(Scroll below the comic to see my review.)

Dungeon Siege 2, released in 2005, is one of my favourite RPGs of all time, and I’ve been eagerly anticipating the release of its follow-up for months. While waiting for Dungeon Siege 3 to download a few days ago, I spent some time reading user reviews on Gamespot and was bemused by the many angry responses to DS3 being so different from its predecessor, released 6 years ago. After spending much time playing co-operative DS3 the past few days, I’ve formed my own opinions on this controversial action RPG.

Pros: Co-operative combat on Hardcore mode is an exciting challenge, and teammates are forced to intelligently time their abilities to be able to survive larger battles. I appreciated the simple looting and gearing system, as well as the option to customize your character by investing proficiency points in different ability trees. DS3 has a strong, intriguing storyline with vibrant characters, nice visuals, and a particularly strong musical soundtrack. The string-based compositions were just lovely.

Cons: Camera control is clunky during combat, although is fairly manageable out of combat. I originally didn’t like having to choose between 1 of 4 pre-made characters with predefined appearances, however, due to the intricate storyline involving these specific personas, I can look past this issue. The inability to re-bind actions/spells on the keyboard is probably my biggest gripe regarding the game.

TLDR; Dungeon Siege 3 is a decent, yet flawed action RPG. While its game-play mechanics aren’t groundbreaking, I was pleasantly surprised at the tactical element of combat in Hardcore mode. Abilities must used intelligently and precisely for survival, allowing DS3 to have far more depth than a typical hack n’ slash. It is unfortunate that many gamers have solely judged DS3 based on its similarities (or lack of) to a predecessor from long ago, a short-sighted judgment in my opinion (as outlined in the comic).

An action RPG isn’t necessarily synonymous with hack n’ slash.

(I’m writing this because it’s how I feel, and certainly not because I’ve been asked to write it by a third party. Of course, that’s impossible to prove, so you’ll just have to take my word that I’m not a nitwit.)

I’ve been offering remote website and writing services (aka freelancing) on Liveperson.com for about 1.5 years now. Liveperson can be described as a middleman service, which connects freelancers with clients and handles payments and invoicing for a portion of the freelancer’s earned money. As the competition is heavy and the portion taken is rather significant (more on this later), I certainly don’t make a lot of money, however, I am content that my freelancing has become a stable part-time job, and that I’ve developed a positive reputation which will no doubt assist me with future professional endeavors. Liveperson is a fair service (although not extremely well-known), and it is entirely in my hands to further develop my reputation and skillset online.

Recently, I began to look for another high-quality online service that connects freelancers with clients, to expand my professional presence. This resulted in me conducting research on three fairly popular freelancing services; Freelancer.com, Elance.com and Guru.com. All three websites receive more traffic and job postings compared to Liveperson, however, the business model of these freelance websites, in my honest opinion, completely suck and aren’t at all fair towards the freelancer.

Let me explain. These websites use a bidding system, which Liveperson does not. Freelancers compete with each other by placing bids for job postings, with the winning bidder being offered the job. Many times, the winning bid is an extremely low amount which is unreasonable for a freelancer in the western world. I don’t think this system is flawed in itself, however, what I think is complete bullshit is the fact that these freelancing websites place a limit on the number of bids freelancers can place per month, and, if they wish to place more, they must upgrade and pay for a premium monthly membership. As someone with freelancing experience, I can confidently say that a larger number of capable, professional freelancers will pay the website to increase their bidding allocation, yet will still not be able to win enough bids to even cover the cost of premium membership, let alone make a profit.

Although Liveperson does not have a bidding system, it does have a job posting board, and it’s very common to place offers for numerous jobs without being contacted back. With personal experience as my basis, I feel that any freelance website service which takes money away from the freelancer before the freelancer has earned any money is utterly bullshit; likewise, the advertisement of “free membership” is pretty bullshit as well, as in many cases, it is utterly impossible to win any job bids unless you pay for a premium membership. Trust me – with so much strong competition (especially from freelancers in certain countries who can work for very little $ per hour), it is very difficult to win bids, regardless of the freelance website you utilize.

I’m not a total numbskull and understand that freelance websites need to make money. I just don’t think that charging freelancers, before they’ve made any money off your service, is a completely ethical business model. Liveperson only charges freelancers after they have made money (for me, Liveperson takes 30% of the money that I earn for each job session). While this commissioned amount is quite steep compared to the other freelancing websites mentioned above (approx. 5-10% per job session), this 30% can be lowered to 9% by gaining client referrals. Unlike the other websites which I’ve mentioned, Liveperson places the power in the freelancer’s hands, allowing their own personal limits to dictate how successful they become at freelancing.

I’ve signed up at another freelancing website which does not have a set limit of bids per month for basic freelancer memberships. I won’t divulge the URL at the moment, however should I generate some success, I will in the future. In sum, I believe that freelance websites which take money from the freelancer by essentially forcing them into paid, premium memberships before the freelancer can earn an income, are based on a shitty, unethical business model.

A fairly big goal of mine (well, to be fair, my husband’s) right now is to get my Cleric to max level in Rift. I’m almost there, and I’ve spent a few weeks playing beta as well as release, and have developed some opinions about the surprisingly solid MMO which managed an extremely stable release on March the 1st.

