The Intruders

He'd heard there was trouble coming. There was a anticipation of it buzzing through the ranks. Several in the higher tiers of his tunnelling community had been barking about these intruders, skilled killers tripping early warning systems, smashing their way along lengths of the warren. He'd been trained for this. Since he was a skinling. His claws had been sharpened beyond everyday use. They were like Troglodyte razor teeth. Over the years he'd learned to be careful of them. You get used to it. His immediate clutch leader, was a Scale Shaman named Zanc'Tul, and he had been busy readying his skull magics all morning. The defending snapper troop had been posted at a choke point in the warren, designed to throttle any intrusion. There were many trappings pre-set to slow the overworld killers down. Acid jets, firey tormentors, warren gates with multiple combination keys, ambush points with treasure bait. All set to hamper, slow, and wither away at the intruders physical and mental health. Shan'Zal was ready for them. He and his fellow snappers, were on high alert.', '

Zanc'Tul was very agitated, and was yelping orders almost faster than his muzzle could deliver. The normally damp air had become drier somehow, it made Shan's scales tighten uncomfortably so. Shan tasted the atmosphere with a whip of his elastic tongue. He could taste a hint of burning flame oil, scorched overworlder and panic scent. His tiny earpockets suddenly registered a clattering of exploding wood splinters and metallic ringing. The trouble was almost here.

Zanc'Tul climbed onto the top of several supply boxes, and ordered Shan and his snapper fellows to brace the heavy door. If the intruders breach the locking mechanism, they would snapper charge them, with the Shaman clutch providing mindfear and skinboil support from the rear. Shan set himself up behind three of his clutch. The locking mechanism was being tampered with from the other side. The clutch was restless, they knew trouble was here. They started chanting the clutches warsong, rasping and rythmic, the snappers swayed at the doorway, claws and teeth exposed and baying for overworlder blood.

The door opened with a swift jolt, Shan and his snappers looked up in surprise, these overworlders were very tall. He could see there determined eyes peering from metallic slits just above a wall of steel. Perhaps three overworlders filled the doorway. They were shouting. The snappers charged at the wall, clawing at it with a screech. Zanc'Tul was already focussing mindfear and directing it at these giant intruders. Arrows were whistling past Shan's head, and he saw one embed itself into the Shaman's chest, ceasing his magics, and causing him to stumble down from his box temple.

Shan launched himself forward with two other snappers trying to replace the fallen ones at the door line. His claws set, his mind focussed on the kill, he would rip their legs away from them, for his clutch's fallen. His Koboldian instincts were in full flow, time to tear overworlder flesh. An arrow found his skull and split it apart with ease. His leathery body, folded into a limp mass, landing on top of two snapper kobolds already slain. His blood oozed into a single pool of reptilian death, that stained the boots of these overworlders, as they ungracefully advanced forward. Smearing Shan and his snapper squad across the warren floor.

Three abreast, the shield wall had been a success for most door breaches. With steel locked against steel, man aside man. Jarrik, Karitas and Balak stood their ground against the kobold horde. They inched themselves forward, every other moment, lowering the protective shield to swipe downwards and slay lizard after lizard in front of them. Karitas hollered "hold the line!". Balak grunted, as a Shamanic spell of fear attempted to seize his mind, he shook it off, gritting his teeth and bearing his shield stronger. Fayde, a bowmaiden, was letting loose arrows bewteen the walled mens heads. Accuracy was key. She spotted the Shaman's, registering each one, before delivering arrow after arrow to break their spells and take them down. Jarrik shouted "Advance!" as he co-ordinated a shielded shuffle forward, trampling lizards underfoot. Locking their shields tighter, to prevent the hordes slashing claws from getting through. Fire, stone and spell was having a hard time seeping through this sheet steel fortress. Jarrik turned his head and smiled at Karitas, Balak grimaced and winked at them both. Karitas nodded, and took great pleasure in shouting "Break and Charge!!!". The mighty wall peeled away, three shields seperating, and launching into the remaining kobolds. Shield bashing their way forward the three men ran full pelt at the pockets of kobolds whelping at such a sight. The bowmaiden stepping through the door, screamed "FOR THE VALENAR!", fizzing arrows left, right and center, picking off the shamans and their wounded. Jarrik sweeping kobolds off their feet with his uppercuts. Karitas freezing them where they stood, with his sword "Ice". Balak, slamming his shield against them with such force that their stunned skulls fractured and caved in.

