Christmas is over.

The holiday season is almost over.  I am getting ready to wrap up another year and welcome a new life into the world.  There isn't a whole lot to say about this year, other than I'm sorry to see it pass by so quickly. 

I plan to get to work over the next few days on the the start of my A-Zs for the year.  I did this last year, but I think it is fitting to do it again.  Maybe every year.  Maybe I can look back and reflect on it and see if anything changed or if things fell into place, like I said they would.  I had a good time last year putting my mind to work and coming up with so many topics that covered so many different things.

As you may have noticed I got a fancy new smartphone for Christmas and I've really been spending a lot of time with it.  It is a pretty powerful device and I'm going to give it a shot at gaming.  I'm going to download and spend some time with FIVE different Android games that I have NEVER played.  I want the game to look fun and entertaining, so I'm not going to pick genres or any of that.  I'm just gonna browser through and pick some out.  I've already got a couple of ideas, but we'll see how it works.  Maybe I'll enjoy this new year with some mobile games. =D

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas, to all none of you who read this.  I hope you enjoy the next year and I hope you enjoy the next month... while I pummel you with seething hatred for something I love so much (PC gaming).

LTE Galaxy Nexus Battery

Hey, it's fine.  Seriously.  Stop crying and learn to use your smartphone.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

I am posting this from my brand new phone.  This thing is quite the beast.  I have really enjoyed getting to fool with it for the last few days.  I haven't had any time off of work, so I haven't really invest a ton of time into it.  This weekend, even though it's a holiday, will likely see me playing with it A LOT.

From the moment I turned it on it was blazing fast.  The quickest and most responsive phone I've seen or used, iPhone included.  This thing was soooooooo quick.  I didn't put many apps on it, because I honestly am over the phase where I need tons of apps all over the place, most of which I will never use.  Not to mention, most of the apps I would or could use.... they are just a couple taps away from being on the phone. 

I only got around to unlocking the bootloader and rooting the phone last night.  I managed to botch my installation of a custom recovery, I'll have to try again tonight.  I went ahead and picked up Root Explorer.  Between that and Titanium Backup I should be just fine when it comes to rooting and backing everything up.  I feel that the phone actually performed better BEFORE I rooted.  Not that it is laggy or anything.  I retained the stock ROM and haven't tried anything new yet.  I am hoping for a stock experience in a 4.0.3 ROM before I get to flashing.

I really need to get a case, but since I've got the extended battery I might be out of luck.  I'm going to check out what Verizon has to offer and at least get myself a screen protector.  I used a Verizon protector on my Thunderbolt and it worked pretty well.  It is actually still on the phone and hasn't peeled up or anything.  I'm hoping that it'll work that well on this new phone.

I'm overally very pleased and I look forward to getting a couple of updates to iron out some of the bugs and performance issues.  Very much looking forward to some fancy new ROMs and updated features, too.

Oh... and LTE is still fucking awesome.  Eat a dick, Apple.

Saddest midnight release ever.

Seriously.
The black kid in hipster glasses in front of me chatting on his iPhone about Lil Wayne wasn't even the worst part.  The tiniest line I've ever seen at a midnight release, EVER, kind of was.  If this had been a release for Madden or CoD for a console, I expect that there would be WAY more people.  This seems kind of like a death knell for PC gamers.  The BF3 release THE NEXT DAY was better than this. 

Honestly, I'm not really in love with the game.  If they had given me a free trial... I wouldn't have bought the game.  Now I'm out 65 bucks and still don't feel satisfied.  I'm gonna give it a couple months and get at least one character to the max level.  We'll see what happens after that.  A lot of the frustrations I had originally are even worse now... AND the game is slow as fuck.  Not like EverQuest slow, but God dammit I'm tired of listening to long speeches before I have to march across the fucking world for NOTHING.  Oh, sweet, some new pants.  Great.  I sure am glad that I got better pants from a drop while on the way to that quest that gave me a bunch of fucking nothing.  Awesome.

If nothing else it makes me appreciate WoW more.

My top 5 games

I was browsing through one of the forums that I frequent and thought that I would share this.  A thread was created that was asking people what their top 5 games were (and why, sorta).  I pitched in, but I wanted to include it here.  I'm not sure that I've ever come out and said what my favorite games were.

5. Halo CE for PC
Oh the glory of Halo. The horrible netcode and the shitty aiming of that overpowered pistol really made the game… fun? The game was bad. Almost bad beyond belief, but the competition was a ton of fun. The playing field was level. High end PCs had no advantage and low end PCs didn't struggle too much. Everything in the game was awkward, but the competitive scene thrived for a while. It was a lot of fun and I had a hell of a lot of fun going to CPL and playing with folks. I miss LAN parties. I REALLY miss ULTRA LAN parties.

4. Planetside
Oh god. What a fucking awesome experience. An MMO. An FPS. An RTS. ONE PACKAGE! This has to be one of the best attempts at blending genres that I've ever seen. The game was fantastic. The community was even more troll-ish that WoW's. The devs were all about swinging the nerf bat wildly. It was a hell of a ride and a very exciting experience. I had a great time and I am really looking forward to the second one. If it's half as the first, it'll be 10 times better than what we settle for today.

3. Dune RTS game
Seriously. Play it. Tell me RTS games have done anything in the last 15 years better than what this game has.

2. Tribes 2
Tribes was an amazing game. I see a lot of these younger, newer folk getting into it. Tribes 2 was better. This was the pinnalce of the franchise, IMO. The game was amazing, the graphics were gorgeous for their time. The gameplay was fantastic. It is hard to recreate. Tribes Ascend seems pretty good, but it is going to be damn hard to be better than Tribes 2. If anyone is interested in that experience you can now get and play Tribes 2 for free, but you have to jump through some hoops to make it work. A quick Google search should get you on the right track, though.

1. Warcraft (all of them, including WoW)
This is an entire series that deserves acclaim. Yes, WoW could easily hold this title alone, but no game has ever captured me and sucked me in like the original Warcraft RTS game. It was amazing. The sequeuls kept getting better and the MMO has changed the world FOREVER. Sure, it has flaws, but WoW is the best product out there right now… let's not try to compare CoD, we know where that franchise is heading.

SWToR is finally live.

I have spent a long time waiting for SWToR to go live.  I have spent many months in anticipation for the game.  At first I was very excited.  Then I started to get kind of bummed.  Then I got excited again.  Then I stopped giving a fuck altogether.  I saw several videos come out and make the game look hilariously shitty.  I heard from some beta testers that the game was being built around shit that they didn't find important and that I, subsequently, didn't either.  It has been a rollercoaster of anticipation and it's finally all over.  The game is out (for me) and I've had a couple of days to spend with it.

I don't have a ton of time and I haven't progressed very far.  Don't take my early opinion to heart.  This is my opinion and it's without even getting into the meat of some of the classes.  Honestly, though, how do you get to the end of the game without experiencing everything in between?  This should be an important part of the game and it is the part that will determine if people stick around.  If leveling and development of a character sucks ass... who is gonna keep playing?

I decided to play a Smuggler a LOOOOONG time ago.  I've been in a guild for about 2 years for this game and I've been following it for longer than that.  Upon joining this guild I saw a severe lack of Smugglers and figured that I should try that role out.  I enjoy being useful.  I almost always end up as a healer, since no one wants to play them, but this time around a DPS role caught my eye and I was stoked.  I've learned in the last couple of WoW expansions that DPS classes are obviously in larger numbers, but I don't care.  I have spent most of my MMO gaming career as a healer or filling in the voids that were there.  It's time for me to devote my time to a single character (though I may roll up an alt that fills a different role).  I do not plan to max out more than a character or two.  I still want to play other games and have interests that are vested more heavily into other games anyway.

As you begin the game in this particular class you find yourself landing on a planet that is seemingly at war and getting your ship stolen.  The story is less than spectaculat, even though that seems to be what they really intended to pull you into the beginning of the game.  The first thing I wanted to do was start questing.  Every game has figured out that people would rather do quests than grind on mobs endlessly.  This game is the same.  Yes, I still stop to kill EVERYTHING, but I do so on the way to my next quest-giver or objective.  You move from one area to another, all while trying to trying to follow your main quest.  There are several quests that you shouldn't simply refuse, because you may need them to move your character story forward or to get your Advanced Class.  This kind of takes away from the free world and roaming options that you hoped to have in this game.

