NON-SPOILER ALERT! This article is SAFE from Spoilers
Oops! Trust me, I got all the armor I need...and then some'
Two weeks(it's the third week now) into the release of Fallout 4 and we still haven't got past 50% of game achievements and completion. Bethesda has done it again. Another grade A game from them, kudos. Something to keep us all occupied for the year end(and perhaps well into Q1 of the next year!).
Ok, enough sweet talk. Leave the fanboy moment aside for now, the mechanics of Fallout 4 has changed somewhat tremendously. The good news is that they are all addons to the original title that we know and love. The bad news is that the new mechanics comes in droves in the new Wasteland. This is compounded by Bethesda Studios not really getting into the details but letting us figure it out ourselves!
Still, It is tremendously addictive!
Let's keep the article short and sweet so that you can refer to this once you're in the wastelands of Fallout 4!
01.Using Stimpaks doesn't automatically increase your health!
While in Fallout 3 and New Vegas, using stimpaks immediately increases your health, in Fallout 4, once you leave the pipboy window, there will be a short animation of your character injecting the stimpak sterum before your hp goes up.
The process of "Stimpak-ing" oneself takes about 1-2 secs(animation time). Vital when in a fight that you don't get cornered!
If you're cornered, spamming stimpaks wont work like it used to. ~Fair warning huh?
02. Item durability is a thing of the past
Aparently Bethesda did away with item durability. Someone must've complained about item durability being to excessive we guess. If you're the kind who is usually attached to the same weapons and armor, that's great news...except if you like Power Armor though. Power armor parts HAVE DURABILITY METERS! Don't say we didn't warn ya!
Fallout New Vegas has item "Condition" bar which loses it's effectiveness as it depletes.
Becomes unusable when the bar completely depletes...unless you repair it.
Items like weapons, armors etc don't have a 'condition' bar like they used to, but power armor parts do
although, it's now renamed as 'health' on the item. Take note of that.
03. The layout for S.P.E.C.I.A.L,Skills and Perks are visually re-invented
You know that Perk Chart we get when we buy the cd? That's exactly what we get in Fallout 4. Every point divided upon a visual tree. The top row represents the S.P.E.C.I.A.L, and the rest are skills and Perks. You'd still need to upgrade a skill or SPECIAL to level up a Perk, but it's all visual now.
Here's the new 'Perk Chart'. Everything into one
Remember that you can scroll down by simply hovering your mouse at top or bottom of page!
Oh, and, remember, to "scroll down" the chart, simply hover your mouse towards the top or bottom of the chart...Coz Bethesda's all like: "f*#k scrolling...that's for zooming in and out."
04. Junk Items can be "scrapped" for raw materials
This pointer leads to the next pointer(and thereafter). Yes, all those junk items that have been cluttering all those previous Fallouts? They just found their calling. They can be kept for their raw materials content so that they can be used to built or modify your weapons or armor or for building something
You can choose to scrap some item and get raw items, but there's a better alternative~
Just build a lesser mod on your item and gain the spare part of your rifle(to be attached later to your other weapons!)
Scrap some armor to get some ridiculously minimal raw items return~
05. Armor and Weapons can be modified!
Oh boy, is this a treat or what? Now you can turn your useless pipe rifle to accept .308 rounds! Maybe add some scopes here and a bayonet there. Voila! Heck, we can even run around naked except for a hat and still have power armor like stats. Ok we might be exaggerating, but yeah, anything's possible now..."if only I can find the items I need..."
A simple pipe rifle can be modified to take in a .45 round, increasing it's damage output, provide-
you have all the raw materials and the required skill tree.
06. You can literally build a safehaven town from scratch
If you're in workshop mode, you can build yourself a power generator, a radio signal, a few turrets, stalls and you can do the "minecraft". You can even grow crops and get a few settlers to tend to the crops. Just for fun, you can build a chamber, trap a companion inside and power a dangerous tesla coil to see how they'd react. (In the name of fun right?..aww..c'mon)
"Workshop mode" turns your screen into a HUD something like this.
Here you can choose to scrap an item to get it's raw material.
...or build something
Or plant some goddamned crops in this wasteland..
Look at what I built for class today Ma!
07. Sprint, I say!
A simple mechanic that previous Fallout versions left out, the option to sprint to an upcoming ghoul before it gets up to blast it's face with a shotgun
That's damn straight, son!
08. Re-inventing the Health meter(HP) and the Action Point meter(AP)
Too much Rads don't kill you, but excessive amounts do lead to your death~ In your HP meter, radiation exposure fills up what's supposed to be your HP bar with a red Rad bar, effectively blocking out your overall health. Unless you cure yourself from rads, you'd almost always be walking around with 80% health when you go out for a few missions.
In Fallout New Vegas, Rads take up it's own bar, after a certain level, it starts to get dangerous
Darn RADS
Your AP bar is now shared with your sprint mechanic. Sprinting drains your AP. Just make sure you get to VATS your enemy by the time you sprint to reach them.