The intruders have indeed arrived, and theres no stopping them.

Generation Kill

My current obsession being combat in the gulf, inspired by the release of Battlefield 2: Modern Combat on the 360, and further inflated by the DVD season set of the series 'Over There', has landed me deep in the pages of the book 'Generation Kill' by Evan Wright. Where a reporter is embedded in a First Recon company, and he gives a vivid and honest account of the Marines and the situations they are faced with.

I must say, I expected something like the Jarhead book. However, its more personal and factual, this is "Band of Brothers" stuff for the current generation. I can't put it down, once I start reading. Highly Recommended if you are fascinated by the dilemmas faced by modern combat troops and their human interactions whilst under such duress.

DDO Rant

I think DDO was originally designed to the roleplayer, not the MMO player. However Turbine seem happy enough to take MMO players money, and pretend they're the same sort of game. It just becomes glaringly obvious after the current content is burned up that perhaps DDO isn't the same as WoW. This Dragon Vault expansion has been slotted in to keep hold of the MMO player.. shiny new loot (some bind on equip ffs!), big raid style quest.

I think they're playing a dangerous game, because there isn't enough proper roleplay functionality in the game, and there isn't enough content for your MMO player, and they're trying to appeal to both camps. They certainly can't cut the mustard compared with the amount of content on offer in WoW. I think they should drop the pretence and forge ahead as a true real time PnP experience.

Theres hardly any solo game in DDO. Its all about the group. A good roleplay group can enjoy the storied content and develop and enjoy their own characterisations in DDO. A well organised pick up group of MMO players can blitz through the same content in a fraction of the time. They can do the XP gain thing, be hurtling through the objectives and performing a loot trawl over and over again. If you blitz the content, it is quite easy to get to the end game. That doesn't mean the content isn't well designed if played through properly, it just means theres no mechanisms in place to prevent your average progression hungry MMO player from bolting it all down.

The only mechanism in place is a reduction in the quest completion XP gained for repetition of the quest. However, each quest has three difficulty settings, normal, hard and elite, which means each quest can be repeated at least 4 or 5 times at each difficulty level before the XP reduction makes it not worthwhile. XP gathering field day for your MMO player.

Lost Planet DEMO

A bunch of E3 trailers and a couple of demos turned up on Xbox Live Marketplace last night, including the Lost Planet demo. So I grabbed it as quick as I could... fell asleep on the couch.. finished the download in the morning.



Based on the 4 minutes play I managed to eek out this morning, I must say I like it. Its a 3rd person shooter, with some really nice graphics, crumbling snow underfoot as you yomp across a frozen wasteland, ectoplasmic slosh spilling out of bug hatching pods as you pump shotgun shells into them, big leggy bugs flailing their spiny legs at you as you weave around them and spray their bellies with bullets. Just looks brilliant.

I wandered into an underground car park swarming with bugs and hatching pods everywhere. Lots of explosive barrels and abandoned vehicles to use as splash damage shrapnel, lots of beautiful looking explosions to trigger, punctuated with bug offal flying and spurting around. This is a lone starship trooper out to slay the alien bug horde with a decent arsenal of killing tools. Machine guns, shotguns, grenades and even some Mechs.

In the car park, there was some turret shaped device that had to be activated, by pumping the B button, and I was in the middle of cutting down swathes of crawlers whilst pumping this device, when I had to power down this other world and and shoot off to work.

I'd say its a great action bug splatterer, with graphics to die for. Looking forward to getting home this evening and nailing me some more insectoid menace.