The game has several features which are interesting.  You have the same stat system that everyone should be used to be now, but each class has a different stat that helps their character in more ways than one.  You also have bonus and/or extra stats (think hit, crit, etc), but they mostly exist as flavor.  For a Smuggler my main stat will be Cunning.  Smugglers have the ability to heal, as well as DPS, and Cunning will cover the entire spectrum.  This is a nice change from having to have multiple gear sets to do different jobs, or not having gear optimized to make your heals worth a damn.  A Scoundrel, the healing Smuggler, can DPS pretty well AND you can heal at the same time.  While you obviously get less benefit if you don't go into the healing tree, you will still be better than a Gunslinger... who can't heal at all.

Another feature which I found strange was the story quest system.  If you are with other people and they are doing a story quest you have to be allowed with them into places that you can go normally, out in the world.  A place where you should be able to go will be blocked off, if they have a quest there.  It's a very strange system.  Questing together seems a bit off in a way, as well.  I love playing with other people and plowing through stuff, but this game is so entrenched in it's own story that sometimes that can hinder playing as a group.  It's a bit frustrating at times.  The game does do a good job at synergy between classes and I've found myself with Troopers who make my life much easier.

Companions are kind of new.  Guild Wars already had a very good system of having a henchmen to help you out, but this goes even further.... which Guild Wars also did with the Hero system.  You can gear out your companion... just like a hero.  The companion will react in certain ways to you and how you go about doing things.  To maintain your relationship with them, you will simply need to give them gifts.  Since I don't have a companion I can't really comment, outside of what I've been told and/or seen.  The system seems interested, but it also seems very disappointing.  I don't really want to do instances or have to have a nagging NPC by my side all of the time.  I'm hoping that this particular gimmick doesn't weigh too heavily into the actual gameplay of the game, but I fear it will.

The graphics have to be my biggest gripe.  The game looks like garbage for 2011.  Yeah, yeah, I know it's an MMO, but you have visually amazing games out now and with as must focus is put on instancing and phasing MMOs now, this should be a non-issue.  Vsync doesn't work.  There are very few gaphics settings and even less setting for advanced graphics.  No AA or AF, generic incrementals for everything else and no real representation of the game being on high... when it is.  Low and high look similar enough that I might not even be able to tell the difference.  The game also seems poorly optimized in some aspects, which might explain the lack of advanced graphics features.  In a world where technology is rapidly moving forward, I expect a little more, ya know...  We have quad core tablets on the way with video cards that are nearly as good as what most average gaming PCs have.  I can't see how it's hard to push the envelope a little or even develop an engine that makes use of what we have now better.  This game is expected to run on a wide variety of machines and while I respec that, I expect a certain level of performance as well.

The biggest thing behind this is the nod from Lucasfilms and Star Wars.  I think it is one of the few things that will keep this game afloat and help it find any success.  There isn't a whole lot in the game that makes it different or better in any way. It is hard for me to say that this game does anything innovative or does things much better than anything before it.  I've seen games like WAR and WoW do things better.  I've seen games like RIFT start out well and then wind down a bit.  Again, I think the only thing that will save this game from sinking is the fact that it's a Star Wars game.  That could also be a reason that I end up pushed out of the game.  I don't give a fuck about Star Wars lore or any of that and if there are changes that piss of the community I could see it making that rabid fanbase go batshit and run off TONS of subscribers.  WoW nerds raging is one thing, but the Star Wars kids... fuck that.  I'd rather put my dick in a blender.


Don't think that I hate the game, really.  I don't!  It's fun.  It is interesting and has some neat stuff going for it.  The quest system and story system is kind of fun.  It tells you where to go.  You can take your side quests, too.  Some of the quests auto complete and drop large chunks of experience on you.  The combat system seems fun enough.  The abilities that you get to regen health are kind of cool and provide flavor to each class.  There just isn't a lot new and not a whole lot that gives me a wow factor after years of playing so many different MMO games.  The game isn't bad, just frustrating after this many years and all of these setback, I just want the game to be much more than it.  I am sure as I go up in levels and progress in the game some of these things will make more sense and the game will get more fun and more interesting.  I plan to stick with it and invest at least some of my time to it.  I'll give it 3 months to see how everything shakes out, but I've got a bunch of other games that are all pretty good to play.

Transmogrification

One of the most exciting features in the latest WoW patch was that addition of transmogrification.  Basically, we can make our boring new loot or the clown-inspired old loot look like whatever we wanted... for a price.  I had very high hopes for this.  They were dashed before I ever even managed to log in to the servers after the patch.

I just happened to be someone who likes to be prepared on patch days.  I checked the forums while I downloaded my AddOn updates.  The forums were going crazy.  Turns out Blizzard had decided to not let players wear the original level 60 PvP set, unless you had attained the appropriate rank on that character.  I was heartbroken.  I was beyond disappointed.  I can't even put into words what I REALLY felt.

Ultimate Sadness.

I have seen Blizzard do some fucked up shit and make some mind-boggling decisions over the years, but this was one for the ages.  I am a long-time player and I have actually competed in the old system.  My original Rogue, before my account was "taken" while I had stopped playing, was actually "Standing 1" for 2 straight weeks.  I played long and hard and I feel that I deserve the opportunity to wear those items.  When the patch came out that changed the entire PvP system there were 4, FOUR, Rank 14s on my server.  My server came out later, and obviously hadn't matured to a point where it was possible to have very many Rank 14s.

Blizzard claims that they want to give those old school players something to be proud of for all of their dedication.  Bullshit.  If you want to preserver the sanctity of certain gear  then you need to do it for PvE gear, too.  Why would anyone deserve gear from BWL when they probably couldn't have done it back in original WoW at the same difficulty level?  Back when Shadowflame could wipe raids if you didn't have the cape.  Back when class calls were meaningful.  Back when it mattered.  Better yet, what about those people who accomplished things in Black Temple?  It's frustrating and kind of stupid.  The gear has been available and easily attainable.  60 Twinks have been wearing it and a LOT of people after the PvP patch back in the day had all of that stuff. 

I'm very sad and I hope that Blizzard decides to overturn this policy.  I really hope that I can get my 60 PvP set back.  I love that fucking thing.  At least let me sell back the pieces and pick up the blue set or something.  That is the look I want.  If not... it's time to find a Tier 2 recolor or something.

What happened to communities?

A long time ago it wasn't too hard to find people to play PC games with.  You might not know a bunch of kids in the neighborhood, but you could easily stumble into a community or clan/guild/team/club that was easily accessible.  Your favorite server clusters normally had paid support and solid websites with forums that were available.  Things have change, both for the better... and the worse.

Back in the hayday of Tribes we had a lot of different communities.  There were the elite players of the Base community.  There were other, smaller, Base communities that had plenty of support.  There were small groups set up for Shifter and Renegades, as well.  Then there was the community that I belonged to, Ultra Renegades. Ultra Renegades was a basic mod built for Tribes.  It offered unlimited jetpacks and the ability to use "boosts" and "brakes", not to mention the infinite ammo.  Some interesting modding and adjustments changed the entire game.  It played differently and gave a lot more freedom.  The game was now truly an aerial marvel.  The maps went from interesting layouts with vehicles to free-for-all, above the clouds battles.  It was truly a thing of beauty.  It was my first real experience of intense gaming.

Sure, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 and Counter-Strike would all be part of this original push to get online multiplayer gaming to where it is today, but not of them did it like Tribes.  All of these games had large mod communities (CS was actually a mod created for Half-Life) and they all ushered in a kind of play-what-you-like gaming that we may never see again.  Each of these games also had rather large communities.  Not the kind of large that we think of today when we look at huge games like World of Warcraft, Starcraft, or the Call of Duty franchises.  Counter-Strike, for many years, held the title of most popular online game.  You could stumble upon a group of people who were plenty interested in play and easily fill servers with friendly faces or people you were used to playing with.  It was as easy as finding a community filled with people you enjoyed and like playing the game like you did.  Oh, how I miss those days.

Today the possibility of being in a truly active community is pretty slim.  The forums are populated by know-it-alls.  The websites are normally run by exclusive cliques or teams who wish to generate revenue.  No, I'm not mad at people making money, I'm mad when they cover it up with bullshit.  It isn't a new thing, even back in Tribes you saw things moving this direct, but now it is more of the norm.  Today you also see a mish-mash of the communities.  You see several different games supported, if you call it supported...  There is more going on than simply the love for a game or gametype, it's not good or bad, it's both.  It embraces the though of gaming and being a gamer, but it also removes the personal connection that we used to have with the group of people that we played with.  Bouncing from one thing to another can be frustrating.


