The Meta Game (The Cutting of Cookies)

The Meta Game is the definitive strategy, build or method that people use in a game in order to achieve maximised potential and exceed at the game. These "Cookie Cutter" strict builds are used by players in order to achieve maximum damage, healing, defence, or wins.
Of course, this blog wouldn't be called the Annoying Truth if I was praising Cookie Cutter builds. Oh no... I am going to talk about why the Meta Game is fucking boring!

Now I'm gonna start off by saying that it's not cookie cutter builds that piss me off. I follow a few in order to output a large amount of damage or in order to get a good build order in the start of a SC2 game. What pisses me off, is when people follow them to the fucking point.

Like, why would you follow someone else's build for a champion in LoL that works for THEM. Like sure, you can use the same masteries and runes, but you need to revolve your game play around the game at the time. Like you wouldn't follow his guide that was full of magic resist, against a team of fighter classes. 

Then you get the people, who are just boring and use the same, linear strategy all the damn time. I see this particularly in Terran players in Starcraft 2. They will go either Mass Marines, or Marauder/Marine/Siege-Tank combos. It gets so boring for me, when I'm playing Protoss or Zerg, and they've done standard wall off, standard build order and standard unit composition. Guaranteed, if I used any flying units (Mutalisks muahahaha) their pathetic, simple Terran minds would go "OMG THEY FLAY! WTF?!?!?".

It's why I like WhiteRa as a player, he doesn't follow cookie cutter builds and likes to use special strategies that surprise the enemy because of it's anti-normality. 

It's why one time when I had a MASSIVE influx of minerals, I decided to wall off my base with Hatcheries. That way I could hatch up a lot of lava, defend my base and because I was using mutalisks and Ventral Sac'd Overlords, I completely surprised him, destroying his army and base while he was trying to comprehend why a Zerg player would wall off. (I like to incorporate strategies from other races)

I also like to incorporate this odd, combination strategy into games like Guild Wars. I confuse so many people in PvP when I run in with my warrior. Start to hit them with my totem axe and suddenly start to cast fire magic spells at them. Battle-mage ftw!

Whilst everyone is spamming their GW-PvX Meta builds, I am running in head first, hitting people with my weapons and casting spells at them right in front of them. 

Concluding, there's not really much to talk about. Cookie cutter builds are fine, you can use them all you want. Just add your own fucking spin to it that makes it work for you. Otherwise you just get converted to a herd mind that blindly follow other people.

Call of Duty

Well... it was bound to happen. Call of Duty. Call. of FUCKING Duty. The SINGLE worst thing to happen to the world of video games, since Deus Ex: Invisible War.
Now let me start off by saying. Call of Duty isn't that bad a game. As a source for being a game.
It stops there. Every other thing about the game is a bloody reason for me to rage for hours on end.

First let's start with the people. Now you may have seen in a previous blog post. People suck! But the people from Call of Duty's so called "Community" are even worse.
Now I hate to categorise people, because from what I've seen categorisation of people is only done by racists, chavs, bimbos and the media. (I just realise that I have just categorised people that categorise so I guess that I fall under the media section).
These people go as follows.

1. Kids - People under the age of 13 or have the mental age of someone under 13 (Excluding child geniuses) That frequently spam mic chat, annoy you and make you wonder what kind of parent would by a game where you can literally impale someone's face with an axe. (There's an 18 rating for a reason)
2. Pros/Elitists - You usually get the first sort on any and every game, people that are nigh-on perfect at the game, scoring 100/1 K/D, knowing all the maps like the back of their hand and not letting you be five seconds into the game without killing you again. Then you get the second sort, people that aren't usually that good, yet yell at their entire team for doing badly, when it's usually them that are doing worst.
3. Chavs - From my experience, nearly every person that I have seen in my area that greats people by saying "OI BRUV!", wears the waistband of their jogging bottoms around their knees and tends to walk with a bopping motion. These people piss me off the most, they tend to be like the elitists of real life. Apparently if you play any game other than Call of Duty, then you are sad. And if you haven't reached Prestige "X" and don't play religiously, then you are inferior or shite at the game. I have lived in England too long to even consider these sort of people "People".
4. Fanboys - Usually comprise of all 3 of the above. These people will literally throw their lives away at the game, and defend the game's franchise and the people who make or publish it to the ends of the Earth, I usually treat these people in the same way I do Religious Fundamentalists. Saying what they do is bull-shit, disprove their arguement by literally steamrolling what they have come to worship and then slam my door in their face. Damn JeCodvah's Witnesses. -_-

Then you have the fact that a Call of Duty game is released annually, hell sometimes a new CoD game is announced mere months after the previous one was brought out. So all the things you did in the past CoD game doesn't count for shit.
Now this may be just me, but I like growing up my account in a game, and I love keeping the account saying "Hey, I've gotten to "X" level with "X" achievements." I feel fulfilled by doing so, and hence that keeps me playing. This is why I don't play any other MOBA game than League of Legends, this is why I only play one MMO at any one time, this is why I spend BIG chuncks of time on one toon rather than jumping from character to character.

It seems that this is what Call of Duty players see in it.
Mindless Zombie 1: "HAI GUYZ! I GOT FINAL LEVEL OV 10TH PRESTIGE!!111!!oneone!!!1"
Mindless Zombie 2: "LOOOOL NOOOB! THAT OLD GAME! I GOT THAT IN NEW GAME JUST NOW!"
Mindless Zombie 3: "LOOL! UR ALL TOOAL NOOOOBS! I GOT THAT ONE FIRST DAY IN NEW GAME AND I HAVE EVERY TROPHY ON PSN AND ALL 1000 GAMERSCORE ON XBOX!"
Mindless Zombie 4: "BOOBIES!"
Mindless Zombie 5: "MAP PACK COMING OUT TOMORROW! JIZZZZ TAKE MAH MONEHZ!"
Normal Person 1: "I don't know why you guys are talking like this, I prefer playing Battlefield considering it doesn't release a new game every year and doesn't try to milk it's fanba...."
Mindless Zombies: "NOOOOOOOOB GTFO!"

Every bloody year we get a new one of these things, with 5 map packs each year that all seem to cost a ton, on top of the damn game. What's worse is, as soon as the new game comes out, the players don't even acknowledge the old game. Normally this wouldn't be a problem. However...

This is my BIG MASSIVE FUCKING PROBLEM about Call of Duty games. A new game comes out every year, made by two different companies. So each company has 2 years to come up with a new Call of Duty game. You'd think they would add something game breaking and innovative in this time?
HELL NO! They add new kill-streaks, a few new maps and another shitty, movie-like campaign.

Mindless Zombie 1: "BUT ZAMROS! THESE ARE NEW THINGS!"

NO THEY FUCKING AREN'T! New things are something that is completely new and gamebreaking, when I saw that character customisation was in a Call of Duty game (I can't remember which) I thought, "Hey cool, they're actually adding something kind of new" but that was it apprently.
Call of Duty releases, fundamentally the same god-damn, shite covered, linear, aweful game every goddamn year.

Hell, even the bloody textures and graphics in MW3 are the same as MW2! A game that came out 2 years ago! I thought that Infinity Ward must have a decent art department considering that they are funded by Activision (Fucking) Blizzard. They might do, but they must be the laziest excuse for game artists I ever knew!

Long story short. Don't buy CoD. Let it die.
And to all the people that play Call of Duty:
"Go back to Runescape, you were much less annoying with your doinky swords than your doinky guns!"

P.S.
Dear Santa.

A lot of people ask for material posessions for Christmas.
But I don't.
I just want one thing for Christmas.
One thing that will make the world better for everyone, not just me.
Can you please give anyone that plays Call of Duty religiously and the Infinity Ward offices the gift of a FUCKING BOMB!

All my love:
Zamros....

Realistic Games

I can't believe the amount of people nowadays that use the term "unrealistic" when criticising a game.
I remember when back in the day, Deus Ex and Golden Eye's blocky graphics were considered revolutionary and realistic graphics. I look at Deus Ex now and squint every time I see their facial movements.
But when I talk about realistic games, I don't mean realistic graphics, because apparently graphics are what make games nowadays. If this were the case, Battlefield would be the fucking best game of all time, with it's high-tech beauty and fucking awful, hand-holding, on-rails shite-hole of a campaign.