09. Item looting is now a one-button affair
In previous Fallouts, one has to get close to a chest, container or dead person, hit "open" before a menu comes up with the inventory of their items. Fallout 4 just needs you to hover your cursor to the object, producing a small window which allows you to just hit "Enter" or "E" to grab that item. You can scroll down to browse and grab only specific items you need. They must've taken cue from Apple's Ergonomics team...heh
In Fallout New Vegas, one would need to go close & "open" item first-
to explore it's inventory.
Soooo...how does this help in a fight? Well, for one, you can loot a body even before it hits the ground or if your sneak is high enough, can disarm an unsuspecting enemy before he realises he needs to fight you.
In Fallout 4, you can loot the enemy through this small window even before they hit the ground.
A useful trick against a pack of ghouls when speed is your ally.
10. Stimpak is all you need
In previous Fallouts, one would need to tend to every crippled limb separately. In Fallout 4, stimpaks cure crippled limbs, all at once! is that great or what?
In Fallout New Vegas, Bethesda shows the parts of the body that are crippled.
You'd need a doctor's bag to cure all crippled limbs or one stimpak for every limb affected.
Fallout New Vegas offers it's players a way to heal crippled parts.
Fallout 4 produces a less "gory" notification of when you're limbs are crippled.
Best of all, only one stimpak is needed to cure ALL crippled limbs.
Do catch more of our Fallout 4 and Star Wars Battlefront articles coming up! Also, do visit our eBay store for more toys, games, comics and gadgets goodies! http://stores.ebay.com/Confaderal
Disclaimer: All media and materials listed here do not belong to me. It is for educational purposes for the sake of discussion.
Warning: This article might contain spoilers, as we try to piece together what we can of the current information given to us about the movie. You may use this article as a support for your article, provided you credit this blog article as a source.
Warcraft:The Movie
Geez..What a teaser!
Finally we can say, "Finally!". A much anticipated Warcraft movie, don't y'all agree? Ever since young, we were enraptured by this game that has caught our imaginations. Such a vast world, courtesy of blizzard.
We were caught in the craze early on, and we wished for more didn't we!
Personally, for this writer, I started off with an instant liking for the orcs in Warcraft II. That was my first foray into this wonderful world. Some of you, would've caught on earlier, in the game that was the original: Warcraft 1. Such was the fervor when you had a lot of mages to control, a lot of resources to plunder, a lot of research to do and finally, a lot of wonderful characters to play around with. Ahhh...the nostalgia!
The story:The lore states that In the first war, the orcs came from nowhere to wipe out the kingdom of Azeroth as they did with other worlds. The Orcs orginated from Draenor under the guidance of Gul Dan who was influenced by the burning legion. The orcs formed the horde which wiped out Azeroth until all human survivors were pushed back to the north.
In the 2nd war, Six years later, The scattered armies of Azeroth band together under the banner of the alliance to make a stand against the horde, rallied by Lothar.
It didn't take Lothar(or at least, his presence to be felt again though)...
Somewhere in 2000s, Blizzard released an expansion into the Warcraft world. Warcraft III was born, and we were introduced to tasty cinematic trailers and two new races(not to forget, upgraded graphics!)
Warcraft III stretched our imaginations further. Do you remember this 1v1 map? Booty Bay?
The evil Undead campaigns which bought us a plethora of new race features
Not to mention our love for the night elves
The Story:The third war introduced all the races banding up to fight against the true evil that is the undead who were the original presence that haunted and manipulated the orcs to initially wreak havoc upon the world of Azeroth. The orcs, after being freed from their demonic roots, now help the humans against the Burning Legion(Undead), whilst the century old Night Elves are once again summoned at arms to once again combat the burning legion. They join the fight with the orcs and humans. The war culminates at the battle of mount Hyjal where our bandied forces make a last stand against the demonic Burning Legion.
The Warcraft III expansion later on shows the fall of knight, Arthas who murdered his king and was influenced by his dark sword: Frostmourne. Each time, he falls deeper and deeper into insanity by the whispers of the dark blade until he loses all shred of his humanity, consumed by hate and anger...Now, he soughts to end the world of Azeroth.
Then in 2004, in quick succession, Blizzard created a phenomenon. The World Of Warcraft MMORPG was introduced to the world. It saw millions of fans get their "groove on" with a character that they could play with in the land of Warcraft lore. Travelling by foot from one end to the other, will take you a few hours IRL! imagine the vastness!
In the WOW mmorpg and it's expansions, players control a customizable character as they explore the land of Azeroth and do quests. Along the way, they discover more of the lore surrounding the vast world of Warcraft. Fans around the world caught on to the craze and you could see tournaments being held, cosplayers roleplaying as their beloved WOW characters...and there were shouts and a trememdous demand for a Warcraft movie.
And boy, did Blizzard Entertainment responded.
This upcoming 2016, Blizzard is at it again, introducing to us(with the collaboration of Universal & Legendary Pictures), a live-action story to the World of Warcraft as we know and love. In case you haven't catched the trailer, the watchable youtube link is below:
The Story of Medivh
A long time ago, the Order of Tirisfal was formed, originally to protect the world from the corruption of magic. Namely, the Burning Legion. The order contained a band of powerful mages in their ranks to carry out the protecting. They were called the Guardians of the Order of Tirisfal. They were also awarded the honorific name of :Magna, which in dwarvish tongues, mean "protectors". Each guardian were given considerable power and longevity.