I know most of it is just nostalgia.  I know I am probably romanticising the past.  Sometimes it feels good.  I remember being a part of a bigger community and a smaller one.  I took part in discussions about Tribes and also about technology on one site.  On another I talked with my clan and we chatted about the game and dicks (also, man asses).  These kind of communities seem to be giving way for larger more homogenized communities and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Benchmarks are overrated.

The first thing that you think of when you hear about benchmarks is probably CPU or GPU tests.... well, at least if you're a PC gamer.  This is an age old tool that we have used to compare similar products or even see where the older ones stack up to the latest and greatest.

For a longtime benchmarks have used video and processor intense tests to decide how each one handles what they throw at it.  Unfortunately most of the tests are not real world examples of what we see.  Sometimes the tests reveal strengths and weaknesses that you may never run in to.  If I only played WoW, but wanted to have a good experience then I would obviously look for scores that related more to me.  I play a lot of modern shooters as well, so I'd want to know what product gave me the best performance in that category.  We use these synthetic tests and expect them to represent the actual capability of these cards.

A lot of these tests don't even push the cards to the fullest.  They don't stress them to the point that they could be.  They do push them and test them, but they are rarely working in a real environment.  A fresh install of Windows with nothing but a benchmark application open isn't how most gamers run their set ups.  I know that I've got Steam open almost all of the time.  I've also got a copy of Ventrilo running.  In the case of playing BF3 I've got Origin AND Chrome open (Chrome can become quite the memory hog with a couple of extensions running).  If I'm playing WoW you can bet I've got Winamp on and I may have Chrome open to check out WoWHead and look up spots from transmog gear or whatnot.

The fact remains that we are still using this tired old method to tell us what is performing where.  While it is nice to know that the last generation is better than this one, I'm not sure it is as important as it once was.  There are many new features available now that we could have never dreamed of.  Realistic water, amazing smoke effects, the facial expressions, it's all very cool.  While the video cards might be "faster" does that mean that they are really doing much more?  nVidia has gone so far as to use the extra power on their GPUs to power a physics engine built into their drivers.  That's pretty cool and I'm not sure we have a benchmark to see what the offloading of physics can do to the overall experience.  Not to mention how much more in depth the experience can became just because of the way the physics is handled.  I can tell you right now that playing some games, especially those built on the Unreal Engine, can be drastically changed just by adding that extra physics power.

While I understand the importance of these tests, I'd like to see some headway made or some more standard tests developed to actually see what kind of REAL WORLD performance they give.  We have seen some rather disappointing numbers from these new sets of CPUs released, but are they really disappointing?  Maybe we just don't know how to measure the gain of their performance yet.  Once we start using more and more cores to push forward or the software gets better I am sure we will elevate these chips in terms of dominance.  Even dual core chips faced some problems at release because we just didn't know how to measure what it was they were capable of.

Your KDR does not determine your worth.

I have always been a support player.  Even as far back as Tribes I felt more comfortable laying turrets and maintaining base defense, rather than running around and raking up huge scores capping flags or getting tons of kills.  As it turns out, I'm still that kind of player.

I would much rather hang back and be support, rather than go charging in at the front of the line.  I've only ever had one character that was a legitimate tank (even my Warrior back at 60 only tanked on the Garr fight).  I normally hang back and heal or try to do ranged DPS.  In PvP I like to get my hands dirty and be up close and personal, but that's an entirely different matter.  When it comes to FPS games I do the same.  I am much more comfortable hanging back and with others rather than running and gunning my way through the map.  I have competed at medium-ranged tiers in a few things and even taken a trip out to CPL before.  I've never been super pro, but I've always tried to remain an asset to my team and sacrifice myself and my score for the good of the team and the win.

I've never been a scoring beast and I rarely put up huge numbers.  I am normally sitting in the middle of the pack and have done all I could to keep my teammates up and scored a couple kills in the process.  It isn't the most exciting thing to do, but it keeps me in the game.  Back in America's Army I enjoyed going through the training so that I could be a medic or a sniper.  It was fun.  I got a whole lot of different things accomplished and I felt proud when I was done.  Sure all I did was pay attention and answer questions, but it was something that I enjoyed and something that I felt added an extra amount of depth to the game.  You had to dedicate your time in a different way and then you could be useful to your team.

I think that it is great that BF3 offers this kind of gameplay, but the current system of leveling is just too ridiculous.  This forces people to get and play the game early or get stuff getting buttfucked.  People of much higher ranks with many more unlocks than you have an obvious advantage.  While I am all for taking my lumps, this is... a bit extreme.

I hope that in the future they tier the servers or offer intelligent matchmaking.  In the future I also hope that people same the KDR banter for TDM.  Defend or attack the objective and do what you have to for the win.  It's just that simple.  In games built around teamwork there shouldn't be anything else to be concerned with.

We really are elitist pricks.

Console gamers might get inferior games and they may have tween screaming nigger and faggot at each other all over the place, but they have fun.  They don't care about much more than kicking ass and having a good time.  Sure, the console scene is filled with children and frat boys, but they all manage to enjoy what they are doing.  I wish the PC community still had some of that.

As a long time PC gamer I know that being an elitist dickhead is just something that comes with the territory.  As gaming has changed and evolved on PC a lot of things have happened that have been huge let downs.  I have seen a lot of people let it take them over and just be flaming dickbags.  I'm guilty of this to an extent.  My anger for PC gaming stems from people settling for shit or falling for stupid gimmicks.  They call it progress or cutting edge, but in the end it's just a bunch of garbled shit that doesn't matter.  Eventually, some of it comes to fruition and ends up helping... most of the time it stays a pile of garbled shit.

We have so many people today who are hosting podcasts or putting out YouTube videos that is hard to tell who to even listen to.  Since I'm an opinionated old asshole who has been playing PC games for a long time, I generally feel that I have a pretty good grasp on it.  I've known some guys for a while we are very into posting videos and most of them are affiliated with an online PC gaming community.  I think that it's great for people to share ideas and thoughts.  I especially enjoy the fact that people are able to reach such a wide audience.  I'm not too excited about what they might say.  Remember, we are all elitist pricks.

I try as hard as I can to support the guys over at KBMOD.com.  They seem like a good bunch of guys and I know a couple of the folks, and have for years.  From time to time there will be something that is either just stupid as fuck or something that might be up for debate and discussion.  I, of course, say something and it turns into a shitstorm.  My feelings aren't hurt and no, I'm not mad.  I just wish that we, as a community, were more capable of interaction with each other.  There shouldn't be such a hatred for people who belong to a different school of thought.

I love sound cards.  They sound lightyears better than onboard.  Always.  Period.  That makes a dick.  I think that Max Payne was more influential than Modern Warfare.  That makes me a dick.  I think that if you an FPS gamer and you've never played System Shock 2, you're a fucking poser.  That makes me a dick.  I think that the same people that say WoW is too easy are the same people who cried because it was too hard.  That makes me a dick.  However, I'm not always right.

When SLI (Crossfire, too) was first born it was a gimmick.  You could get a 20% performance gain!  HOORAY!  Get the best card ever and then get another one.  Spend 1200 bucks on video cards and get 5 more FPS, hooray!  SLI has now come a very long way and with boards being able to support multiple cards at full data speeds you can see very extreme gains.  Was SLI shit?  Yes.  Is SLI still shit?  Not so much.  I wouldn't recommend two lower end cards in a set up, but two high end cards will give you some series power for years to come.

5.1 and 7.1 gaming headphones have been a cheap marketing gimmick for years now.  Some makers used different software to emulate the sound.  Others actually put different drivers into the headphones, but they were normally cheap and of low quality.  Most audiophiles or sound junkies will tell you that you aren't doing any better with a bunch of small, shitty drivers and would be better off with a quality 2-channel set.  That aside the actually science of sound hasn't help these headphones out either.  Headphones have a problem when splitting sound, which doesn't happen in a normal environment.  You hear the sound coming from both left and right, but you can distinguish it based on way-to-difficult-to-explain sound shit.  Thus, making this a gimmick market, full of garbage.  They package it as awesome and sell it for an outrageous price.

Today I watched a video by someone who was really hyping a pair of these.  I watched the video and was completely stunned.  Not only had they bought into this, but they were peddling it on their YouTube channel?!  I, of course, made a smartass comment.  How could I not?  Instead of being mature or explaining that the technology had progressed to a certain point or explained why this was different, he basically sent me a message and told me I was a fucking idiot and since I hadn't X'd that I couldn't Y.  It's pretty standard, this is how fellow gamers treat each other.  I assumed he was hocking a product, he assumed I didn't know how headphones worked.  The usual.