No.

When I speak of realistic games, I talk about games that you can do in real fucking life.

This is why I could never understand sports games, or racing games, or Simulation games or even to a lesser extent, most modern shooter games.

If I wanted to kick a fucking ball, I wouldn't drool at a screen whilst pressing the circle button on my PS3 game-pad  and occasionally even the triangle button to try and score a goal. I would grab a football from my back garden, grab some friends and go to the park to have a kick about.

If I wanted to watch men kick a ball, I would watch a football game on the telly, or buy some tickets to a match.

That is simple FREE entertainment. I don't get why people play a sports game, when you could easily have 10 times as much fun doing it for real, even if you have the skill level of retarded monkey faeces. 

You could argue that you have more fun playing a football game than watching one. This can sometimes be true, however, there is a lot more excitement behind every goal. You are not in control of your favourite players and you are watching people completely alien to you succeed or fail.

It's the uncertainty and the excitement that makes it more enjoyable, not pressing the fucking triangle button.

Then you have driving games. Unless you have the driving simulators in some arcades that throw you around when you spin out, then driving games are just dull, pointless wastes of time. (I speak of course about the ones where you just drive around a boring set track, when you throw interesting stuff in then that's ok). Once again, you can do this in real life. Last time I remember, Silverstone hosts an open day every weekend, where you can take your own car and race it around a track against other people. Is it really so fucking hard to find one of those, there are like 5 in my local area, one being an off-road one. You could also go Go-Karting, or Quad-Biking or some other third thing. Yes, you could agree that these are too expensive, but I find it so much more satisfying to overtake someone in real life and feel smug about yourself, than overtake a computer AI or an on-line player. 

THEN. You have The Sims. What kind of fucking pathetic prick thought of this game. It's a LIFE SIMULATOR! You know what you do in that game? You live! Why the fuck do I want to play a computer game where I have to pay taxes, or go to work, or do homework or break up with my girlfriend. I HAVE TO DO THAT SHIT IN REAL LIFE! What kind of fuckface, thinks that I want to play a simulator of the same, boring, degrading shit that makes my life a misery?

But I digress. You can find some good simulator games. Like....

....

....

Fuck it, simulator games can die in a sodding hole.

PANDAZ! :D

PSA: I AM RESUBSCRIBING TO WOW! THIS NEW EXPANSION LOOKS AMAZING AND I CAN'T WAIT TO GET BACK INTO IT!!!!!

I kid of course. This expansion has completely solidified my view that WoW is coming to an end.

I will now explain it in long, angry detail.

First of all, let me say. I am not just somebody trolling WoW for the sake of trolling. I have indeed played WoW before and I do know what I am talking about. I played World of Warcraft all the way from Naxxramas 1.0 (The original, hard version) right through to the Cataclysm beta. I had fun all the way through, despite getting bored numerous times during Wrath of the Lich King due to having 1 raid per tier and scarce content patches.

But in the end, World of Warcraft is a roller coaster. I road the same roller coaster for 4-5 sodding years. And what happens if you have too much of a good thing? You get bored of the good thing. I got bored of WoW, one day I realised that I have had my fun with it and in the end, nothing that Blizzard brings into the game will change it a significant amount for me to return.

I still followed the game out of sheer interest and to see if it will provide anything of worth for ex-subscribers to return... then the new expansion came out.

Now let's just get one thing out of the way. Pandaren came into the Warcraft Universe as a fucking APRIL FOOL'S DAY JOKE! They were designed by Samwise Didier as a joke, and they were put into Warcraft III as an Easter Egg. They were never meant to be a massive part of lore, more a small Easter Egg that fit into the lore slightly. 

I wouldn't mind if Pandaria was maybe a zone in an expansion that brought in many more. But an entire fucking expansion centred around freaking Kung Fu Pandas? 

I dunno man, it seems as though Blizzard are Panda'ring to their drooling fan-boys. 

They lose almost 1 million subscribers within 9 months. That's a MASSIVE chunk, even out of 12 million subscribers. So what to Blizzard think? Hmm let's take the seriousness out of World of Warcraft, add nothing new and innovative and add Pandas and Pokemanz! (Oh yeah, they're adding a Pokemon style mini-game)

I really don't know what Blizzard was thinking with this new expansion. Maybe it's a ploy to bring more kids and squealing furries to the game. Maybe it's a way of scaring away it's subscribers and towards Diablo 3 or their upcoming TITAN game. (Not that that would make sense considering that they just added the annual pass). But I seriously hope, that this was all a MASSIVE joke by Blizzard, considering they haven't even showcased the big bad guy of this expansion, and in Blizzcon 2012, Metzen flips the bird to the fanboys out there and says "SUCK IT FURRIES! YOU'RE NOT GETTING FUCKING PANDAS!"

But I digress. This has proven that Blizzard has gone completely insane after seeing the drop in subscribers on World of Warcraft. I will no longer maintain any respect for the franchise unless they completely change their outlook.

And I hope to the almighty big beardy bloke in the sky, that this attitude isn't transposed onto Starcraft II (One of my favourite games at the moment), Titan (Which isn't even out yet) and Diablo III (Which I hold MASSIVE anticipation for, despite it's lack of modding and Single Player).

I can now say "Goodbye WoW! We've had our good times and our bad... But, I've been cheating on you with Guild Wars and I now hold a love for her daughter Guild Wars 2 that I hope to turn into an amazing spectacle of an MMO. That what you used to be... I am leaving you and I'm taking the car."

The Fall-backs of PC Gaming

So I have been having quite big problems recently when it comes to gaming.
Recently I have found that quite a few games I have wanted to play have been quite hard on my computer and some I haven't even been able to play.

For example, I remember installing my pre-ordered Deus-Ex: Human Revolution after months and months of excitable waiting. I got into the menu and was just in awe by all of it, I then clicked play and it went through the opening cut-scene. It was perfect and I was surprised my computer could run it so smoothly... then it happened.
It went into the game and my game suddenly dropped to 0.5FPS! I didn't even know that was possible!
I get bad FPS with a lot of games, I get around 15 FPS on most games and have gotten used to that horror, but this was just bad. I think the highest FPS I have had was a stable 60 when playing the original Deus-Ex, but I get  around 10 on games like Terraria.
What the bloody fuck.

Now I will admit here, I am on a pretty crappy computer. A laptop infact. But this is just bad, bad, bad.
I remember when I got it, I ran games really well, only getting lag every now and then on TF2. But now it is degraded to crap.

And it's not just to do with games, I have a 64GB hard-drive that can barely hold anything on, I even had to uninstall Portal the other day to make room to put my Falling in Reverse album on iTunes.
And don't even get me started on Windows Vista.

Then I get to the games I can't even fucking start up. I remember so many games in the past I have excitably bought to find out my computer can't run it, even though my PC specs were higher than the recommended specs. Games like Magicka and Amnesia which haven't exactly got high-end graphics.

And then you get the computer just having a random tech-fart. Like what's been happening to me for a while now. I currently can't play one of my favourite games (League of Legends) due to the client fucking breaking down just after champion select. And this only happened recently, it worked fine till a few weeks ago!

Now don't get me wrong, this isn't a rant about PC gaming... well it is, but it kind of isn't. I am a PC gamer to the core, I tried playing console games but in the end I have found PC the ideal. I still do play console games from time to time, but I prefer PC games when it comes right down to it.

My problem is that I have to shell out quite a bit of money in order to be able to play the games I like well. Now don't get me wrong, I have been trying this for a while now. But I am probably £500 off actually getting a new PC and there is no way that's going to happen soon. I have tried for a while to get a job, for months. But every one I have applied to has turned me down after weeks of waiting. Hell, I can't even sponge any money from the 2 bloody people that read this blog, because I need to be 18 to use ad-sense and PayPal!

Guh... all I'm saying is it's gonna' be a long time before I can play my favourite games at a good standard... or even at all.

P.S. First world problems! WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! :P

Drunk Gaming

Once again I have accidentally left this blog to rot but after getting wankered at a party last night I felt the need to express this topic.

Drunk gaming. It is the ideal of playing games while intoxicated (Unless you count playing Audiosurf while high).
It can be one of the funniest things you ever do...
Oh not for you, for the people you play it with.

Let's take a little anecdote here. I went to a friends house a few months ago and she lives just round the corner from an off-licence, my other friend just happens to have.... "ID" so we had no problem getting booze. We got smashed and after staggering home I realised I had left my laptop on, I mashed the mouse button until Mumble opened and realised that my good friends Astindan and PenguinGeneral were on at the time.
Now like any drunk call, you have to make an entrance. I held down my V-key and screamed "HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" into my microphone. I can distinctly remember at this point Penguin saying his signature "Oh god..." line. I asked what they were playing, quite loudly and hopped onto the minecraft server that they were on. Now here's when things started to go fuzzy (Quite inconvenient that it happened at this point eh?)

When I asked Astindan and Penguin to recap. They told me of how I thought my chimney in minecraft was my door (I was in a house that had a vertical entrance/exit) and they convinced me to jump to a fiery demise. And also of how I refused to leave Penguin's house, lying down in his bed and when he destroyed it, dug a hole and covered it over.
Come to think of it. I've had much better drinking stories. But as this is a gaming-centred blog, I won't discuss that.

I guess the point I'm getting to is that when people talk about "The Ideal" of gaming. They rage for hours about how which console is superior, what controllers to use and how "HUR DUR MY GAME BETTER THAN YOUR GAME DUR!". But in the end, it doesn't matter what game you play. Or what console. Or even with who. If everyone played video games while absolutely shit-faced, then it makes any game 10 times better. (Using the ratio of 1 beer : 1 time as good).

P.S. The majority of this blog post was written two weeks ago, but I wanted to get it out because I don't like leaving articles to wallow for too long. And if I didn't post it, I probably never would.

Skarner, The Crystal Failure

League of Legends is one of my favourite games on the net at the moment.

It's fun, it's free and it packs in a whole bunch of updates frequently. Why waste £10 a month on a game like WoW, in hope of getting a new raid at the end of the season. (And of course, after months of playing one raid, of all the development time they have, only one raid is released).

League of Legends releases frequent balance changes, weekly community "Summoner Spotlights" on Riot Games' Youtube channel, new skins every 2-10 days and Riot (bless there hearts) is finally releasing a new map soon, that features a whole new game style! And I couldn't be more excited!

Except... there's one more thing they release. Every fortnight, a new champion is released into the game. Now of course, this isn't a bad thing. New champions are very good! They keep Summoners on their toes, to learn the new mechanics of said champions, can sometimes change the style of game you play and provides a fresh sight to the same old map you see day-in day-out.

But... one bone to pick I have with new champions, is the same bone to pick I have with League of Legends itself. And the majority of the DotA/MOBA-style-games out there to be fairly honest. It's the players.

Oh yes. The bloody players.

Wowcrendor shows in his video the sheer stupidity, bad attitude and fucking shit-headedness of most players in League of Legends. 

(Disclaimer: Before someone suggests I play HoN, Heroes of Newearth has possibly a worse community than LoL. And I think that HoN should be a sponge that soaks up all the players mentioned above. That way it could actually do something for the DotA player base. No offence to those of you that play HoN that are actually good at the game).

Now I want to draw attention to the one that picks Skarner. This happens every two weeks, in the weekly champion cycle after a new champion is released in my experience. Every single twat that logs in then sees a new champion, and this isn't directed at Skarner, this happens with EVERY new champion. 

They say "OOOOOH NEW CHAMPION! SHINY!". Now what makes Skarner unique is that he is a scorpion. A crystal scorpion. Which increases the shine level of the champion by +9000 (You try and think of a random number). These dicks think "OOOOOH! SCORPION COOL! I COOL!". They will then either flock to the store to buy it either with spammed IP or purchased RP, or use the free cycle and join any game possible with  Skarner. They have only had the champion for less than a minute, not researching what he does or is, not having adequate runes/masteries, and not looking into how to build him well.

Now on the other side of the Atlantic (Yes I play on US servers, as do most of my friends) I decide I fancy a game of League. I hop onto it and choose one of my built champions that I have experienced and sure enough, I run into the Summoner playing Skarner in a random picked team. Now I don't usually play random teams because I can't stand playing with people I don't know, that are usually idiotic pricks. 

I see this guy's name is GolumPWNZ1337 (Says it all really) and he picks Skarner. I prepare for the worst.

Of course the game goes terrible and this guy goes all the way through acting like he is the dog's fucking bollocks and the rest of us are a piece of shite. Without acknowledging that he has a lower Kill/Assists and higher deaths than I do.

Now my suggestion isn't that people shouldn't play new champions. New champions are great! And if I played LoL more, I could probably afford to buy new champions when they come out. But if you do want to play a new champion, then please for the love of god just look at a bloody build guide so you at least know how to play the guy properly.

I am Zamros, and this made me feel better.

Suing

Oh suing. We hardly knew ye'!
This post is mainly being invoked by a certain "B" suing a certain "N" for a certain trademark of "S". But we'll get to that later.

Suing! The act of finding small fault in something, and taking it to court for a large sum of cash! Yes, my friends. The great art of suing has returned to the world! Not that it ever left really... All over the world, particularly in a land called America (Disclaimer: I shall leave all jokes about America aside in this blog post because they have a culture of suing), this noble act is practised by the dozen every day.
Of course if you are reading this, you don't care about real problems, like single mothers, damages, life-threatening conditions and all that junk. You want to know the juicy stuff about game developers and publishers suing other game developers and publishers for X amount for reason 1-a trillion.

This mainly came to my attention when W. Axl Rose sued Activision for misuse of the Guns n' Roses anthem "Welcome to the Jungle" on the game Guitar Hero III. Now, of course Axl Rose is a very controversial person indeed. I have my opinions of him but in this case I shall keep them to myself as despite his various negatives, he remains to this day a very talented singer, pianist, musician and performer. The main focus on this lawsuit was the use of Slash (or a Slash-like character) in the game. Of course most people will know of the feud between the two, but I shall leave that aside. This ludicrous reason led Axl to sue Activision for $20million! Now I am not one to really call myself an expert. I am a teenager from England and in my area lawyers and policemen alike are hated with a passion. God I love London. But all personal issues aside, what the FUCK? I have no idea what the American legal system is like, but how can he sue this company for a bloody image of a former band mate, who I might add co-wrote the song? Believe me, it pains me to defend a company like Activision but I see no legal ramifications in suing someone for an image nonetheless! It's like delving into every video on the net of Guns n' Roses playing live with the original line up and replacing the images of his former band mates! Come to think of it.... If that were possible, I would hijack my good friends at Gamesbyte and doctor good ol' Indy's segments to make him sound more like Wulff ;)
...I see I've gone completely off track now so I will move onto what brought up this wonderful topic.

It seems Bethesda (Or specifically Bethesda's lawyers) have decided to sue Notch for a pending trademark of the name "Scrolls" for an upcoming video games of Notch's, because of the word's use in Bethesda's famous "The Elder Scrolls" series. Now, I'm no expert in the subject. I should probably find an American to talk about this. Shit I did it again... Yes. Congratulations Bethesda's lawyers! Join Axl Rose and Tim Langdell in the esteemed "Hall of Lawsuits that make no fucking sense"! Es mierda de torro!
So take this instance for example. I am an indie developer called Scotch. I have made a successful sphere-based farming simulator called DigMake that has sold over 3million copies and is still in beta. I decide that not all my creative talents have been used in DigMake and wish to expand my horizons. I decide to make a Strategy game with elements of a book-game called Find Freddie and a popular corrigated card game called Ju-Bi-Moh! (I'm running out of ideas, shut up) I name the game "The" because its a snappy name that everyone would know. But noooo! A company that makes excellent games' lawyers decide to send me a 15 page statement telling me to change the name of the game, because they have a 3 word trademark for a game series, that is nothing like the game I am planning, and "The" is a word used in it.

It might just be me, but I find it ridiculous that Bethesda's lawyers are doing this and like most of the gaming community, will support Notch through this. I also hope that Bethesda call their lawyers out on this ludicrous lawsuit and hope to see Scrolls (Or whatever it shall be called) in the future. But that's just my opinion on the matter of course.

