I HAS PC

Unconfirmed rumours from a reputable source about Blizzards Cataclysm expansion.

I would probably buy it and try it. I have complained about not using the world of Azeroth before - 80 levels shuttled into a handful of instances for the end game.

Those rumours, if true, are a brilliant move by Blizzard. That is what I would call an expansion.

Of course, bonus points if they let me into their content.

A little bit of frustration is settling in with Blood Bowl my past handful of matches. No, not the gameplay (which can be punishing) No, not the randomness (which I love) – but Yes, the weak network programming.

BB keeps a “reliability rating” with your account. Basically it is a percentage based score of matches played vs matches completed. My first 17 games I had a rating of 100% and proud of it. Players who challenged me knew I would stick through to the end no matter how poorly, or how brutal, the game was going.

It is now down below 80% – none of which I have control over. Since the last patch I have been getting funky network sync errors and random disconnects. Strange, and very frustrating.

Final frustrations after the jump…

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I have been getting an inordinate amount of spam from Russia, written in Russian. Anyone else noticing this?

Sadly, I deleted them all before running a google translate, but I’ll be sure to remember to fix that when I get another stack.

Online play is pretty spectacular in Blood Bowl. No, not the interface or lobby (needs a lot of work) or the random connection errors (before starting matches – I haven’t had it happen during a match) and the matchfinding needs work too. It updates slow. After a little nudge from Syncaine from Hardcore Casual (the only other blogger I read lately who is playing BB) in the online space, I learned a few lessons.

• The Campaign AI sucks
• Online Players are typically good
• Community is typically fun to play with
• Randomness is specatular – moreso than I blogged about last time with Blood Bowl

A few neat things happened when I started playing online. I’ll share them with you after the bump.

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You know those secret forum trolls. Tough guys n gals hiding behind their keyboards and dimly lit screens in their mom’s basement causing grief. A stock of Jolt and Yoohoos at their side, grinning away as they reply with racial/homosexual slander ruining the experience for all the “regular” folk. We need to protect those rights! Of course, what if that grief online, turns into real life grief? What if – and a big if – that basement dwelling comic book guy stereotype is true, and turns into so much more than a few words on a message board? Where is the line drawn – when protecting our right to privacy also protects criminal activity?

Slippery slopes after the jump.

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One thing I loved about the Star Wars pen and paper game was the concept of the ‘red’ dice. SW was played with all d6 – and on your rolls you always had to had an off colored dice. That dice was the “special” dice. We called it the fate dice. It may have officially have been called the ‘Force’ dice. I’m not sure. Its been 15 years. The crux of it? You rolled real bad on that dice, even if you rolled all 6’s on the others, and crazy things would happen. Crazy bad. It also worked in the reverse, where a good roll – on that one dice – would make amazingly incredible things happen. Out of the ordinary. At least, that is how I remember it – and I was reminded of it while trying out Blood Bowl.

To hell with ordinary and predictable. While I can’t recommend this game to everyone, it has brought to my forefront that despite pretty graphics and neat mechanics, the predicatbility of gaming is killing me. So I kill my enemies on the Blood Bowl pitch. More chatter after the jump.

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