[GAMING/MINECRAFT] An Intorduction to VampireZ

Play VampireZ on Hypixel's server: mc.hypixel.net

A few days ago, I posted about Mega Walls on the Hypixel Server. Today I want to tell you about another original mini-game hosted by them. This one is unique and I haven't seen anything like it in Minecraft before. VampireZ is a horror / survival mini-game that pits the humans against hordes of zombies and vampires (players).

Players are divided into two teams when the game starts. You can either be a survivor, or a vampire. At the beginning, there will only be one or two vampires, but every time a survivor dies, they become a vampire. This makes the game increasingly difficult as time goes on.

As a survivor, you have infinite blindness and resistance, and you spawn with a wooden sword. For each vampire or zombie you kill, and for each round you're still alive, you get some gold. You use gold to buy items. You can buy better swords, armor, food or potions. (some items are VIP locked)

While a survivor, you want to be VERY careful before getting armor, but you still want to fight every battle you can win to get as much gold as you can. Remember that while zombies are slow and stupid, they do a lot more damage than the vampires, especially in the last few rounds when they start spawning with swords and armor.

Your best bet as a survivor is to stay together, and stay hidden. You should hide in a building with no windows because vampires can break glass. (1 high windows are acceptable if you stay away from them, but 2 high windows are just asking for trouble) When not in combat, always, and I mean ALWAYS hold shift. The vampires have a special means that I'll discuss later to determine your general location, but if you hold shift, they might not be able to find you right away and you can get a hit or two on them before they see you. vampires don't have very good gear, so three to five solid hits will fell one for sure.

In order to win as a survivor you most stay alive for 21 rounds (approx: 15 minutes). If the final round ends and you're still alive, you win.

As a vampire, your goal is to kill the survivors. You win when there as no survivors left alive. Vampires spawn with a leather tunic and a wither skull and a sharpness 1 ghast tear, as well as infinite invisibility, speed, and night vision. Also, zombies will never hurt vampires and instead ignore them.

Just like how survivors earn gold, vampires earn blood, though it's slightly different. Vampires earn blood at the end of rounds, but they also earn it whenever a survivor dies, regardless of who killed them. Vampires can not purchase items, and instead purchase buffs (potion effects). among the best to buy are absorption, regeneration, and strength. There are two more things that vampires can buy that aren't potion effects. One of which turns you into a bat allowing you to fly, however this is VIP locked. The other is the flaming arrow. It spawns fire particles on the ground pointing to the nearest survivor to help you locate them.

Another good tactic for finding survivors is to watch the zombies. if a big group of zombies is heading in one direction or crowded around the same door, you can bet a survivor's not far.

Your biggest weakness as a vampire is your horrible gear. Ghast tears have no inherit attack damage increase, so all you have is sharpness 1 (1.25) plus your base attack damage (1) which give you 2.25 damage per hit. However, this is reduced by 20% thanks to the resistance effect on survivors, leaving 1.8 damage. That's less than a single heart and, assuming the survivor doesn't regen, it will still take at least 6 hits to kill them without any armor on. Even with a wooden sword, survivors can still kill you in less than 4 hits. The situation becomes even bleaker once a survivor gets iron armor (60% protection). Each hit will only do 0.72 damage, meaning it will take over 30 hits to kill them after taking regening into account. This is where teamwork, zombies, and strength effect comes in handy. Using these to your advantage will give you a MUCH better chance of killing survivors. For example, when using strength (lvl 3, 390%), your damage output is increased to 8.775, meaning a 3 hit kill without armor and even with iron armor you can still do 2.808 damage per hit for an 8 hit kill, rather than 30+.

Furthermore, you have nothing but a leather tunic to protect you which only provides a measly 12% protection level. Against a survivor with a wooden sword (1+4 attack damage) they will kill you in 5 hits. If they have an iron sword (1+6 attack damage), if will be a 4 hit kill, and if they have the sharpness 1 iron sword (1+6+1.25 attack damage), it will only take 3 hits. The best ways around this are to use the absorption (doubled health making you last twice as long) and regeneration.

If theses numbers are making your head spin, don't worry. I'm done with numbers.

More or less, You already know everything there is to know about VampireZ and how to play, so what are you waiting for? Head over to Hypixel's server and join in on the fun. IP: mc.hypixel.net

If you just want a normal survival server, join my server at 198.24.181.2:25658
We also have creative and pvp, and will be adding factions very soon.

[GAMING] Katawa Shoujo

Download Katawa Shoujo here: http://www.katawa-shoujo.com/download.php

Katawa Shoujo is one of those choice driven storybook games that most people will either love or hate, but this one comes with a twist...

If there's anything that probably stood out to you in the above picture, it's likely Rin's lack of arms or Hanako's scars. Katawa Shoujo takes place at a school for the disabled where you have been sent after discovery of your weak heart. Soon, you will find your place and fall in love with one of these five girls. On paper, it couldn't sound anymore stereotypical and boring, but I assure you it's anything but.

Obviously each of these girls has their own disability. From the obvious like Rin's lack of arms to the not so obvious like Hanako's emotional trauma. I suggest you try to ignore that for the game, and really just think of them like normal people, and really it's not that hard once you get into it.