I am Zamros, and this made me feel better.

The Diablo III "Real Money" Auction House

Now, this is a controversial subject to say the least... That's why I can't wait to discuss it!

This "Real Money" Auction House in Diablo III has been hyped to all hell recently, since it was announced by Blizzard during the Diablo III press conference.
To summarise, Blizzard announced that like their popular MMORPG World of Warcraft, Diablo III will have an Auction House system featured in it.
But unlike WoW, Diablo III will have not one, but TWO auction houses. One will be solidly built around an in-game gold economy, whilst the other will be able to sell the same things, plus gold for real money.
That is correct, Blizzard are going to implement and support a way of selling gold and items in Diablo III, thus legalising what is currently illegal in WoW and many other MMOs.

Of course, all over the net, people are up in arms about this. Angrily saying things like "Blizzard are cash-grabbing nonces", "This is just going to support chinese gold farmers" and ":OOOOOO MMMMMMOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEHHHHHZZZZZZ!?!??!?111?".
Usually, I will have a very strong opinion on one side of an arguement. But with this, I am uncertain about what my opinion is on this matter.

Of course I'm going to start with the negatives. I'm British, my whole world is based around negatives. There are places, particularly in China, where people are employed (or sometimes forced) to play video games for extensive periods of time, farming gold and items, and selling them for real-life currency. Earning themselves the name "Gold Farmers". This auction house system is going to provide an easier way for these people to sell their items and gold for money, effectively some people could say (and some people already have) that Blizzard are supporting these offices, and even sweatshops or prisons that will be used to farm and sell the in-game gold.
This could cause a huge upset to the economy. You will either have gold-farmers that post their auctions for extremely low prices, which will not only stop legitimate players from selling their hard-earned items; but will also make players on the other side buy them even more because of the low prices. Kind of like how supermarkets undercut eachother's prices in real life.
Or you could find the overzealous farmer, that tries to play the auction house like most players, and will post his items for the normal price (or just a bit lower) to make a bit more money than posting it lower.
However, Blizzard have indeed implemented ways of stopping both. There are numerous fees that are not only legally required, but required to stop outrageously low price drops in the game's economy. Their are, to my knowledge, three fees in place.

1. A sum of money must be placed on each auction as a deposit. Like in WoW with a sum of gold, and I'm assuming the same will be in the Diablo III gold auction house.
2. A transaction fee is a legal requirement, so when one sells, Blizzard must legally charge one a sum of money on the transaction.
3. Blizzard's (Greedy Grubby Cash-Grabbing) fee. Of course, Blizzard has to make money from this, 3% of the money made from each sale goes towards Activision Blizzard.

 This means that players and gold farmers alike, must be careful when handling the real-money auction house, so as not to lose money by aggresively posting and cancelling. Because if an auction fails or is cancelled, the deposit is lost forever. And if someone posts for an obsurdley low price, they will make minimal money from it, or even make a loss!

Now in any case, no matter what Blizzard do there is going to be gold-farming in Diablo III. That is just a fact. If there is a real-money auction house, there will be a way of gold-farming in game. If there isn't, they'll set up gold sites, do it anyway and make more money from it.
Out of anything infact... the real-money auction house is oddly, not preventing gold-farming, but reducing the profit that these people that we find oh so annoying make from farming for long hours each day.

