What I've been playing recently

I kind of brought whoever's reading this blog up to speed on current events, except I missed one important thing, what am I playing now? Kind of a bone headed thing for me to considering this is a gaming blog.

Let's start with Diablo first. I got back into Diablo 3 when patch 2.0.1 came out with the new Loot 2.0. I really enjoyed the changes they made because I always prefered to play ARPGs as self found. This was one thing that really irked me about Path of Exile. Path of Exile almost forces you to trade in order to get better gear because, well the drops are shit. Diablo 3 was the same way almost forcing you to go to the Auction House to get better gear. You didn't really have to, but just like Path of Exile, the drops were pure shit so you would have to farm FOREVER to get great gear. Loot 2.0 fixes this in my opinion because the majority of the gear that drops is catered for what class you're playing.

The Reaper of Souls expansion just made Diablo 3 even better. First of all they added the Crusader. Back in the Diablo 2 days I rocked a Paladin almost the entire time. I got him up to about 83, that's how much I loved the Paladin in D2. Now the Crusader isn't a direct clone of the Paladin but it's spiritually the same class. There are some things I miss dearly (Zeal being one of them, and no the rune doesn't make up for it) but overall it still satisfies the Diablo Paladin itch I've had for quite some time.

Act 5 is very nice visually. It definitely has some grit to it and it's much darker over all then the other 4 acts. Malathiel is a fucking bastard though. Every time I've had to kill him I had to lower the difficulty. I don't know if I just suck or he's that much of a bastard to kill, but he definitely makes Diablo look like a push over. Adventure mode is a great addition, it alleviates the pain of going through the same acts over and over and over again. Nephalim rifts are a great addition too. They a lot like maps in PoE but much easier to get.

I've already reffered to PoE a few times so let me touch on that as well. Path of Exile is a free to play ARPG that's in the similar vein as Diablo 2. The developers kind of go out of the way to make the game unforgiving which is ok, but the amount of risk doesn't reward you in my opinion. The drop rates are also very bad and the game forces you to trade with everyone for better gear. This reminded me of sitting in the tunnel in the Eastern Commons in Everquest spamming chat over and over again "WTS MoSS, 5k obo". Diablo 3 does a much better job of rewarding the player.

I've also been playing Hearthstone, but who hasn't? In case if you're living under a rock or just totally ignorant, Hearthstone is a digital card game. Think of it as Magic, but condensed and with a lot of the bullshit removed. The average game takes about 10 minutes to play and it's free to play as well. You can drop money on card packs or Arena runs but you can earn in game money to do the same as well. Please check it out if you haven't yet, it's that good and everyone should try it.

The game is pretty balanced, almost everything has a counter. My favorite decks are Shaman control, Warlock Hand deck, Warrior Control, and my Druid "I'm gonna have taunt on every single fucking card I throw down" deck. I'm not the best (18 in ranked currently) but I do pretty well. I've also gotten a lot better in the Arena so I'm finally getting a good stream of dust and cards I didn't have before.

I'm still on and off with WoW, currently off. There's really nothing to do until the expansion comes out. I wanted to try out Wildstar but from everyone I've talked to about it and what I've seen on Twitch is that it should be called Mildstar. I was in the Elder Scrolls Online beta and I really didn't like it. The funny thing is my brother hated it as well, but he pre ordered and he now loves the game. I'm going to wait a month or two and see if he still loves it. If so, I'll pick it up.

I'm on break from World of Tanks. Once again I burned myself out on that game. It's still a good game but after a while you just need a break. It's a shame though because I dropped down for 6 months of premium time.....

As for tabletop wise I haven't done too much lately. I've been playing a little bit of Warmachine here and there. I'm still rocking my Khador but I recently started up Circle Orboros as well. I've always wanted to start a Hordes faction and they're it. I split the Hordes starter box with Joe from the Heretics so I just have that along with a Razorwing Griffin, Warpborn Skinwalker Alpha, and 1 other blister, forgot who.

I played a game of Deadzone with Lathan about a month ago and that was AWESOME. Such a fun game and if you've played Dreadball it's easy to pick up. The game is incredibly cinematic, really makes you think tactically and over all is just a blast to play. I'll touch upon Deadzone a little more in the future after I get a few more games in under my belt. The one thing I do have to say is that the terrain can be a challenge to work with. It's pretty easy to break the connector sprues. I think I need to make the time to go through all the terrain tiles and filed out the holes so the connectors can go in and out easier.

The last time I played Dreadball was during the inaugural Insidious Premier League season. I made it to the semis with the Miskatonic Minutemen (Nameless). I started with the Beercelona Pubcrawlers (Forge Fathers) but I got sick of playing (or should I say loosing) with them so I switched teams after the second week. I was really glad I did switch because I finally felt like I was playing the full game of Dreadball, not just playing defense and smashing faces. It was really refreshed being able to score almost whenever I wanted. I had to sit out of the 2nd season because of working midnights, boo!

Well I hope this post wasn't too long. I've kind of liked getting back into blogging, it's been pretty fun. I'll try to do at least 2 posts a week, hopefully I don't run out of material, and hopefully I don't turn this into a spam fest. But don't worry, I won't start regurgitating everything that Faeit 212 posts (coughbolscough).