With five possible good endings and one secret ending, each play though taking around 3-5 hours depending on your reading speed, this will not be a game you can brush through in a day... I recommend you take your time and really soak it all in. On your first play through, you should make whatever choices you feel are best and just see where that leads you. On subsequent play throughs, I recommend a guide on what choices to make. (Especially when trying to get on certain paths, they're not balanced. There's about a 60% chance to end up with Emi but only about a 2% chance each for Hanako and Lilly)

As you get farther along in the story there ARE sex scenes... You can turn them off if you want though. Wether or not you play with them on is your choice...

 

The best thing about this game is the deep and engaging story. The writers did an excellent job and pulling you into the story of each of these five girls, and the top notch music and art just make it that much better.

If you're looking for a good heart grabbing story, or just a way to kill hours on end, Katawa Shoujo just might be what you're looking for. Incase you missed the link at the top of the post, here it is again: http://www.katawa-shoujo.com/download.php

Interestingly enough, you can download it as a torrent if you prefer. I really like this option and hope more companies adopt it in the future.

[MLP/REVIEW/S4E15] Twilight Time

Notice anything special about this picture? If not, keep reading and I'll tell you soon.

Before I go on, let me say that this WILL contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen this episode yet, do it now!

So I have to say that, overall, I liked this episode. It's more or less a sweetiebelle episode, and I don't think we've had one of those since sister hooves social. I also liked seeing her learn magic, I think it was a long time comming.

Being a CMC centric episode, I had figured that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon would be out antagonists from the moment they stepped on screen, but this time it was more of an inner conflict than anything else. This is the type of conflict I like the best, so that and my favorite filly

learning magic means a personal 1-up from me.

As we move into the meat of the episode, we see a sudden shift in Diamond and Silver's attitude towards the CMC. Although this might throw some for a loop, I found it perfectly in character for them. They'll do whatever it takes to be on top. They don't care who you are on the inside, if it means they're popular by association, they'll hang out with anyone.

Sound fammiliar? Did you say this episode's moral? Well you're absolutely right. It's subtle, but it's there, and I found it a really nice way to get more of a glimpse into their character. I honestly hope we get to see more of Diamond and Silver as the series goes on, maybe even a redemption episode for them.

Now about that screenshot above, have you figured it out yet? Look in the background. There's a chart with a sketch of the box from episode 67 with some writing and keys taped on. I really love that the animators put this there. I can totally see Twilight spending any free time she has making charts and formulas about the box in an attempt to solve its mystery, obviously unaware that they already posses half of the keys. Good job animators, keep it up.

And by the way, this has nothing to do with anything, but I just loved this scene...

Dawww scootaloo! I think sweetiebelle might have some competition for favorite filly now!

Anyway, overall I'd give this episode a 9/10. I especially liked this episode and was kept guessing to the end. See you back here next week for another review!

[GAMING/MINECRAFT/BRIDGES] A true team player.

Recently I had been playing The Bridges on Mineplex (IP: Mineplex.com) and played what was quite possibly the most fun game of my life. Here's what happened:

Bridges is a 4-team game, each team has 10 minutes to prepare, and then the bridges are built and each team fights to the death. Simple yet exciting. Mineplex also sports starter kits ranging from apple (infinite foods) to brawler (ultimate melee). For this round I was a miner (infinite haste II, Stone Pickaxe, easy to find ores) and in the time before the bridges came up, i had a diamond sword, chestplate, leggings, and pickaxe, and iron boots and helmet. obviously, i was stacked. the one thing i didn't have, though, was food...

I went out and killed a few easy targets, but then got into a brawl with a full iron dude and was left with 2 hearts, and 3 hunger. i retreated to my team's area, asking for food in chat, but not really expecting to get anything... to my surprise, a friendly girl from my team handed over three cooked chicken! after some eating and time to regen, i set out and got two more kills off, but then one of my team mates died, and it was just me and one other player on red team. meanwhile, the others had 6, 6, and 4 members...

I was sure we were doomed, but then I met up with my sole surviving team mate, the friendly girl who gave me food from before! I know the only way we had a chance was to stick together, so i followed her wherever she went. we hunted down the 4-player team, killed them and got some diamonds. I gave all the ones i got to the girl since upgrading my boots and helmet would be of minimal benifit as compared to her getting diamond chestplate and leggings.

by the time we were geared up, the game's end had drawn near. the two 6-player teams had gone at it, and were left with 3 and 2 members. we went after the three member team, and killed one of them, the other two got away but we're killed by the other team.

now it was just us two and them two. we invaded their area and manged to catch them off guard as they we're trying to get better gear. we teamed on one of them, but at the last minute got split up as we made our way to the last guy. my team mate got killed, and i was just a block or two away from him on the other side of a stone wall, i had caught a glimpse of him and knew he had no diamond gear, so my best best was to strike now before he could get my partner's gear and regen any damage he took from their battle. I ran in, sword swinging and killed him, simultaneously getting revenge from my fallen team mate, without whom I never could have won the game, winning for my team, and becoming the sole survivor of them map.

not many games are as spectacular as this one, in fact, this was such an awesome game that I just had to share it.

