Sorry for the lack of a post today

Stayed up all night studying for an exam, slept most of the day, then had class again in the evening.  I'll resume my normal posts tomorrow most likely.

Dungeons and Dragons

So every weekend my room mates and I currently get together and play D&D with a couple friends of ours, so I thought I'd write about our campaign so far and write more as it progresses.

To start, our current party consists of 3-5 people depending on who shows up.  We aren't the biggest of role players, so don't expect too much from character back stories.

First up, our half-dragon sorcerer.  After attacking a treant druid unprovoked, he's currently cursed and just recently finished turning into a tree.  Probably going to roll a new char or we might take pity on him and break the enchantment.

Next, our Jermlaine druid and planar shepherd.  Jermlaine are a tiny race of fey with a huge Wisdom bonus, making them great for druids.

Third, we have a Dark Human swordsage, the party scout and main damage dealer.

Finally, we have my own character, a Warforged artificer focused on buffing and utility.

We have a fifth person playing with us occasionally who's playing a bard, but she does little to add to the party aside from bard songs and hitting stuff from time to time.  Fun person to hang out with though, so not a big deal.

That's our party so far, when I get the chance to write it, expect a "Story so far" kind of post to outline the events of the campaign so far, from the attack on a fortress by a barbarian horde, to our current location of a desolate and haunted city.

Tribes: Ascend - Classes

Tribes: Ascend has nine classes in the game currently: Pathfinder, Sentinel, Infiltrator, Soldier, Raider, Technician, Juggernaut, Doombringer, and Brute.

Pathfinder:  The fastest class, great at chasing the enemy flag carrier and at grabbing the flags themselves.

Sentinel:  The sniper class.  The sniper rifles are the only primary weapons that are hit scan that I know of at least, I have not used all the weapons yet.  Great on defense for calling out and shooting the enemy flag carriers.

Infiltrator:  A stealthy class, can turn invisible for brief periods of time.  Great at wrecking havoc with the enemy defenses or destroying their generator

Soldier:  An all around class, great at defense or offense, but not being the best at either.

Raider: The class I play the most currently.  Great at destroying enemy defenses and clearing the flag stand, giving your Pathfinders room to come in and grab the flag without being killed.

Technician:  Can repair base defenses faster than anyone else and deploy turrets that will fire at any nearby enemies.  Great base defender.

Juggernaut:  Heavy offense class, has a mortar that can be used to shell the enemy flag stand and keep it clear.

Doombringer:  Heavy defense class.  Can deploy force fields and mines to kill incoming enemy Pathfinders.  Has a chain gun to spray and pray with, as well as a missile launcher to shoot air borne targets or vehicles.

Brute:  Not super familiar with this class as I haven't unlocked it, but serves somewhat as a close up Heavy Offense class with a strong spinfusor, and the area denial Disco Fractal grenades.

From time to time, I'll probably write more in depth class pages, beginning with the Raider and Doombringer as I play them the most, so look forward to those.

As always, if you're interested in trying Tribes out, it is free to play, so feel free to sign up using my referral code and hop into a match with me.  I nearly always play in public CTF games.

Oh the nostalgia

Had the opportunity to start playing Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver today after buying it.  So many memories as soon as the intro cinematic starts playing.  Thank you GoG for bringing my childhood back to me.

On a side note

Just purchased Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver from GoG today, so I'll probably be talking about that at some point as well.

What is Tribes: Ascend

On the first comment on my last post, the person said they'd never heard of Tribes: Ascend, so I thought I'd make a quick intro post just to explain the game.

Tribes: Ascend is a free to play first person shooter developed by Hi-Rez Studios to continue the legacy of the Tribes games: Starsiege: Tribes, Tribes 2, and Tribes: Vengeance.  So what makes this game different from other FPS's you might ask?  Two main factors differentiate Tribes from other games: movement and shooting.

Unlike most popular FPS's like Call of Duty or Battlefield where walking is your main transportation mode, Tribes utilizes a combination of  "skiing" and the use of a jet pack to move around the maps.  By holding the space bar in Tribes, you begin to "ski," meaning that your character becomes frictionless, allowing you to slide down slopes to gain speed and slide across flat ground.  By jet packing up slopes and skiing down them, players pick up enormous amounts of speed, where even flying across the map at 150km/hr is considered slow.

The other aspect of Tribes that makes it so different is its use of projectile weaponry over hit scan.  In many games, if you hold your cross hairs over a target and click, you get a hit.  This is hit scan, there's no projectile involved, it's just a hit if your cross hair is over them.  While Tribes maintains some hit scan weapons like the sniper rifle and shotguns, most weapons shoot projectiles that have to actually travel to their destination.  Because projectile weapons inherit some of your momentum, aiming while moving suddenly becomes much more difficult.  When chasing an enemy flag carrier while both of you are moving over 200km/hr, taking a shot that hopes to hit involves factoring in your speed, your direction, their speed, their direction, the speed of the projectile you're firing, whether or not the weapon has fall off or fires in a straight line, etc.  All of these factors make Tribes a much more skill based shooter than other games, and pure awesome when you land a crazy shot.

That's enough typing for now, but I'll probably continue this weekend with posts about the different game modes and classes so stay tuned for that.  If you're interested in playing the game, it is free to play with microtransactions to speed up the unlocks of new items so feel free to give it a shot.  Sign up at https://account.hirezstudios.com/tribesascend/?referral=1557216 if you want to use my referral code, or just drop the referral part if you don't.  In game name Ballis for anyone who already plays and wants to hop into a match with me.

Just starting this up.

I'll be posting random thoughts on whatever game I'm playing currently, mostly Tribes: Ascend for a while, so expect that.  Hopefully will get a long post out soon so stay tuned.