I checked out the website and did a little looking.  The headphones actually seem pretty legit.  They carry a hefty price tag and chances are this guy was getting something for gushing about them on YouTube, but they did seem decent.  I did some extra reading about the company and some of the stuff they have developed for sound delivery and I am now interested.  Interested enough to get a new headset?  Doubtful.  I use a headset for voice only.  I like to disturb sleep.  Really, I like to separate my channels because my hearing ain't so great.

I can admit when I might be wrong or when something may have become way better.  The PC community as a whole really has to work on this.  Treating each other like shit isn't going to help our efforts to grown the community and introduce more people into PC gaming.  It damn sure isn't going to make those console fucktards think that they're missing out.  Stop being such faggots, seriously.

A little alone time with BF3.

First, fuck Origin.  Seriously.  What a fucking piece of dogshit.  Requiring me to launch this hideous fucking piece of dogshit EVERY SINGLE TIME I want to play the game is so fucking retarded.  I don't mind having Steam open, it has games and friends and plenty of other shit that I care about. Origin has BF3... and a copy of a game that won't even run on my PC.  Steam at least takes the time to make the older games that it supports run on a PC via Steam.  UGH!  So many fucking facepunches!

Some things I'd like to touch on, however....

Time between rounds is too long.  This is insane.  45 seconds between rounds PLUS a map load?  The map needs to be preloading during this pause in the action so that we can jump in and get the game started.  I've played a lot of game and for a long time now and maybe in 2001 these kind of load times were okay, but not today.

Obvious difference between new players and "vets".  By this I don't mean FPS badasses, I mean.... THIS GUN FUCKING SUCKS.  I see people flying around with many different guns, all with upgrades and attachments.  While I think this is awesome, it is also overkill.  How is a person like myself, especially this early in the game, supposed to really keep up?  I spent a few hours getting spanked by mostly people who were 25+.  It wasn't fun.  As a matter of fact, it fucking sucked and made me almost want to uninstall the game.  I don't mean getting beat on and suffering a learning curve.  I'm used to it.  I've been around a long time and adapted to a lot of different games.  I was pretty decent at BC2 and was able to do well with each role, though Medic and Assault were easily my best.  Surely since they've been rolled together I should get the hang of it.  The fact remains that the gap is rather large and this doesn't make it any more fun for people who come in even later in the game.  By around 25 I had every unlock for BC2, I assume it is a similar case in BF3.  I saw lots of people over 30 and several over 40.  Yikes!  This leads me into the next things....

Tiered servers.  BC2 had tons of special servers set up which kicked and/or banned you if you were higher than a certain rank.  Some communities had several of these.  I remember playing on some that went from 1-19, then 20-29, then 30-35, then all levels.  I played on one when I first started that was for all levels but was restricted by kills/rank.  Above rank 20 you could only use a pistol and if you got 20 kills you were not allowed to get anymore.  Sounds crazy?  Yes.  Ended up being fun?  A whole lot when learning the game and maps.  Why was this not something that was implemented.  Shitty F2P games have been doing this for years.  Surely with the new browser-based system this could easily be done.  I'd like to hop on and try to feel out the game and maps without being fucking raped.  I know that they don't have that much time on me, but it is obviously enough for a clear advantage.

There is ZERO point to defib.  Seriously.  No one is fucking dead long enough.  By the time I can round the corner and get my guy up, he has already elected to deploy.  Now my ass is hanging out there trying to defib him and get blown away.  Fail, fail, fail.  I also see an alarming trend of not moving as a unit and not helping your team.  Look, if someone is willing to help you kill shit, keep you healed up and fill your gun with ammo... I'd keep them around.

The netcode is still kind of shitty.  Several times I died when I was behind cover, from someone who shot at me previously.  Or I was shot after going prone or crouching or even rounding a corner.  I know bullets travel, but it doesn't seem like the netcode does so well.  I saw other people who could pull off amazing feats of shotgun sniping with ease.  It makes no fucking sense.  BC2 was a little rocky at first, I am hoping they even everything out.


All of these gripes aside, the game is good.  If only they'd cut out about half of the lens flare.  Bleh.  I enjoyed the game, even though I'm pissed off about the things above.  I expect a title that is hyped this much and developed for this long to bring it.  They brought it, they just didn't bother finishing it up first.

Tribes: Ascent aka Tribes: WTF happened to my inventory station?!

I got to spend a good bit of time with Tribes:Ascend this weekend and I've got to say.... awesome!  This game is insanely fun.  I really hope that in the coming months that they put it together just right and make the Tribes community very happy.

The game is very engaging and a whole lot of fun.  That doesn't mean that it isn't without faults.  There were some random bugs and issues, but nothing major.  The overall experience was really very good.  The jetpacks felt natural and even though skiing is again a "feature", they didn't make it feel super cheesy.  The feel of the game is very much the same as Tribes 2 (which was my favorite), but without some of the customization... I'm not sure how much I will truly enjoy it.

There were only two maps available for play.  They were actually fun, but got very boring very quickly.  I am used to large and more open maps, both of these were kind of small and compact.  That doesn't make them any less good, it just doesn't give them quite the same feel as the older games.  The first thing I did on both maps was find the generator and flag stand and then find the best spot for turrets.  Then, I got to work.  I have always been a defender or a chase.  Since there isn't a good loadout for me to chase with, I decided to sit around and defend.  The layout of the bases are pretty much what you would expect from a game in the Tribes franchise.  Nothing super amazing, but still well put together.  There are multiple ways to approach both (the gens and flag), which makes defending and attacking much like a chess match.  You have to be able to see your opposition making multiple moves before they do it.

The loadouts were an extreme disappointment for me.  I won't go into full detail, but I just couldn't find loadouts that made sense with my playstyle.  I understand that not everyone plays like me, but surely that level of customization should be there in the Tribes games.  Even in the shitsuck that was Vengeance you had custom loadouts.  Sad panda.

HOWEVER, my only issue being with the loadouts and the game being MONTHS away from launch...  That means that this game is pretty fucking good.  I am really enjoying the game and to be honest, I've played this more than BF3 since I got my video card back.  BF3 being a triple-A title with huge hype behind it AND it's losing my attention to a game in closed beta by a pretty mediocre developer, what does that say?

Too much going on!

I got my card back.  I finally played BF3.  Tribes started it's beta.  My buddy finally transferred over to my server on WoW.  So much has gone on.  Phew!

First and foremost, my old buddy Evissic (E for short) has now moved over to my server in World of Warcraft (Dalaran).  We played together years ago back on Scilla and have kept in touch but not actively done much with each other in a long time.  We chat on steam and occasionally chill on Ventrilo, but now he is back on a server with me and we have jumped in some old instances.  Duoed several instances and started on some other.  Black Temple and The Eye were a lot of fun.  I never got to see them when they were relevant.  Obviously Molten Core was something I saw plenty of.  We have even two-manned some of the new non-Heroic instances.

I got my video card back.  YAY!  This has really made me less angry.  No more random BSODs or drivers restarting on a desktop.  FINALLY!  It isn't the same card I sent in, but I am glad to have it back regardless.  This means that I can not only play the games I was already playing at a higher level, but I can play my NEW games... finally.  Woot!

Tribes: Ascend started it's beta.  Since I pre-ordered I got an automatic invite.  While I haven't played much of it, I can say that it is much better than Vengeance.  It doesn't have quite the right feel for me, but I think that might be because of the limited customization.  I was always a turret whore or a flag chaser.  I used kits that made those very niche roles easier for me.  With the new system these kinds of things are impossible and I'm not doing so well. =X

And finally... the game I had been waiting for.  Battlefield 3.  Oh my fucking God.  So much sunflare. =(  I'm going to need sunglasses to play this fucking game.  It's intense.  Again, I've not got much time with it either, I've still got to find my feet and really work out some of the weapons and whatnot, but it seems fun.  I got a couple maps in and did so/so.  Being patient really pays off in a Battlefield game, being fucking crazy doesn't hurt, either.  Being willing to scale things and jump down on people is an obvious advantage... apparently.

The last week has been fun and eventful.  I hope this next week is better.

Double post! Also, updating some stuff.

As I strive to be more active here I am also going to go back and take care of some older post that I ignored.  No links, no pictures, just words?  MUST FIX!  I've already updated a couple with some colorful pictures and I plan to include them from now on.  I am also going to try to go back and update links.  This way if anyone every gives a fuck, it looks sharp and sexy.

Also, cocks.

Sorry, no pictures for this one.

Fan rattling = no more. Still hate this video card.

I ordered, received and installed the replacement fan for my heatsink.  I picked up the Hyper 212+ and I liked the fan on it, but after a couple months it had started rattling uncontrollably.  I knew that it was the fan, but I was willing to give it another shot.  I ordered a replacement fan that is, as far as I can tell, the same as what came with it.  If this doesn't work out I will invest in another silent cooling PWM fan, I guess.  I'm hoping the last one was a fluke.  The fan still worked, in the sense that it moved air, it was just annoying as hell to listen to and I wasn't sure I would make it much longer.

However, even with this new fan attached, my video card is still a huge piece of shit.  As I said before I am using a 5770 that my brother had very little luck with.  I managed to crash the drivers and have to reset them WHILE I WAS TYPING IN THE ADDRESS TO BLOGGER.  Really?  Quality control must REALLY suck over at Sapphire.  Piece of shit.

I can't wait to get my 6870 back.  I'm still a little nervous about it actually being in working order, though.

RMA success?

I should have my video card back by this weekend.  I can't wait.  I just hope that it comes back in working order.

My 6870 started to do strange stuff over the summer.  I assumed that it might be something to do with the case or cooling, but after swapping out the case and adding a new power supply I had pretty much ruled out the most common issues that arise.  I made sure all of the temperatures were functioning within an appropriate range.  It progressively got worse and worse until the point at which everything just stopped working the way I needed it to.  Games became hard to play and shit just sucked, basically.  I managed to get information together to RMA the card. 

The RMA process was pretty shitty, but I managed to get it sent off.  Now I am just have to hope that it comes back working.  My brother went through the RMA process twice with Sapphire, both times he got a card back that just didn't work like it is supposed to.  Right now I am using one of those cards, because I don't have anything else to really use.  This card BSODs everytime you try to load up something in Direct X 10 or 11 and it has trouble just doing Direct X 9 work.  I have seen it on many occasions actually lock up while browsing a web page or watching a video on the web

It is infinitely frustrating.

I am hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

WoW Pandas and you.

A lot of information came out from the latest BlizzCon.  The part that really mattered to me was about the next WoW expansion.  I was gone back and forth with World of Warcraft and I am currently playing it, since it is the only game I can really play right now.  I get really excited when it comes time for a new WoW expansion.  This expansion, however, is a little odd.  The main feature of this expansion is going to be centered around... pandas.

Yes, pandas.  The Pandaren are a race of panda-people in Warcraft lore.  I'm not really sure how I feel about this particular expansion being based so heavily on these... pandas.  I really like the idea of seeing a race that has been represented in the past coming into the game.  I think it will interested to see their home, which happens to be ON THE BACK OF A GIANT FUCKING TURTLE.  I think that the new class has potential to be fun and interesting.  Which this current expansion not even a year old, I'm a little concerned about how they will handle the end of it.  We still have to finish up this expansion and wrap it up.  I think it will be nice to not have a centralized villain to go after from the beginning of the expansion.  This should make it easier to develop more fun things to do, some of which won't be dedicated to building up to that one final encounter.

The talent overhaul seems like a fucking joke.  They essentially want to do away with talents as they are, do away with the need for training and allow your spec to determine your skills.  Obviously there will be skills that everyone of that class will have.  Then there will be certain skills that you earn as you level, automagically.  No need to go back to a trainer, you just learn it as you ding killing that kobold.  At level 10 you would pick a specialization and then the rest of your character is just going to happen.  No need to input any brain power.  The new talent system would essentially have 6 different types of skills.  Each skill does something similar, but it lets you pick every 15 levels.  So you have 18 total skills, but you have to pick one from each tier.  Think of it as tier 1: snares, tier 2: DPS boosts, tier 3: fear/polymorph immunity, tier 4: instant cast spell, tier 5: aggro dump/builder, tier 6: another DPS boost.  Each skill will be similar, but might apply more to one spec than another.  It really looks awful.  Not only is it over simplified, but sometimes your playstyle doesn't make sense with entire tiers.  I looked at the Rogue tree for the new talents, and I felt that I'd much rather have ALL THREE talents from the top tier (based on Stealth, mostly).  If I was Sub, I'd probably have talents similar to them anyway, but since they are removing that sort of customization... I lose.  Terrible.

The new Monk class looks kind of cool.  Tank/DPS/Heals.  Great... another class that is laid out like this.  Sigh.  Why haven't we made every class available to do two roles?  I'd tank as a Rogue, it'd help get me in more groups.  I'd heal as a Warlock via demonic energies or tank with a pet if I was ever given a chance or the proper abilities.  Adding another class to the game that can do what so many other classes can, without fixing the current classes seems silly.  I'm sure the class will be cool, but there are other classes that are being slapped in the face by this.

The most interesting play made during this event was Blizzard offering beta access, a special mount, and a FREE COPY OF DIABLO 3 if you signed up for a year.  I don't mean pay for a year up front, I mean if you lock yourself in for a year.  You can still pay 15 a month or 40 every 3 months, but you can't cancel for a year. The mount looks very nice and getting a free game is pretty nice.  I saved myself 60 bucks... kind of.  I would have not purchased Diablo 3, otherwise.  I would, however, have had a WoW account active for a year.  This is a brilliant move.  Now people are locked in for a year.  180 bucks from people doing the 15 a month, PLUS they are almost assuring that people will be around to get the expansion and if nothing else... they will want to beta test and give feedback, before the expansion comes out.  It will get them a lot of feedback and help them give the game something for everyone.

I think the expansion will be alright.  I'm not sure how long I'm invested in WoW, but it's been pretty good to me thus far.  It have provided a lot of great memories and it seems like it might have some great stuff left to give.

This copy of BF3 gives me infinite sadness.

I went and picked up my copy of BF3 today before work. It was a kinda of a sad occasion, though.... and I've been to midnigth releases for WoW games.

As I walked it I was disturbed to see so many moms. Yes, moms. I saw a bunch of teenage boys... and their moms. What. The. Fuck? The two people ahead of me were both kids with their moms waiting in line to buy the game. The guy at the register explained that it was a mature game and described the content to the parent and then asked if they were sure. They agreed, made the transaction and got out of my way. The kid directly in front of me was in loafers, fitting khaki dress pants, a button down, a Northface jacket and sporting some bottle-cap glasses. This was a REAL winner. This was a kid who was going to be screaming "nigger" and "faggot" loudly into his mic over XBox Live the next couple of weeks while he felt the game out.

I am sure that I was the only person there with any interest in PC games, which was also kind of sad. The guy at the register did let me know that they would be having a midnight release for MW3 and asked if I wanted to pre-order. I politely declined. He then asked if I'd like to upgrade my Star Wars: The Old Republic pre-order to collector's edition. I then asked him if I could just get me game and he settled my transaction and allowed me to leave. GameStop sucks.

Now that I've got this copy, it's eating away at me. It feels so empty. I really wish that I could play this game. I NEED THIS! This is my stress release. This is my break from the world. This is how I avoid heavy medication. This is how I balance myself. Ugh. I can't wait to get my video card back. =(

BF3 release! Video card still in RMA hell!

Well, BF3 has finally been released. I would have picked it up at midnight... but I had to work. I would make it a priority to pick up tomorrow, but my video card is in RMA limbo right now. =(

I sincerely hope that BF3 lives up to its expectations. I hope that the launch goes well and I hope that people enjoy the game. I hope that the servers are populate. These are all merely hopes, though. I hope that BF3 is more than they showed off in the beta and especially more than they showed off in the alpha. I hope that Battlelog isn't a huge fail. I just hope the game is gooooooood. That's all I can really hope for, right?

As far as my video card, I just hope it comes back. God damn, there is so much hope around here. If I added a little rainbow and puppytears I could be the president. Anyways.... I hope it works. I started to get artifacts on it back during the summer. Since I played BFBC2 pretty heavily over the summer I assumed it was an engine problem. It only really popped up in BFBC2 and it wasn't there all the time. I confirmed that it wasn't a heat or power issue by changing cases, adding a bunch of fans (with controller), getting a new power supply, and observing it getting worse. The artifacts and whatnot only seemed to appear in DX10 and 11. Anything in Direct X 9 worked fine. My mind... it is blown. World of Warcraft looked great. Even Black Ops worked well. Anything heavy Direct X 11 was shit, though. It was pretty weird.

