Overwatch duplicate drop rates drastically reduced (on the ptr)

Ever open a ton of loot boxes excited as all hell only to find that every item is just a duplicate? Welcome to loot box hell. Well, Blizzard has finally addressed the issue and the duplicate drop rates have been drastically reduced. Because duplicates give you credits (which we need for skins and or in game items) Blizzard is increasing the credits we can get from loot boxes. "We'll make sure that your credit intake will be at least the same, if not more," game director Jeff Kaplan said in the latest Developer Update video. (pc gamer)

This is great news! One of my missions for Overwatch is to eventually unlock every item in the game and getting dupes all the time was always a drag. I'm somewhere near level 350 now so I've been there, done that. These are some impressive changes but honestly it should have come a long time ago. This was something that the guys at Blizzard should have thought about and fixed somewhere near the beginning of the launch of the game. But as they say, c'est la vie. 

 There's also a new option that allows for you to permanently save your highlight videos. This all live on the ptr right now.

They're giving away 500 free codes for Malthael in Heroes of the Storm

The good folks over at pc gamer are giving away 500 free codes for Malthael in Heroes of the Storm! Malth just came out in Heroes and he's a pretty cool dps character. I've been trying to earn him the good 'ol fashion way (doing dailies and earning gold) but I'm still sitting at about 8,000 out of 15,000. I hope I win! Malth is a melee assassin that excels in damage over time (like bleed effect from warrior class in World of Warcraft). He has a passive that deals damage based on a percentage of his target's max health, which means he's a perfect tank killer but he won't be great against heroes of smaller health pools like Valeera or Valla. Send 'em your email at http://www.pcgamer.com/were-giving-away-500-codes-for-malthael-in-heroes-of-the-storm/ and see if you win, never hurts to try to win something for free, especially for one of the coolest Blizzard games.

Doomfist and Summer Games in the next patch?

So apparently there was an error log found on Battle.net forums and reddit from the latest ptr patch that references Doomfist and another Summer Games event. You can click on the picture and see that it references both. The entire Doomfist arg was kind of a blunder to me. Kind of similar to Sombra but with Sombra it was at least interesting for a little while. Doomfist has just been referenced over and over again and then there was that thing where Terry Crews was supposedly seen at Blizzard possibly voicing Doomfist. Yeah, that would be really great but nothing ever came out of all that arg hunting and Terry Crews stuff. Perhaps in the next patch we will find out? Patch 1.13 will probably have Doomfist and a Summer Games event. Check it out in the next couple weeks.

Death of a healer main

So I've been playing a lot of Overwatch and I thought I'd share my experience with you all. I'm at a pretty moderate (but low) level in Overwatch. I'm Silver rank with about 1600 sr (skill rating points) but I've been just 50 points shy of Gold rank (2200 sr) during my first or second seasons. For a couple seasons I didn't even play competitive and now I'm back at it. I've always played competitive as a healer, usually playing Ana, Mercy, Zenyatta, or Lucio with the occasional Symmetra if I feel like I can pull a rabbit out of a hat for a win. But I've come to the realization that in Silver healing is just not worth it. If I wanna win games more I gotta dps (play assassin characters) myself and get those elims for the team. So far it's been working out surprisingly well.

I think I'm gonna give up playing healers in Overwatch for a while. At least until I get to platinum or higher. The main reason for this is because other people that play dps at this level just aren't good enough. They don't play the game enough to really know how the characters work or how to work best and effectively with a team. Sometimes you have a team that likes to spread out, well you gotta act accordingly. Other times you got a team that stays together through it all, and you gotta act accordingly for that too.

So yeah, dps has been really working out for me. Right now my roster includes McCree, Soldier 76, Pharah (been using her a lot, she wrecks hard in low elo), Mei (she also wrecks hard in low elo because she's hardly ever picked), and Reaper (because of the buff and because I hate Winstons). I'm thinking about adding Genji and Sombra to this list too because I feel like with my skills I could really do well with those characters. For a while I was practicing dps a lot in Quick Play to work on my aim with all these characters but now I'm using that training in real competitive matches.