Now to get to the good stuff.
Take this imaginary man called Jeff. Jeff is 39, has a wife, kids, good job and plays Diablo III. Because of the job and family, Jeff will not have as much time to play Diablo III as the average player. So he will not be able to farm for long hours for the item he craves so much. With the real-money auction house, he can buy the item and have fun with it without all the hassle.
Now take this imaginary kid called Timothy. Timothy is 16, he's finished school, he has rich parents and as a result is very spoilt. He also plays Diablo III. Because of his rich parents, and spoilt personality. He believes anything he wants he can buy. Now this may be true, but this will come to an extent. He will be seen in whatever town he is in walking around in his shiny gear and might even brag of how easily he obtained it. Now Jeff approaches him because he and his friends plan on running an instance and need a Demon Hunter for the group (The class that Timothy plays). Timothy readily agrees to join their group but they find out quickly that he is not as skilled as his gear says he is. He is indeed, a whiney scrub in purples (WoW reference). The instantly kick him out of the group and find someone else. He undergoes the same fate with every other group he tries to get into.
Finally, there is one last imaginary character called David. David is 25, unemployed and plays Diablo III. Because of the current state of the economy in the real world, David finds it hard to find a job. So he spends long hours playing Diablo III. He aquires alot of stuff that wouldn't do him squat in real life, and he finds little use for in the game. So he posts it on the auction house. Eventually, he becomes well-inclined as to the inner workings of this in-game economy with real money. And manages to make himself money from it. Admitedly the money is small compared to what he could make from a job. But what money would he make otherwise?

The real money auction house could not only be a curse on the game, but a blessing as well. Yes it allows easier access for gold-farmers. Yes people with lots of money can easily buy items with minimal effort. But it can also provide a bit of funding towards true players of the game.
If you have a problem with the auction house, you have 2 options. Either buy the game and don't use it, or attempt to boycott the games release.

I am still unsure about what I think about the auction house but I know I am still going to play the game and seek any enjoyment I can from it.

Anyway, that was just my opinion on the matter. The auction house is a controversial concept, and I will continue to discuss it as I find out more about it. I will also be following Markco's new gold guide to see his opinions on the matter and any updates about the subject.

I am Zamros, and this made me feel better.

Imitation

Imitation is one of the things in games that sickens me.
Whether it be the people, some content or even the game itself; it is one of the most stupid and irritating things I can ever come to talk about.

1. The Game - To start off with let's discuss games that copy another. Or "Clones" as they are colloquially called. Games like Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing, RIFT, H.A.V.E. and that Godaweful FortressCraft are praised for pretty much reskinning (Sometimes only slightly) an already amazing game, and the majority of the time making it much worse! And what makes it worse is these blind, stupid people, that say the most stupid things like "Dur imitation is the greatest form of flattery!" IT BLOODY WELL ISN'T! It is taking something and copying it to exact whilst changing minor things, because the developer can't think of anything freaking original! It disgusts me when people call a downright plagiarised game; better or of equal quality to the original! In the end Sonic and Sega Racing is just a copy of Mario Kart featuring sega characters but added "shortcuts" and changing almost nothing! RIFT is just a darker version of World of Warcraft, they even say "We're not in Azeroth anymore". H.A.V.E. is a cutesified Korean Team Fortress 2. And that FortressCraft game, I found it funny when people said "FortressCraft is nothing like Minecraft! It innovated stuff like jetpacks, guns and creepers!" HA! Those aren't innovations! Those are just taking things from other games and putting them in Minecraft! There are Minecraft mods that have done that! At least when Notch "Cloned" Infiniminer he added stuff that made the game completely different! STOP COPYING STUFF AND GET SOME ORIGINALITY!
2. People - Now this is something you don't just see in games. Pathetic Wanna-be's that have no personality of there own copy someone else in hope of being as great as them. I will confess, I have my inspirations in gaming and life, but never, EVER would I copy them to exacts, all they do is inspire me to do as I do. This is particularly prominent in the Video Making "Community" in people like HybridPanda, a glorified idiot that thinks he knows what he is talking about and insults people that say other wise, in some cases the people that he copies!
3. Content - Well content I can mercifully let slide. But it all depends on the amount of content they copy. For example, if they copy aspects of it, or as Blizzard so delicately put it "Borrow" aspects from other games, they can improve the game for the better. Rather than make the game revolve around it and define the game. For examples when Notch took the block and mining system from Infiniminer, that wasn't taking the whole game. Infact, more of Minecraft is revolved around survival and building. But when you take an entire games coding to the exacts, reskin it to make it look "pretty" and add stuff that you think is "cool" and making money off it? That is just horrible and in my honest opinion is just an atrocity towards the maker's creation.

All in all this somes up my opinion on the matter. Imitation is not the biggest form of flattery, it is plagiarism, which to my knowledge is outlawed in some countries.

I am Zamros and this moan has made me feel better.