I started the RMA process almost a month ago. I had to submit info, wait and get address and RMA number. I finally packed it up and shipped it off at the beginning of last week. I assume at least 2 weeks to get it back, probably closer to a month. At least I'm a week down. =X In the meantime I am using a 5770 that likes to freak out and have the drivers reset while scrolling through webpages. Win!

Oh, come on MW3!

What in the fuck is wrong with these people?!

There is still no overhaul or update of the engine for CoD. There is still no huge advancement to the series. THEY STILL WANT 60 BUCKS FOR IT! AGHH!!!

They announced dedicated servers. They assured themselves tons of pre-orders and the faith and hopefulness of the entire PC community. Then they shit all over us. Dedicated servers WILL NOT BE RANKED. What the fuck is the point, then? Honestly, why bother?

You have just spit in the face of the people who made your games big enough that you could even take them to console. Then again I guess with Carmack taking a dump on PC gamers, too, I shouldn't be so surprised. He was a big supporter of CoD, probably because he developed the engine for it more than a decade ago..... I am so disappointed, I can barely put it into words.

Another year, another CoD title coming. Another console victory. =( Sigh.

I've been busy.

I know, I know. Being busy isn't really an excuse. But I have bunch of them....

- I work at least 50 hours a week at my job.

- My video card is fucked up and I've been playing a lot of WoW.

- I've been trying to convince my buddy to team up and do a podcast with me, or at least some Skype shit talking for YouTube.

- My wife is pregnant, so I try to spend time with her on my days off.

- I work an odd graveyard shift, so my sleep schedule blows.

- Steve Jobs died and I've been throwing a party everyday. Dickhead.

Battlefield 3 Beta

As much as I'd like to be happy... I just can't be. I played in the piss poor Alpha for Battlefield. It was awful. It nearly made me not pre-order the game. It nearly made me rethink even playing BF3. I have been a long time BF player, since 1942 and it's awkward expansions, and this thing almost pushed me out the door. I decided to put that behind me and give this another shot. Surely it would be better this time around.

WRONG!

Somehow this game manages to be shittier in beta than it was in alpha. HOW THE FUCK IS THAT POSSIBLE? There are awkward rubberbanding issues, especially with dead bodies. I have also noticed an unhealthy amount of lag, on a server that I am supposedly pinging sub 30 to. If I was still running a dual core and a 2 generation old video card I could almost understand this. However, I'm not. I have a mid-range quad core and fairly capable video card.

Though I doubt it is performance that is giving me the issue, the game also looks fairly unspectacular. I appreciate the smoke and the nuances of bullet casings and reflective scopes, but the motion blur and weird CoD-esque slide over everything is really annoying. I have a hard time dealing with change, especially when that change is being done to a game that was so close to getting it right. BF2 was brilliant, BC2 was a vehicle-lite version, but was still pretty good. This, this can't be the next amazing thing that EA is giving us in this franchise. IT JUST CAN'T BE!

Just give it time, Dave. There will be jets! That's what they say... okay, no one says that to me, but that is what they would say if there was a they to say it. And I would say to them: I DON'T FUCKING CARE! Jets and tanks are a lot of fun, the vehicles are great. Destruction and playing the game as a first PERSON shooter are more enjoyable to me. Maybe that is why I enjoyed BC2 so much. Environment and more focus on the PERSON aspect.

I still expect the game will be fun, but it seems pretty frustrating. Seeing them take steps backward at this point in development is really kind of scary. I'm not sure what sort of shitshow to expect at release. =X

I've been very busy and very pissed off.

It's hard to manage a blog where you basically talk shit about something that you love so much. It's kind of like telling your little sister how much you love her and then pushing her into a ravine and watching while she is devoured by cannibals. Yeah, kind of like that. The last couple of months have been VERY busy for me. I got a promotion, I changed shifts, I got a raise, my wife's pregnancy made her hate me more than usual. Then... I got moved to my old shift, my raise was lessened and my wife got even more pregnant and wanted me to do dumb stuff, like spend time with her.

Needless to say I have been severely neglecting my PC and a whole lot of games. I've missed out on some critical debates and even a couple of games that look amazing. FEAR NOT! I am not dead and I would like to return to contributing to my own blog, so that I can try to convey my seething hatred for PC gaming as it is now.

The beatings are coming.

Parts and pieces.

I have recently talked about putting together a new PC. Well, I laid out the parts that I will have. This should be the final build and currently everything is here or has been ordered. I hope to have this beast all put together by the middle of August. I work 50+ hours a week and just don't have a ton of time that I wanna spend putting it together. I'd much rather be shooting faces.

Below I have included the components and the best links I could get for them. Several items simply aren't listed on their manufacturers website anymore.

Chassis:

CoolerMaster Elite 430 Black

Power Supply:

750 watt Antec TruePower TP-750 Blue

Motherboard:

ASUS M4A77D

CPU:

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition (3.2GHzx4)

Heatsink & Fan:

CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus

Video Card:

Sapphire Radeon HD 6870

Sound Card:

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium

Memory:

8GB (4x2GB) A-DATA DDR2 800 (PC6400) AD2U800B2G5-DRH

Hard Drive(s):

1x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64MB Cache

1x Western Digital 1TB Caviar Green SATA II 64MB Cache

DVD Drive(s):

2x LITE-ON 22X DVD±R DVD Burner iHAP322-08

Case Fan(s):

6x CoolerMaster SickleFlow 120mm 2000RPM Blue LED

Fan Controller:

NZXT Sentry Mesh

Keyboard:

Thermaltake e-sports MEKA G1

Mouse:

Logitech G500

And new parts arrive!

FRANKENSTEIN!!!! LIVE!

I got my new case and several (5) fans for it. I went with some CoolerMaster LED fans. They were on Amazon, they were on Prime and they were a decent price with a good rating. I can only get 4 of them in right now and I'm not sure that the 5th will fit. The last fan is going to be in the bottom near my PSU and I'm not sure a 120mm fan will fit in that spot, due to the size of the PSU. So.... I got quiet 80mm fan in hopes to decrease my noise level a little.

I have also ordered a fan controller. It controls 5 fans and looks pretty slick. It is made by NZXT and the reviews said that it matched the CoolerMaster mesh style almost exactly. Woot! I only plan to control the speeds of the LED fans. What that means is they probably won't be crazy bright, because I will be decreasing their voltage, but that isn't a bad thing.... 5 LED fans in a case with a PSU that has an LED could be on the bright side.

I won't be controlling my CPU fan on my new heatsink/fan, either. I got a new (strangely, enough) CoolerMaster heatsink. It seemed like one of the better HSFs in it's price/performance range. It comes with a PWM fan, so that should save me from having to control it's speed anyway.

A fan controller, heatsink/fan combo, new case and a bunch of fans... whew! I'm getting pretty close. I've decided to just put in a new PSU and call it quits. I've got a solid enough rig for now that I won't feel hurt if I have to spend 2 years or so waiting on a new PC. This small upgrade should put me in a position to play everything out there at reasonably high settings. If these new gen shooters don't work out, I'll probably fall back to an MMO anyway, which most of the time has slightly lower requirements so that it can bring in more people (unless you're Age of Conan and you don't want anyone to play your shitty, broken game).

There will be plenty of pics and updates in the near future.

BFBC2 is pretty unforgiving.

I just got a new CPU and I've been running it through the ringer. I was hoping to get a decent idea on how it may play in BF3, since that is the game that I am looking forward to the most. I got a pretty surprising answer the last few days. And that answer is "hopefully awesome". I stepped up from a dual to a quad and the speed was similar, but the power this chip pumps out makes it seem WAY faster. Perhaps BFBC2, like the recent CoD games, plays best on a quad core... I don't really know. What I do know is that it plays smooth as silk now. I was pleased to see my CPU score in Windows 7 shoot up to 7.3 as well. Now if only I could get my hard drives on board here.....

Anyway, I've been playing some BFBC2 lately. I am far from "good". Hell, I'm probably not even mediocre. I'm pretty bad. I've been finding my groove somewhat and had an excellent time when I can find a server that allow

s me to actually play. You see, the main issue in BFBC2 that I have is one of the same things that turned me off to it last time. The leveling system.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE the ranking system in this game. I think it is great. The point system is laid out very well and the way that the game utilizes these functions makes it feel pretty good. It really does a great job of helping to progress your game, especially based on what and how you play. I'm an awful Sniper and don't like playing solo and hiding out. I am a great team player and enjoy the SMG and assault rifle (the LMG is a little too unwieldy), so I prefer a certain class. Playing these classes that I enjoy will increase my benefits when I play them. No need to bang my head against a wall for results. There is plenty to do as either of the classes I enjoy, I don't have to be Recon.

