 But it seems most people voted the winner because he had the largest screenshot. Anyway congrats to the winner.
- Link to SC-remake-contest thread
SC2Mapster.com announced another melee map remake contest. This time i'ts about WarCraft 3. I'm not sure if I have time to participate, but thankfully the contest deadline ends in more than two weeks from now, so plenty of time to decide.
- Link to WC3-remake-contest thread
I've also worked much more with the SC2-editor. I've fleshed out a fully playable co-operative map and I am playing it daily with friends and random people from chat/forums to maximize gameplay and fun. I'm only days from starting to work cinematics and map art. Expect full announcement and a release some time in January.
In other (gaming, do'h!) news: I've reactivated my WoW accounts, two weeks prior to the release of Cataclysm. I've leveled an Undead Warlock to 36. Pure gameplay time is around 24 hours. The quality of each region varies a lot. Tirisfal is fine, you do the usual kill/get-quests. The process is a lot more streamlined, you meet fewer people with more interesting storylines. It's worth reading. Silverpine Forest is one of the coolest zones: You get your quests from no other than Sylvanas Windrunner who guides and aids you in various tasks. The phase shifting technology is masterfully executed. You really feel like you are doin something. Hillsbrad Foothills is almost as good, because there are three characters that will just kill you laughing.
Arathi Highlands and The Hinterlands are just bad. I couldn't wait to get out of there. The quests there have you go back and forth between sections of the map for countless times. I'm currently in the Western Plaguelands which is really cool again. Nice quests, nice phasing.
Now I bought Cataclysm and started playing a Goblin Mage: The two starting zones are probably the VERY BEST I've ever experienced in WoW. From start two finish I feel engaged, meet huge Warcraft-celebrities, do the wildest quests and am rewarded with nice cinematics and phasing technology. I hope the rest is as good :D
Busy weeks
I've been a little busy over the last weeks and unable to blog about it. (Well I was able, just utterly bored).Development depends on a lot of things. For instance, are they playing with a partner that compliments their playstyle (e.g OFD—DFF)? Are they playing at their projection (not potential)? Are you signing them only when they hit 68+?

For me, I’ve found that letting defensemen play in the AHL for a few years (so as long as the AHL team is making the playoffs) and then call them up when they hit 77+. Once they are good enough for a call-up, play them at their projection (not same as potential). Once they hit 80, then you can try playing them at their potential. Top 4 play anywhere within the top 2 defensive pairings, elite play top pair, and so on.“I don’t want to live in a world where there are no lions anymore.”—Werner Herzog
The Blu-ray event of the year for most serious film lovers is Shout Factory’s “Herzog: The Collection,” in stores this week. With gorgeous packaging, including quotes from many of Roger Ebert’s reviews of Herzog’s work peppered throughout, the set marks the HD debut of fifteen of Herzog’s films from the ‘70s to the ‘90s (with a 16th film having only been released on Blu-ray for the first time this year… so they’re really all new to HD). The Collection allows true cineastes the chance to not just appreciate these films individually but also see how Herzog’s aesthetic developed over the first three decades of his life in cinema. Herzog’s filmography has always had a remarkable flow as his films not only seem thematically related to one another but often comment on each other or echo previous characters and concerns. Given Roger’s close relationship with Herzog and the overall cinematic value of this set, we thought we’d take the opportunity to examine the entire Collection, film by film, disc by disc. for one of our greatest filmmakers.
“Even Dwarfs Started Small” (1970)
The collection starts with Herzog’s third film, the story of an institution overrun by the inmates, cast entirely with dwarfs. Herzog’s organic approach to filmmaking is immediately apparent. The world and the “characters”—who were barely given a narrative to work with and were often directed improvisationally by Herzog—feel real. We hear a light switch and the lighting in the scene comes from that switch. A dwarf is directed to hold a sign higher and look to the side. He does. It is clearly not Herzog himself giving those directions and yet it may as well be, setting the filmic precedent for much of what he would create in the future. In the first crowd scene, the characters all look directly at the camera.
Throughout “Dwarfs,” one can feel Herzog behind the camera, urging on the fight scenes and the increasingly anarchic behavior. It has a sloppy, unformed feel that might allow it to verge on exploitation for modern audiences, but that unease is part of its creator’s intent. He wants you to feel uncomfortable. “Dwarfs” now feels more intriguing in the context of Herzog’s overall filmography as one can easily see the theme of how revolution often leads to disorder is one that he would revisit with greater artistic success later in his career. It’s a terrific start to the Collection in that it’s a warm-up for the greatness to come.
Special Features: Audio Commentary with Writer/Producer/Director Werner Herzog and Actor Crispin Glover, Moderated by Norman Hill
“Fata Morgana” (1971)
The second film in the collection started life as an entirely different project, a fact, in and of itself, that speaks to Herzog’s abilities to bend with the curve of the cinematic river. He took a film that began life as a sci-fi project and transferred its alien landscapes into what is essentially a visual meditation on the unique world in which we live. The film opens with multiple plane landings—the jet streams, the sound a plane makes when it lands, even a brief taxiing before cutting to the next one, which always starts about mid-frame. It’s a visual and aural table-setter for an experience that is primarily image and sound, both of which have been expertly transferred to Blu-ray.
Many of the images in “Fata Morgana” have a puzzle-like quality—”What am I looking at? Why is Herzog showing me this and from this angle?” Despite its curious origins, “Morgana” is clearly an ancestor of Herzog’s recent work in what could facilely be called his “Mother Nature” documentaries—such as “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” and “Encounters of the End of the World”—films in which the wonders of the real world perform greater visual miracles than any CGI house could possibly hope to replicate.
Special Features: Audio Commentary with Writer/Producer Werner Herzog and Actor Crispin Glover, Moderated by Norman Hill
“Land of Silence and Darkness” (1971)
Again, through this release, this work can be fascinatingly viewed as a precursor to so many of the thematic motifs that Herzog would later return to—primarily how we use our senses to interact with the world around us. In one of Herzog’s more traditional documentaries, he introduces us to people who are deaf and blind. It opens with a woman describing images that she can only see in her mind and Herzog shows them to us—a horizon, ski jumpers, and so on. The concept of the director as a visualizer of the mind’s eye is a classic representation of a filmmaker but one that still resonates, perhaps even more strongly given that this woman will never see these images herself.
It may be purely chronological, but “Land of Silence and Darkness” really does make for a perfect companion for “Fata Morgana,” and they’re included on the same Blu-ray disc to make the double feature easy. Whereas “Morgana” opens with images and the deafening sound of a plane landing, the women in “Land” can only describe what they remember seeing and hearing. And, when Herzog takes them on a plane ride, we can really only imagine the sensations they’re experiencing. Herzog is a man so deeply in tune with the sights and sounds of our world that it makes sense that people trapped in silence and darkness would fascinate him. They live in memory while Herzog the filmmaker captures the now.
Herzog’s camera work here is restrained, always handheld, and never cutting to “coverage” or zooming in on faces to provoke response. It makes us feel like a visitor more than a film watcher. Throughout his career, Herzog will try to take us to places and show us things we would never otherwise experience. While “Land” may not detail a physical journey like so many of his most beloved works, it is nonetheless a journey of its own kind.
Special Features: None
“Aguirre, the Wrath of God”