Aegwynn was Medivh's mother, a great magna who defeated the Lord of the legion, Sargeras, who came to Azeroth in an avatar. Although, she managed to trap the physical form of the avatar of Sargeras, the dark lord Sargeras had predicted this and let it be, as his spiritual presence, after being killed, absorbed itself into Aegwynn's body. That was his plan all along.
Following this historic event, Aegwynn , was tasked to choose a next successor to be a guardian: instructions from the Order of Tirisfal. Hearing this, Aegwynn, disobeyed as she grew arrogant after her big victory...without her knowing, the dark lord Sargeras was starting to manipulate her.
Aegwynn then didn't want the order to choose a successor to her, so she seduced Nielas Aran, another mage(but not a magna) so that she could bear a child, who would be her successor. Little did she know that the essence of Sargeras transferred itself unto the newborn child with the intent to corrupt it. The Child was Medivh.
Medivh issuing a warning to the Lordaeron Council on the invasion of the Burning Legion leading
to the third war. Medivh in this timeline has apparently been purged of his corruption.
Medivh rose to power(but never received the honorific of magna, instead he was referred to as Magus). In his corrupted stupor, he banded with an orcish war chief shaman called Gul Dan, and they both, under the influence of the Dark Lord, opened the dark portal allowing demon-influenced orcs into Azeroth.
Later on in the lore, he was killed by his close friends, one of them believed to be Anduin Lothar , and he passed on to the nether, but his soul persisted in the form of the prophet. Later on, before the third war, he sought an audience with humans, the newly purged orcs and night elves to undo his wrongdoings by uniting to fight the burning legion. This led to the third war.
The Story of Gul'dan
Gul'dan was an Orc shaman who was the first to become a warlock and lord of the shadow council. He was under the tutelage of NerZhul who took Gul'dan in because of his impressive skills in controlling the elements. Gul'dan was also known to be a betrayer of the orcs when he led his clan to drink the blood of Mannoroth(an agent of the Burning Legion) who would grant the orcs with power, but at the price of consuming their souls and spiralling them to do the bidding of the Burning Legion.
In doing so, Gul'dan had cursed the orcs.
Later on, in the lore, Gul'dan was brought to seek the tomb of Sargeras, in maelstrom whereby Magna Aegwynn had buried the physical form of the avatar of Sargeras. He went there believing that he could quench his thirst for more power, only to find out that he had been tricked by the Dark Lord and was trapped in the dungeon where the tomb laid. Wave after wave of burning legion hordes attacked him, and before his final dying moments, knowing that there was no escape, wrote his story on the wall panels in the dungeon with his own blood.
Gul'dan writing on the wall panels with his own blood
After his death, his skull became an artefact there as his memories still survived within it, holding immense powers.
Let's Examine the trailer
Now, that we get the lore out of the way, let's look at the screenshots of the trailer to see if we can come up with something. By now, most of you would've probably somehow know how the story will be, but do take note that continuity in the Warcraft lore and what we see in the trailer have some stark differences, which couldn't really fit any existing WOW timeline. But oh heck...
We see stormwind at the start of the trailer, with the arrival of...
Our main human protagonist, Anduin Lothar.(notice the alliance banner at the back)
This picture seems to show what seems to be Khadgar with an important piece of news to tell
the council
Lothar deduces that some dark being is behind this attack
As in the end of the first war, the scattered armies of Azeroth are pushed into stormwind to band together under the banner of the alliance.
We see our orcish protagonists; Durotan and Orgrim Doomhammer leading their uncorrupted
orc brethren out of badlands.
Most probably a dark portal energy imploded whilst being opened, leading the orcs
to seek new sanctuary.
Not to mention, the corrupted fel orcs plundering the helpless frost wolf clan, led
by Durotan.
With nowhere to go, our Orc heroes travel as far as westfall, which is already pillaged
On the other hand, our orc heroes, led by Durotan, whom isn't consumed by demonic influence finds that his people are in tatters. He needs to do something...besides, baby thrall is in danger.
So Durotan bands up with Lothar to stop the dark portal from letting in more chaos. Both are fighting to protect their people.
In the end, our heroes must find a way to stop BlackHand, Gul'dan and Medivh.
Circled in red, the Dark portal!
Blackhand angry at why Durotan refused to side with his people.
Here we see Durotan punching Gul'dan in the face.
Lothar attempting to go through deadwindpass to go Karazhan to assassinate Medivh to prevent further damage.
We see nerzhul here
Conclusion
I think it's fair to assume we all know where the movie is headed towards. Although, how our characters go about doing so, is a different issue. I hope this did not and will not spoil your movie experience. Just keep in mind that this article was constructed on a hunch based of of the Warcraft lore. Nevertheless, nostalgia will hit Warcraft fans when they see how closely accurate the locations are.
If you have any comments, do leave them below. And don't forget to visit my eBay store to find any cards, comics, games and toys that you like. http://stores.ebay.com/Confaderal
