 Our beloved commanding officer in repose, Forward Commander Ernest P. Worrel XVII. That’s what I always imagined Gracor would look like by the way, minus the cigarette. Moving on… Alien Swarm has recently added some new stuff for veteran players. There’s an Onslaught mode, which works for any difficulty level, enabling an “AI Director” – it will dynamically look at what’s going on the game and spawn enemies appropriately, making things unpredictable and interesting. There is also a Hardcore Friendly Fire setting, which will make your weapons just as effective against your teammates as against aliens, so watch out! After playing with these settings, I personally would like to have them turned on at all times… I said before that I anticipated putting up a lot more Alien Swarm Phank action, but the game can get pretty intense and it’s hard to remember screenshots during the good bits. Still…. Nobby has had the joy of introducing a number of people to the game. Here we have Vasata learning the ropes:  'These controls are strange.'  Mission success! Later on, Necaust joined. One may better know him by the moniker Xakia.  Glad you could join us!  Nobby thought there was space to stand in between all the explosives, but ended up just getting hit by all of them. A-whoopsiedoodles! Then Subvertio joined, and things got interesting.
 The very first time Nobby ever fired a shot from the grenade launcher and this happens! I consider it munitions well spent!
Later on Teslo got into it too, going by the alias and racial epithet Crackker, joined by Subvertio and some guy named SamerS600(?).  Hey, a dark corridor full of swarm eggs, let's check it out!
Sometimes Phank is like an episode of the Venture Bros.: failure, glorious failure! In truth, we don’t fail much at all, but the screenshots tend to favor the wipeouts. Some guy made a pretty darn good custom mission, called Arctic Infiltration. Selenajra and Nobby check it out:  Yessssssssss And some more fun with the elevator:  Let them come!  At times like this, I really wish this game had /dance. Or /sleep.  Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Decided to go to the Southern Barrens this week. So in Cataclysm the barrens are divided up into two halves with the top portion predominantly in the Hordes possession, but the southern half being contested. So I figured that would be more interesting for people to see.
Above is the new entrance to Mulgore which has a bit of a more defensive state. Lots of events are leading to the Tauren taking such measures one of which is the attack of Camp Taurajo.
This is Desolation Hold and across the way is the Alliance’s Fort Triumph
Now as you can see there are a variety of seige type weapons and small fights inside of the valley between the two outposts. I did not do any quests here so as to not ruin it for myself but the game feels a ton more alive now and feels like there is more of an ongoing war between the factions.
Not far from Desolation Hold is a Goblin mine. I kind of expected this mine, that is riddled with bombs, to extend to under Fort Triumph but instead it is under Desolation Hold… Odd.
I really wanted to put a screen of me riding a Sea Horse but you need Artisan Riding to use it. Me being a cheapskate never got it for this character. I’m flying around in the beta and figured Id share some interesting screenshots from Uldum.
 Gator Temples!
 Whirlpools in Temples!
 Good News Everyone! More Halls of "Insert name here" Dungeons.
 Large statues protecting stuff!
 Like this!
 More Harrison Jones! Rejoice!
 Batman?
 Catman
 People mucking up the environment hurray!  Raid Zone! Can't wait to Phank it up in there.  Shamelessly putting myself on the front page. If anyone wants me to explore a certain area just hit comment and tell me! Alien Swarm is free. Just download Steam, search for Alien Swarm, and install.  We own this elevator. Would like to do a full update on Alien Swarm soon. How can you help? A) Play it with us B) Practice looking like a professional space marine for the screenshots! alternate title: Lich King: 40ish — Phank: 1 — Woap: Freeloader The Lich King is pretty brutal. He’s about as tough, if not tougher, than the hard mode versions of most bosses – and that’s before you actually put him on hard mode. He has four phases; the last one is a freebie, and two of the transitions are sufficiently difficult so as to qualify as phases themselves. So we’re essentially talking five phases here. There’s lots of stuff going on, and for pretty much all of that stuff, you only have a couple seconds to react. Sometimes lag takes up those couple of seconds, so you have to anticipate and be moving before the stuff happens. You have to be playing on the edge, with your A game, the entire fight (which is something like 10-15 minutes long). It’s harsh, but so crazy and interesting a fight that the frustrations are kept to a minimum. SPOILERS AHEAD, though you probably don’t care. So we wiped at 11%. 
But DoTs brought him down to 10%, and lo and behold he did not reset!
Apparently, when you get him down to 10%, the Lich King decides that, yes, you have finally proven yourself. He then thrusts Frostmourne into the ground and unleashes its full, unbridled power, killing you all instantly. He begins to raise you as undead… being the only people who were able to stand up to him, you will make fine champions of the Scourge indeed. So I’m calling the fact that we wiped at 11% pure, incontrovertibly mad skillz. It’s like we stole kills from the Lich King… sort of? This is the moment Fordring was waiting for. With Frostmourne unleashed and vulnerable, he strikes it with Ashbringer, and Frostmourne’s power goes wild, the souls within freed. Terenas Menethil’s ghost then uses Mass Resurrection on your raid, and while the Lich King struggles against the freed souls, you finish him off.  Turns out the Lich King is a loot pinata after all. You just have to get your ass handed to you first. From Ner’zhul in Warcraft 2, to Arthas in Warcraft 3, to the Lich King in World of Warcraft, beating this (very challenging) villain as a team, and having a cinematic and interactive epic finish is immensely satisfying. I for one was bouncing up and down in my chair gleefully 
Left to right:
 Terrible. That being done, Phank was not content to rest. We moved on to making fun of Phasen.  We are so mean. The legend continues.  These spectular and unnecessary wipeouts... Just like the good ol' days.  Four hearty adventurers rest after their trials before pushing on ahead. (Audio NSFW) |
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We convene to commemorate the event with a screenshot: