted that really is the fact. there are some parts that has acting that is less and abit off. wont tell why as it would spoil. but you will probably find out when you see it, all in all the acting IS infact good, you dont get the feeling looking at angelina jolie as the same persona as I find her to be in many movies, in wanted she is abit .. how to put it, seemingly "shyishly" and not as dominant i'd say atleast.

the movie is safly recommendable! I wish I could write more about the story and whats what and how this and that, but if you are gonna see the movie or thinking off it, go see it! all different opinions I heard some newspapers shredding it as bad and crap, all I know that has seen it says it is surprisingly good. I guess newspapers are still having old farts loving man to man live acting on a scene still rather than movies.

From me the movie gets a dice roll off 5.

Space explosion

2008-09-01T10:47:00.001-07:00

hey ho

Time for a ninja adding! tired as hell I thought it'd be a great idea to try making an space explosion!

ok so I know how to make the explosion, two ways. one where there is space and one where the planet kind of just explodes. in this image I combined them two to see how the outcome was.

I was sort of satisfied with the outcome, To tired right off making it to boher about the buggery stars I would say it look quite ok. the loss of stars here and there and black spaces is what drags the result down, when seeing images of space and stars where galaxies show, they are -never- completly white, aswell as when looking at the sky stars are not white, stars are the twinkling ones that are other "suns" that blinkle in diferent colors, plain "white" ones are planets. this means the stars around the explosion itself was quite good I think (those stars that are there) comared to other space images id say the alikeness is so on so. the explosion itself went good I'd say, the planet in the middle and explosion around it.

(Click for larger image)

The space thing is something I wont let go off. once I got time again and am not tired, I am gonna try to make planets coliding to get an nice outcome of that, the image i made here one dont need to be skilled to do, without tutorial or with its a quite simple one, you can get it harder, harder often mirrors into an better result aswell.

so stay tuned for more updates! more to come!

Photoshop and me.

2008-08-31T16:09:00.001-07:00

Hey

so this is my first post ever on this blogg! here it all starts. Here it all begins. purpose of this blog is to post things on things I do and make aswell as other personal and semi personal things and also will be about World of Warcraft alittle bit! so keep tuned if you are interested, I will be trying to update it atleast every sunday.

This post will be about pretty much photoshop, its been several years now that I have been "playing" around with photoshop, trying this and that, everything from drawing in the start when i used it as paint, to starting to drawing this and won a contest in "Habbo Hotell" when i was like 14 or so, now im 20 and my photoshop level has rised from basic to what atleast i'd say good advanced, I now try to find tutorials of various ranges from advanced to knowledged expert levels to become better. I have not so long ago made an good to evil picture of Po the panda in Kung Fu Panda. I was happy with it but it was missing something about it in general.

before I post the pictures I'd want to add that my photoshop experience and training is only from a few texture tutorials in start, it was 5 years self playing with it and I could handle making quite good forum signatures before I started using text tutorials and then other tutorials to moving on, so I was novice leveld when I started using tutorials.

the picture shown below is the Kung Fu Panda one, my first shot on the tutorial making an Good to evil transformation. it sounds and looked easy, but getting it to become good as I wanted it and for it to look nice, it aint the easiest to do, id say you would have to be atleast advanced skilled to get an good outcome easily.

(Click for larger image)

Then I was quite satisfied with how it turned out, The picture was nice to make, it had the "good evil" look sort of already, the manipulation and editing made it just better. angel on one side, raging zombie on the other!

so I was wondering abit and decided to give it another go, this time more experienced on how to I decided to google and find a girls face, I found one in high def and decided to try out again. the result on this image was quite alot better I think atleast seeing that its a person, aswell as I myself think I got a quite evil look for it, aswell as a nice "goodside" look.

(Click for larger image)

Again there is of course a clear difference in the good and evil side, the text adds abit more "coolness" effect I think, bad things about this one is that I didnt tweak the eye wounds as much as I should, overall outcome on it I find good atleast.

Link to the tutorial: http://www.steelfrog.com/good-and-evil/

Check it out for other nice tutorials and games & Design.