The ranking system sets up the game at a decent pace as well. You can throttle your own leveling and it's nice to see yourself move up and forward quickly. It makes you feel like the time you have spent in the ga

me actually matters. As opposed to that other franchise that coughs up a new game every year.

The issue with the system is all of the bonuses that you get with it. The different between 1 and 10 is light years. A rank 50 player is easily 100 times better than a rank 20 player and not always because of skill. There are lots of things that are earned or have to be attained through LOOOOTS of playing. This wouldn't be so bad if there was better matchmaking, but there isn't. =(

I have spent the last couple days getting fucking ripped apart by people who are far and away better than me AND they have in-game bonuses that make them even better. If the leveling or point gain were a little faster. it might not be so bad, but late at night... it's pretty awful. Hopefully in the months leading up to BF3's release I can get back into my groove and tighten it up enough and be ready for some slangin'. I also hope it runs as well, but I'm not holding my breath for that.

Mmmmm. Silky.

I got my new CPU and I am pretty pleased with how it performs. I haven't run any hard core tests, but this thing really flies.

When I was stepping up to a quad core 3.2GHz from a dual core 3.1GHz I really wasn't sure what to expect. In most applications I assumed that the addition boost would come from maybe spreading the work throughout cores, this however, has been fairly shocking. The speed at which this runs is kind of insane. I've long recommended the 940+ chips in this line to people (my brother got one) and I am glad to have one myself. While it's no Sandy Bridge, this thing is no slouch.

My sound card has also been fairly impressive. I can tell an immediate difference not only offloading the stress of my onboard from the CPU, but just in some of the clarity of the sound. It's very nice.

The one thing I have yet to really use is the new hard drive. I tossed all my stuff in and did a little Windows updating and voila! I was ready to go. I will install Windows on the new drive soon, I just haven't got around to it quite yet. I was more concerned about playing with my new toys!

New parts arriving soon

So, I took the first step and started ordering parts of my new rig. As I discussed earlier I am going to have to give up my dream rig and go for something that is more a marginal upgrade. I'm not disappointed or upset, I would gladly give up a PC for the things I will need to make my new born child comfortable. The fact still remains, if I didn't have a child on the way... I'd be a lot more selfish. =P

I ordered:

CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE (3.2 GHz quad core, 6MB L3 cache)

HDD - WD Cavia Black 1 TB SATA3 (6GB/sec) 7200 RPM 64MB cache

Sound - Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium

Picked those up for $275 or so. I am pretty pleased. This should get me set up for gaming immediately as I work on fleshing out the rest of the system. I'm gonna make another post and detail a budget rig. I figure I might as well keep the info on hand, just in case.

Stupid, responsibility....

So, my wife is pregnant. Yes, I know, it's an amazing thing and I am blessed and all that. I've been getting high-fives and fist pumps all day. However, this puts a decided kink into my plan to upgrade my PC like a fucking madman come February. Sad fucking panda.

I did let my wife know that over the next several months that I would be dumping cash into some new shit. While she didn't quite understand, she did know that I was going to need "toys", too.

I already have a decent mother board (ASUS M4A77D) and enough RAM (8 gigs) that I should be okay for the immediate future. I have decided on a AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE (4x3.2GHz), a WD 1 TB 7200RPM 64Mb cache SATA3 hard drive, and a PCI-Express Creative X-Fi Titanium. That chip should give me enough power that I can get through a bit of time without feeling the pressure to upgrade. While it won't be as smoking as the new Sandy Bridge, it will be enough to keep me happy for now. The hard drive isn't an SSD, but it will serve as something a bit faster than what I am running now and will allow faster reads and writes for gaming. The sound card should take some of the pressure off of my CPU and allow my games to sound sexy and clear again.

I was really going to get something very nice and very expensive, but it seems like that timing may not line up and when I was going to be dropping dimes on that fancy new PC... there will instead be a crying poop-machine. Hooray! Let's be honest, though. As long as this new rig runs BF3, I don't really give a shit.

TF2 is F2P

Yep. I said it.

One of the best games that I have ever seen is now free to play. While the game hasn't been the same to me since they tried to monetize it with the MannCo store, I still think it is a top tier game. Rarely are there games that are able to last 5 years, let alone still provide so much fun and still have UPDATES! Not just updates, but regular updates that are FREEEEEEEE! It's kind of amazing, really.

However, like I said before, I haven't bothered to play since the MannCo update. I was actually kind of upset that Valve put that in there. Some of us had worked hard for hats or weapons or the likes just to have a system come along and basically dash all of that work to little bits, eat those bits and then shit them all over us. Even still, the quality of the game is probably far beyond what a lot of other games are, maybe even some franchises who have released 4 games just during the time that TF2 has been out..... you know who you are.

It remains to be seen what kind of impact this will have on the community of TF2, but I can only imagine that it will be rather negative at first. If you haven't ever played TF2, I suggest you give it a try. Now is the best time to do it, it seems.

My future PC.

I don't normally go over it, but my PC pretty much blows.

I recently did some small modifications (Back around the holidays).

Old PC: Intel Core2Duo E4400 [original] (2x2.0GHz), 3 gigs of DDR2, 320 gig 7200 RPM 16mb cache SATA drive, 80 gig 7200 RPM 8mb SATA drive, eVGA 8800GT (AKIMBO), Sound Blaster Audigy 2ZS, Asus P5N-E motherboard.

Current PC: AMD X2 6000+ (2x3.1GHz), 8 gigs of DDR2, 1TB "Green" SATA 3 (6gb/s) 64mb cache drive, AMD Radeon HD6870, Asus M4A77D motherboard.

A little give and a little take. My new drive is ultra slow, but will mainly act as a storage drive. It can make gaming quite a pain at times. The CPU, while it is an upgrade, is still very limiting in it's ability to play newer titles. The video card is solid and will probably be carried over and possibly placed into a Crossfire config in my new PC.

Right now I am set on the new line of Intel CPUs. The second generation of the core series is pretty awesome. They put up some pretty good numbers and I'm pretty impressed with out well they stand out among the crowd. As of now I am looking to get the Core i-7 2600K.

On the memory side I believe that 1600 will be the sweet spot. I am still undecided on what brand I will get. A-Data has proven to be very reliable and just as good as Kingston and Corsair. Crucial is still my favorite brand of memory. I am probably going to be picking up 16 gigs. Depending on if I get a different chip or Intel goes back to the triple channel RAM, will determine if I get less, but even then it will be 12 gigs.

As far as hard drives go, this will be a bit tricky. I want to get SSD drives, but they are still a little too expensive for me to drop the money on. Intel's new technology built into their latest boards is very interesting. It uses the SSD to cache commonly used files to speed up the HDD that is attached. Think of it as a RAID between mechanical HDD and SSD. I will probably get a WD black edition drive if I go this route. I believe I can offset the speed loss of Raptor by using this method. However, if in the next 6 to 7 months the price of SSD drives goes WAY down or I happen into a large sum of money, then I could totally see myself picking up a bunch of those.

As I just mentioned there is a new Intel chipset out for boards. It offers a couple new features. I can't wait to get one. MSI and Gigabyte are the brands I like to stick to, but I've had a couple of Asus boards in my last two PCs (which I've had way tooooo long). The P5N-E sucked. I hated that board beyond belief, but didn't want to go mucking about in my case or have to spend a day reinstalling my OS and games. Free time is at a premium and back then I was a very avid WoW player.

The video card debate is really going to be whether or not something has come out or is on the brink of releasing. I wouldn't mind grabbing another 6870 and running a Crossfire config. It really depends on what the price of a new high end card will be. The 6990 is still 800ish dollars. I have no idea what may come out or how prices will rise or fall by the time I decide to upgrade.

Yeah, I know I am planning in advance, but I want to know what to get. I want to be able to cherry pick the things I am putting in my PC. I plan to spend enough money that my wife will be upset if I don't just get everything I want. While I don't plan on spending 4 grand, I do plan to spend plenty of cash and get nice components, just in case I have another half decade before I get to upgrade again.

Black Ops shines where Bad Company 2 fails.

I give CoD a really hard time. The gameplay is shitty and recycled. The visuals are mediocre by today's standards and the overall appeal of the game is kind of bleh. Activision spends more time counting cash than adding fun and interesting new features to their games. I did take a shot with Black Ops over the free weekend and it really surprised me. Bad Company 2 on the other hand, has managed to continual disappoint.