I still get losses but now when I lose I don't feel the same way as when I was healing. Usually I still do great even when I lose, its a different kind of loss, not as bad feeling in a way. I'm thinking Sombra could become like my main because I like how she has so many tools at her disposal and how she's like a poker (just runs in, shoots a bit, and then runs out). I feel like I could excel in that play-style. As for right now though I'm happy being on the frontlines with the team getting elims and paving the way to victory.

I still play the occasional tank here and there but now with competitive my attitude is that you gotta pick your character fast and everyone else fills after that. It was the same with my healers. If I really wanted to play Ana or Mercy I had to pick them super fast after loading game screen. The thing is that most people just fill roles so if you just pick what you want super fast chances are you'll get to play whatever character you want.

The game's become more of a "play what you want" game for me whereas before I was being strict and reducing myself to saying "ok, I gotta play a healer because I'm a super good healer and we won't win without me healing". That's a fair assumption to make because in silver I've seen some of the worst Mercy's and Ana's ever but at the same time even if they're a bad Mercy they're still getting some healing done. And if I'm dpsing there's a higher chance of victory. So it's not a bad trade off.

So yeah, there it is everyone. The death of a healer main. Rip. It was fun. I'll be back to Ana and Mercy when I'm higher up the ranks. Until then I'll be tearing it up in low elo.

More Soundcloud tracks

Even more good news everyone! I just got the tracks from the last jam I did at the local open jam. I've already posted them and you can listen to them https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763. I'm listening to it all right now and I gotta say that this jam was particularly impressive with three guitarists (one being myself), drums, bass,  keyboards, and vocals. I held everything down together by mostly playing the rhythm guitar. The other two guys were good players but they were mostly only playing lead. On one of the jams we had a trumpet player. It sounds way 1960s rock and roll man! Mighty good jam. The new tracks I posted are Vocal Jam 1, Vocal Jam 2, and Rock and Roll by Led Zep. On Vocal Jam 1 I stomped on dominant 9th chords over a jazz blues progression. Check out the tracks and let me know what you think!

New Soundcloud tracks

Hey, good news everyone! I made friends with the percussionist at the open jam I go to at Peties Place on Reseda and turns out he records everything. So I asked him to send me all the tracks I've played on thus far at the open jam nights and I've decided to post them on my Soundcloud page. The quality is pretty good, I kinda wonder what he uses to record. Probably some small little device. It actually sounds rather good, you can hear the drums, bass, and guitars really well.

I've been super quiet when it comes to recording but all of a sudden new life has been breathed into Professor Plasma (nickname for my solo projekt). I'm going to keep going to the open jams and ask him to send me more stuff so I can keep posting more live jams. I like my sound and style when I'm playing with other musicians more so than composing myself. This is like the poor man's way of recording and sharing music-through the power of your friends! Haha, thanks for checking this post out and remember to check out all my new tracks at https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763.

What's going on?

Hey everyone! Just wanted to do an update on what's been going on lately. I haven't written in a while because I've been working a lot. And gaming. And hanging out with friends haha. It's been a blast. Life is good. Today I found a twenty on the floor at work and my boss let me keep it! Talk about a great ending to a long day at the shop!

I've been really putting my all into ranking up in Overwatch. I think my best bet is going to be to start adding friends on my friends list on Battlenet and playing Competitive with them to rank up. Solo queue can be an easy way to rank up fast but I feel like solo queue (queuing up for ranked games by yourself, rather than friends) is more difficult if you only play healers like me. In some sense I feel like I'm trying too hard to rank up and its definitely not paying off fast enough. I'm ranking up, but very slowly and gradually. Not the way I want it unfortunately.

Other than that I've been hanging out with a lot of friends. Earlier this week (last week now) two different friends of mine had kickbacks (term for small party). It was pretty fun. Hanging out all night with them was super tiring but in the end it was worth it. It was my first super easy work week in a long time as I had three days off. Tomorrow I have plans to hang out in the morning. The guys + one girl wanna go get waffles.