Things I like; I like the fluidity of Player-vs-Player combat as well as the diverse roles which the 4 different classes can perform. Although I am not max level yet, I’ve done a fair bit of world and instanced PvP and didn’t find it to be glaringly imbalanced and stupid. I like that talents and the combining of roles (souls) within a class are not suffering from over-simplification. There are many builds viable for PvP within a class and I like the freedom available to the player to explore these builds and add their personal touches.The atmosphere, including lore, music and sound is unique and high-quality, and there are a lot of little silly things to discover, which I like.

I like that the general community is more mature than in WoW, although to be fair to Rift, I’m pretty confident the weird fungal growth that exists between my toes conducts itself with more maturity than the general WoW community¹.

Things I don’t like; I can understand not allowing addons, as I can agree that some “addons play the game for you” (for example, a huge graphic that pops up on screen which alerts you to click a certain ability RIGHT NOW). I however do not like restrictions on editing the built-in interface. While the interface is attractive, I want to be able to fully customize the shapes of UI elements. I hate that target plates are a circle attached to a rectangle. That’s aesthetically unpleasing fucking ugly. I want the option to just make the target plate into a rectangle, and  the argument that “addons play the game for you” is not applicable in this situation.

While for the most part, the user interface and game controls are intuitive, the crafting user interface needs a lot of improvement (I’m mostly referring to runecrafting, here).

In Sum; I think Rift has great potential to be an ongoing, stable presence in the MMORPG market, a feeling that I did not have with regards to Warhammer. PvP is my major interest point and although Rift will not be as PvP-centric as Warhammer, I have enjoyed the PvP alot in Rift – a lot more so than in other MMOs with PvP. I am eager to see how PvP plays out, both in the open world and instances, once I reach max level and the game grows beyond teething.

¹ I don’t actually have a weird fungal growth between my toes and I apologize for the misleading information.

The following rant will cover my feelings regarding affirmative action in the context of the GSL, or Global Starcraft League, the most popular and prestigious Starcraft 2 tournament. Although some of these facts may appear glaringly obvious by looking at my website, I would like to stress that I am a passionate Starcraft 2 fan; I am not a white male; and I do not support affirmative action in general. The most skilled person should get the job, period — not someone who is under-skilled, yet is a representation of a minority group, in hopes to diversify an organization. If two job candidates perform equally in a test to determine skill, other factors such as past work history, references, or anything tangible to determine skill and talent should be the deciding factor as to who gets the job. Not race, gender, religion or sexual preferences. (If you think that I am a flaming racist because I hold such a belief, you’re a fucking retard. Thanks.)

The GSL recently hired a new broadcaster who has in my opinion a very unprofessional and unclear broadcasting voice, with a extremely poor grasp on correct English enunciation. Also, this new caster’s game understanding and analysis is far below the level of what I expect from a top-level caster, and I feel that the organization behind the top-level GSL, GOMTV, has taken a massive step backwards and taken a shit on the development of e-sports in general with the introduction of this new vocal monstrosity. It is clear to me that superficial factors outside of skill, professionalism and knowledge allowed this female caster to land the job, and as much as I like to support e-sports and want it to grow, particularly in the west, I will not support an organization which doesn’t put professionalism first. GOMTV may have been attempting to reach out to a wider audience by hiring a “cute” (strong emphasis on quotes, here) Asian female, however, by doing so the organization is shunning mature audiences who care for clear, professional commentary and meaningful analysis so that they can ENJOY THE FUCKING STARCRAFT GAME BEING BROADCASTED.

I would like to now address several common and rather stupid, white-knight remarks which support the new broadcaster.

It’s just $10, you should buy the premium service to support e-sports anyway, even if you don’t like the new caster! – (FYI, the majority of people who watch the GSL are GOMTV’s paying customers. At the moment, it’s $10 per season for VODs and a premium live stream.) This remark is hilariously stupid. Yes, I can afford the $10 to gain access to GSL’s premium video service, however, if I feel that an organization is taking a glaring step backwards in terms of professionalism, that $10 can be better spent elsewhere. There are many other e-sport tournaments, organizations and e-sport related endeavors to support financially. Change happens within an organization when enough customers voice their opinions with their wallets.

Give her a chance to improve! The GSL observer sucked to begin with, but we gave them a chance to improve, and now they’re great. – Learning and improving how to click around a computer screen to successfully observe a Starcraft 2 match is in an entirely different field to learning proper English enunciation and developing a clear speaking voice suitable for broadcasting to English speakers, many non-native, across the world. Let me give you a hint – one of them isn’t something that can happen in a week, or a month. Paying customers of GOMTV, who have supported previous GSL tournaments, have every right to expect and request for clear, professional broadcasting, and master-level game analysis from the get-go.

People just hate on the new caster because they’re basement nerds who don’t want to see girls succeed in gaming. – I am clearly a pimply-faced basement virgin with no social skills. Idiotic cretins with this mentality are unable to comprehend that there exists many paying customers who just want to see a GOOD caster — they don’t give a shit about gender or ethnicity. They just want the broadcasting to be high quality, and they want to know that GOMTV is putting professionalism first when making decisions which affect their customers.

I want to see quality players and broadcasters succeed in Starcraft 2 e-sports, regardless of their race, gender, or number of toes. Unfortunately, GOMTV has taken a step backwards in the popularization of e-sports by hiring such a vocal monstrosity based on factors outside of skill and knowledge. I wonder how long a “cute” yet unprofessional broadcaster, with very poor analysis and English enunciation, would last in the world of physical sports, on TV in front of an English-speaking audience? Oh wait, they wouldn’t get the job.