I gave Black Ops a chance to win me over during this last free weekend on Steam and it almost did the trick. The gameplay is a lot of fun and it really reminds me a lot of CS. It has a lot of new features, but it builds on that part of the genre, as opposed to shitting all over it. Don't get me wrong, the game still shits on a lot of other stuff. While playing Black Ops I immediately found things I both loved and hated. I hated the shitty matchmaking system and fail attempt at balancing. I haven't play BlOps since the start, so I was immediately faceraped by people who knew the best camping spots or memorized all of the objectives. This... isn't a lot of fun. I've always been an early adopted to the games I am good and end up playing for any length. This made the game pretty unbearable. I gave it a few tries and found it unsatisfactory over and over again. People who seemed flawless, hosts having clear advantages and crap pings/performance all kept me from having a good time.

Then... THEN I discovered that I can play "offline" and do Combat Training. Wow! What a blast. Killing the bots and running around the maps was a lot of fun. I scaled up the difficulty during the weekend so I didn't just pound asses and feel cool. It was actually a ton of fun and since I never get to play with my friends, seeing their names all over the place was a lot of fun, too. This feature seems pretty cool and it really made me miss it in BFBC2. After my renewed lust for PC FPS games I decided to give BFBC2 another whirl...... it wasn't pretty.

I fired the game up and was expecting to be blown away. I've always regarded the BF series as far superior to CoD. Thus far, they hadn't let me down. Upon entering my very first game I was greeted with epic baserape. After giving up all hope I moved on to another server where I was throttled by people who were outrageous ranks. I've not played the game a whole lot for a multitude of reasons: it feels like I'm running in sludge, there are constant ping issues when I play (I don't know if it's the game, the way I disabled my Nagle, or the fact that when I play at night I'm playing on Euro servers), and the gap between the newbies and the badasses is HUGE. These were all my original gripes with the game and this being the second time I've given it a real shot, I was quite saddened.

I have the game... twice. I bought it once nearly at release and then picked it up on Steam after misplacing my other copy (turns out I loaned it to someone). I gave the copy on Steam a shot and found the same issues. I didn't expect much better, but I thought maybe my install sucked or something.

I know, I know. I should feel like a dick for praising BF and giving CoD such a hard time, but let's be honest... BF is still better. Sure my old and dated PC computer can't run such an awesome game as well, but it runs BlOps pretty smoothly. The physics and destructible environments in BF make it way better. The custom kits and interesting ranking procedure are fun in both. I hope that new FPS games really shake things up in this genre. With a new MW3 looking to be more of the same and the new BF3 looking to be FUCKING AWESOME... I sure hope I'm ready.

Okay, Black Ops, I'll give you this one chance...

Steam is offering a free weekend for Black Ops. Well, I've been itching to get ahold of a newer shooter. Now, I'm terrible and have no idea what I'm doing, but I'll give it a try.

I've never stepped foot in a map on Black Ops. I've never pulled the trigger and I've never even though about getting the game. I know that I'm behind the curve and it's a lot like Halo. Each game adds on just a little bit, but keeps enough of the same stuff that the old pros can hop in and kick ass with ease. I don't look forward to getting facefucked for a few days, but I would like a shot at playing a new FPS and getting a good idea of what I can expect from the future.

I plan on getting BF3, because I believe it will be a front-runner for PC gaming, especially on the FPS side. MW3 may catch a few eyes and be a huge success (again), but I've not really enjoyed the pacing of CoD for a while. BF has always held an edge of CoD due to the extra stuff that it has. Vehicles and destroyable environments together... OH LAWDY!

I'm gonna give Black Ops a shot this weekend. Not because I am sure it'll be the next thing I buy, but because it might just be fun. Who knows.

Also, GO MAVS!

WoW didn't make your MMO suck, you did.

It is no secret, I've been a WoW player for a LOOOOOONG time. I have been around for various stages of the game and a lot of changes that felt almost gamebreaking. During my time playing WoW I have personally played a handful of other MMO games and watched others play even more. Nothing stands up to WoW, not even close. I am starting to wonder if WoW is the Facebook of gaming.

Before WoW we had other MMOs. They did some stuff alright, but nothing really awesome. We had seen games that started in other genres bend themselves to fit into another niche, but nothing like what WoW was trying. The beta of the game was wildly successful. Even before the game came out people wanted to play and were ready to dedicate time and attention to WoW. I'm wondering if this might have been because WoW released at a time when EQ was a bit long in the tooth (about the age WoW is now) and DAoC just hadn't quite done as well as people had hoped (they released the game unfinished, yes... unfinished, they figured they had time to finish it while you were grinding to cap). Could it really be timing or an aging MMO market?

Let's be honest, EQ was cool. It was the first time we got to see a lot of that stuff done in that particular fashion. Yes, we had other MMO type games, but EQ gave us a whole different look and feel. One that is still copied to this day. It had a lot of inventive ideas that we also still see today. The game was solid, but it was just a little too old and in some cases way too hard core. The dedication to raiding and the ability to "get phat lewtz" was pretty intense. Though EQ gave us what we now call talents in WoW, but they gave you those as an alternate progression once you reached a certain level. EQ was a game changer, but it was old.

When we talk about old in gaming terms, we are mostly talking about the engine and the graphics. Most engines allow for graphic overhauls, but you can't take something developed in the mid 90s and expect it to compete in the mid 2000s. Even with all of the updates that EQ tried, it didn't bring the games level of beauty up to where some players wanted it. The leveling times in EQ were also brutal. You would invest weeks and weeks into leveling. The idea of questing for larger chunks of experience existed, but it hadn't been fleshed out. There were lots of repeatable quests that asked you to collect incidental items from mobs, but nothing like what we know today. Grinding through mobs where most of the time you couldn't go though more than two before sitting to med was pretty lame. To much downtime caused excessive time to be essentially wasted in the game.

WoW came out and fixed those things. You felt like a hero almost from the start, you were thwarting evil and performing multi-part quests all over the place. You could endlessly kill mobs and if you did have to sit down your downtime was minimal. It was a fast and furious pace and the cartoonish, but polished world look amazing. The art design was over the top and you felt like you were in the world that you had seen in the RTS games. It was actually pretty cool. They didn't do anything special, they just did it a little better and in a prettier package with less hassle.

WoW has had several games come out that could have hurt it. Age of Conan and Warhammer Online are two large ones. Warhammer sucks for various reasons, I've discussed those a couple times. I just recently ranted about it after they sent me a "come back for 2 weeks, it's awesome now" email. I just saw AoC was going F2P and decided to finally turn in my free 30 day key and give it a shot to see if it'd be something worth getting in to. Nope. It's terrible. I played AoC at release and it was a hot mess of bugs and bad. AoC is a little more complete now and it looks very nice, but it also sucks. The combat feels good, but a lot of things feel awkward and clunky. The game engine looks good, but the animations of combat look sad. I didn't make it far in AoC, but so far... I don't wanna play it again. I couldn't see myself playing to max level, because I would probably be bored to tears before I got half way there.

Aion was poised to take down WoW. Turns out it just looked pretty and had a sparkly UI. Within 2 months that game fell pretty far. The first month people were hoping more would be added, the second month people were let down, realized flying sucked and understood why Lineage in the sky wasn't gonna make it. The latest game to test WoW is RIFT. RIFT has done a decent job of pulling in subs, but just a few short months after release and you can see people looking for something new again or complaining about how the game sucks. I gave RIFT a shot for a few days and just didn't like the feel of it. It also didn't seem complete and polished, especially since that is what so many people were boasting about. It felt weird and it looked even weirder. The awkward rubber banding of people and mobs also pissed me off. Ugh.

What is next? What will REALLY give WoW a run for it? What is going to be a good enough game that I can cancel my sub and wait to play it next expansion? ToR continues to release info that makes me less and less happy with it. Planetside Next just doesn't seem to want to come out and Sony doesn't help when they keep firing people. FireFall looks neat, but can't seem to get on track either. Guild Wars 2 looks great, but we still have almost another year until it's going to release. Secret World looks creative and interesting, but I'm afraid it'll be a crappy reskin of one of the terrible Cryptic games that we had the misfortune of stumbling upon at one point or another (none of them were even good enough to mention as WoW competition).

We need another good MMO, any good MMO really. WoW is almost 7 years old and it's a bit long in the tooth. The new Blizzard project might be really good. I don't know, they refuse to leak info on it. And we all know that since it's a Blizzard game it might fall into oblivion for 10 years *COUGHSTARCRAFTCOUGH*.