In addition, I've started streaming again. You can view my recent broadcasts and videos at twitch.tv/megaman1597. I feel like the quality of my stream isn't very good. However, I've noticed its remarkably better when watched on a smartphone. I'm working on improving the quality of the stream without buying all new hardware or new machine. I've been able to get some viewers that hang out and talk to me when I play Team Fortress 2. Because its such an old (and dying maybe) game people just check out whoever still streams it. Not many people stream that game. I haven't been able to secure any viewers at all on my usual games (Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm, :'(  )

I feel like I need to chill out with Overwatch because I'm trying too hard. I gotta play other games and enjoy them. Can't get so focused on one competitive game because sometimes the pressure just becomes so much to the point where you're not having fun. When that happens you know its a good time to sit back, relax, and do something else. Take a fiver.

I've been playing a lot of guitar at my friends' houses but I haven't recorded anything new for my Soundcloud page. If you haven't heard my music yet check it out https://soundcloud.com/user-294063763. I plan on recording more stuff soon. Just haven't had the musical motivation for recording lately. But I am definitely gonna record something soon. I wanna do an 80s metal twin guitar harmonies part complete with fast sweep arpeggios. That would be sick.

That's all folks! I'll try to keep the blog updated daily. If you ever wanna see what I'm up to follow me on my Twitter at https://twitter.com/Ogspace1967. I usually post whenever I'm live on twitch there so there's a good way to keep in contact with me. Thanks, peace!

King Arthur Legend of the Sword

I figured I'd do a write up of this movie because it was so shockingly awful that it deserved to be written about in a negative way. The only thing worse than paying for this movie is getting in for free and finding that a whole two hours of your life was just wasted, vanished right before your very eyes. I'm gonna give you the good, the bad, and the mostly terrible.

First, what's good about this movie? Not much to be frank. However, if I could give this movie some compliments I would say that Mordred the evil wizard ends up turning into a cool demonic looking creature. He sacrifices the lives of his daughters and these snake women give him this incredible power. He becomes this giant monster with a scythe but that's not all. He can also shoot fireballs a la Skyrim mage. When Mordred and King Arthur were fighting at the end it was awesome seeing how powerful Mordred was physically as well as magically with his fireballs. Super cool villain.

The other cool thing about this movie is the actual sword that King Arthur pulls out of the stone. It turns out the sword is enchanted with magical powers but when Arthur uses it, it sort of just evaporates people into dust magically and can create tornadoes and stuff. It doesn't make any sense but its cool that they gave the sword some action packed fantasy elements rather than just "oh, here's a regular sword". The coolness of the movie ends with these two points.

The movie is mostly terrible. The plot-line goes nowhere and nothing makes sense. It seemed like the whole movie is just one scene to another scene with no thought put into what follows or what comes before. This is a 250 million dollar flop of a movie. If they can't even get the scenes to flow in good sequence what chance could they have for a great action flick? The other problem is that the movie is carried by action scenes. There's tons of destruction, action, fighting, kicking, arrows being shot, etc but its all wasted on a movie with a story line that ultimately doesn't matter because you stop caring about what's happening somewhere near the beginning of the film. The film ceases to be interesting after Arthur's grown up and we see him as a rugged man. Once he takes out the sword from the stone the movie just goes south.

I could see what they were trying to do here but they failed hardcore. They were trying to do a fantasy movie based on King Arthur and set it up for Game of Thrones and action flick crowd. Unfortunately you have to really know what you're doing to make that kind of movie and get people to actually like it. It seems like they just threw together this movie in a backhanded way. Also, the best actor in the movie was a guy who was actually from Game of Thrones. Props to that guy. I think his name is Little Finger.

The trailer for this movie was a little misleading. I thought it would be much better than that. I went in to the movie tired and by the end I was even more tired. I was mortified of the thought that I had just wasted two hours with my friends at the movies seeing a movie that was probably worse than watching a dog drop a turd on your front lawn. Do yourself a favor, don't go see King Arthur. Wait for it to come out on DVD, watch it, and then you'll see why this movie was so bad.

Look at the top, there's a cute Charmander mage!