Want to join me on my server? use the IP: 198.24.181.2:25658
we have Survival, Creative, and PvP.

[MLP/CCG] Card Games are Magic

Recently I've taken in interest in the MLP card game. For the longest time, card games were my "thing", I was heavily invested in Yu-Gi-Oh and dabbled in Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, and Card Fight Vanguard. Needles to say, I was intrigued at the thought of a pony card game since all of the above, and basically every card trading game in existence, is about beating your opponent to a pulp in one way or another. This goes against everything MLP stands for, so I wondered how they could design a competitive card game without it boiling down to crushing your opponent in battle. Well, here's how.

First off, there is no direct combat. rather it's more of a friendly competition, though for all practical purposes, face offs can be considered the combat of this game. there are also trouble maker cards which must be defeated on your way to victory, so that adds more of a combat element to the game as well. it's all kept very clean though and you never feel like you're in a war.

the majority of your time is spent playing cards to strategic locations to prepare for the all important face offs. what's more is this game uses a mana system that, while simple, is quite intuitive. basically, you get action tokens that you spend to do different things. the closer the lead player is to winning, the more tokens you get each turn. they also do not expire, so smart players will not over invest and will make sure they always have a few spare tokens for an emergency or for a big play to push for game.

there are also problem cards. these cards represent the conflict at hand and show what is needed to solve them. you ear points by solving conflicts, and once both players have solved them, a face off happens, the winner getting a nice bonus.

finally there are mane friend cards. these are just like friends (friends being ordinary units) except you start with them for free, and they're double sided. when you meet the requirements, you can flip it over to its "boosted" side and it become that much more powerful.

so the question then is, do these elements make for a good game? I think they do. it's a unique game for sure, and that's a plus in of itself. it still retains a competitive feel without straying from the spirit of MLP. unfortunately it might be hard to find someone to play with, unless you rope a few of your friends into it. I will say this though: for such a simple game, the rule book makes very little sense. I highly recommend keeping it handy for your first few games since you'll need to go over it a few times and get some real experience before it really makes any sense.

[MLP/DISCUSSION/EQG-RR] What!? Equestria Girls 2!?

For the longest time, I kinda expected something like this, but I was still surprised when it actually happened... Equestria Girls is getting a sequel. In true reviewer fashion I would like to refrain from any personal opinions I have on this movie until I actually watch it... In the mean time, enjoy the above trailer which basically reveals absolutely nothing about the movie beyond a few fun costumes.

Now I know a lot of people were really divided on EQG1, and I have to say that as much as I loved that movie, it was not without more than its fair share of flaws... It was pretty decent for a kids movie, but I've come to expect far better from the writing staff. Maybe hasbro hasn't learned its lesson and wants to cash in on more dolls, or maybe they have and want to show us they can do much better than the first movie. I'm desperately hopping it's the latter, though I'm pretty sure it's the former....

[MLP/DISCUSSION/18+] Clop: what it is and why it is.

Image by dylandylan72 [source]

WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT. YOU SHOULD NOT CONTINUE READING UNLESS YOU 18 OR OLDER!

Are you still here? In that case I must be talking to responsible adults. (or curious kids, last chance to turn back fillies!)

I'll start by a simple definition of the word and some history. "Clop" is onomatopoeia for the sound a horse's hooves make on the ground. It was picked up on by the brony community as used as slang for masturbation to MLP images. As of current, this slang only extends as far as the brony community and is more or less unheard of outside it (thank Celestia for that much...).

Clop seems to be the biggest, and most important dividing issue in the brony community, and for good reason: it's a big deal. Take the fact that it's about ponies out of the equation for a minute and what is it? porn. Clop is MLP porn. That's why it's such a big deal.

You might be wondering, why ponies? what's so sexy about ponies? well, nothing, and everything. In order for me to explain this, we have to back up for a moment and have a little adult conversation here: why do people look at porn? There's the obvious part of course: eye candy, but there's another, more deep reason for it. most people who look at porn, whether they realize it or not, are longing for an intimate relationship. They may deny it, but that's almost always the main underlying cause to porn. It's a powerful desire, and though not wrong in anyway, can manifest itself in unsavory ways.

It's no different with ponies, and unless you're a furry (I don't mean any offense to furies!) or else are viewing humanized clop, there's very little in the way of eye-candy... thus with clop, it's all about desire for intimacy. not just on a sexual level, but an emotional level as well. Call them what you will, but most cloppers just want to be able to love their favorite ponies in the most intimate way they know how: sex, and thanks to the writers portraying these little ponies in such accurately human ways, they become very attractive on an emotional level.

This desire for intimacy which resides in all of us, coupled with the large amount of teen guys in the fandom means that clop spread like wildfire, and became the huge issue it is today. I'm not defending cloppers here, nor am I attacking them. Let's be frank, we all know porn is wrong, ponies or no. But, can we really say it's wrong to desire intimacy, and to simply dream for it to one day become a reality, even though you know in your heart than it can never be? I'll leave you to answer that one for yourself.