It's been quite some time since my last post. Let's see, what's happened since my last post?
I've stopped playing City of Heroes. I wasn't really playing it enough to warrant paying for it any more, though I'm glad I was able to experience the new L1-20ish Praetorian content before the account expired. It was a lot of fun and fit perfectly with my alt-itis tendencies. Paragon Studios fleshed out that dystopian world pretty nicely.
I started playing a little Diablo II again. I was figuring out how to set up a virtual CDROM again for my crappy boot disk (so wouldn't have to leave the CD in the drive), when I discovered that it's now available as a completely digital download, and I could convert my CD serial codes into an online Diablo serial codes to use the download. After all these years, I'm free of the CDs at last.
I set up a Sorceress and a Necromancer, and I'm finding I play the Necro a lot more than the Sorc, since you basically walk along and let all the minions do the heavy fighting while you watch. The online people I tried playing with all said the game was tuned a lot harder than before. Apparently there was a ladder reset (rankings reset) at the end of September, and Blizzard took the time to up the difficulty settings.
More than Diablo II though, I've been playing Halo: Reach lately on the 360. The legendary solo mode is Really Hard. You get killed in two shots if you're lucky, one shot if you're not. Minions you can usually mow through become a life and death struggle to defeat. Weapons that you can usually rely on like the Assault Rifle become virtually useless unless you're fighting a basic grunt. Insta-hit scoped rifles become the mainstay of your arsenal, and headshots are pretty much the only way to take things down. At least, until you reach things like Elites whose shields essentially ignore rifle rounds, and Hunters who shrug off a full clip of fuel rods. I've had to rely on things that I usually don't use, like plasma pistol charges, vehicle jacking, and a crazy amount of hand-to-hand. I'll probably talk about it more later on, but for now I'm going to try to finish the Pillar of Autumn level on Solo Legendary. (last one left!)
Upsen.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
City of Heroes - Back to Tanking
After teaming up with a bunch of god-awful tanks, all of whom knew nothing about aggro, I decided to start playing a few new tanks of my own, setting aside my other characters for now. (yet again, I didn't make it past 25 on the CoV side :P )
I tried a few different combos and here's the results of that:
An Ice/Fire. This one I haven't really gotten anywhere yet, and is currently sitting at a lowbie L7. I imagine it'll be a nice AOE type like my WP/Fire, except that it gets all kinds of ways to slow down enemies down to my level of regen, instead of the WP way of boosting regen to match the # enemies. This pairing should have no problem with aggro the way I did with WP, where I had to manage it fairly intensively.
An Invul/SS. I started it up cause it's a classic combo for a CoH tank. The tank is actually named Classic Tank. It does tank pretty easily except for a stint in the teens against psionic Aberrant Lost. Its currently up in the low 30s. I dont really expect to see any trouble with it until I get to the 40s and psionics start showing up more commonly. This tank is great for the mid level Task Forces like Manticore and Citadel.
A Dark/Energy. Darks are supposed to be some of the top all-around tanks once they get some IOs and defense. Being a resist set, if you stack that with a good defense, it should be a really good tank. This tank does definitely need a little more management than the invul though. This tank basically survives by using it's health leech power, Dark Regeneration, between taking damage, and if you're not on the ball with the timing, you will bite the dust. The knockback was also sort of irritating, and a bit dangerous if you get KB'ed when you need to hit your leech power, so I fixed it up with a Steadfast Defense IO to prevent it.
I decided to take the energy secondary attack set so I could take advantage of the stuns stacking with Dark's Oppressive Gloom. I've just gotten this tank up to the level where I can take OG (L26) and it works beautifully, with Lieutenants and Bosses getting stunned the way the Minions were before OG. The health loss is is well covered by the leech healing, which is really nice. The mobs wander a bit out of AOE range sometimes, but there's always more mobs crowding in, since I play at -1Lvl x5 heroes solo.
Previously I'd played dark up to 15 as a dark/dark, but I didn't like how it didn't have a quick charging AOE attack. I've also played as dark/fire up to the mid 30s too, but I didn't like that fire didn't have anything to help mitigate damage, which occurs with regularity on a resist set like dark. At the time IOs weren't available though, so today it could have been a different story.
The ability to customize the effects also helped a lot too, since I don't especially like the dark effects and the stealth cloak turning you into a shapeless blob. I set up this tank with a grey-white set of effects that look like hot steam pouring out of the tank, and I named it "Steam Powered Tank".
Upsen.
I tried a few different combos and here's the results of that:
An Ice/Fire. This one I haven't really gotten anywhere yet, and is currently sitting at a lowbie L7. I imagine it'll be a nice AOE type like my WP/Fire, except that it gets all kinds of ways to slow down enemies down to my level of regen, instead of the WP way of boosting regen to match the # enemies. This pairing should have no problem with aggro the way I did with WP, where I had to manage it fairly intensively.
An Invul/SS. I started it up cause it's a classic combo for a CoH tank. The tank is actually named Classic Tank. It does tank pretty easily except for a stint in the teens against psionic Aberrant Lost. Its currently up in the low 30s. I dont really expect to see any trouble with it until I get to the 40s and psionics start showing up more commonly. This tank is great for the mid level Task Forces like Manticore and Citadel.
A Dark/Energy. Darks are supposed to be some of the top all-around tanks once they get some IOs and defense. Being a resist set, if you stack that with a good defense, it should be a really good tank. This tank does definitely need a little more management than the invul though. This tank basically survives by using it's health leech power, Dark Regeneration, between taking damage, and if you're not on the ball with the timing, you will bite the dust. The knockback was also sort of irritating, and a bit dangerous if you get KB'ed when you need to hit your leech power, so I fixed it up with a Steadfast Defense IO to prevent it.
I decided to take the energy secondary attack set so I could take advantage of the stuns stacking with Dark's Oppressive Gloom. I've just gotten this tank up to the level where I can take OG (L26) and it works beautifully, with Lieutenants and Bosses getting stunned the way the Minions were before OG. The health loss is is well covered by the leech healing, which is really nice. The mobs wander a bit out of AOE range sometimes, but there's always more mobs crowding in, since I play at -1Lvl x5 heroes solo.
Previously I'd played dark up to 15 as a dark/dark, but I didn't like how it didn't have a quick charging AOE attack. I've also played as dark/fire up to the mid 30s too, but I didn't like that fire didn't have anything to help mitigate damage, which occurs with regularity on a resist set like dark. At the time IOs weren't available though, so today it could have been a different story.
The ability to customize the effects also helped a lot too, since I don't especially like the dark effects and the stealth cloak turning you into a shapeless blob. I set up this tank with a grey-white set of effects that look like hot steam pouring out of the tank, and I named it "Steam Powered Tank".
Upsen.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Antec Skeleton Open Air Case
I was at a computer shop today and saw a most awesome computer case. You install the motherboard flat, in the open top half of the case, and the drives and such go into the cage in the lower half. The whole motherboard is cooled by a single 230mm overhead fan that blows air down from the top.
If I didnt' have my new system and case already, I would have seriously considered this case, cause basically this is how I've been running my last computer for the past year or so - open-air and caseless.
This one's called an Antec Skeleton Open Air Case, and you can google for reviews and images here.
$169.99 Canadian though (as pictured below), ouch.
Upsen.
If I didnt' have my new system and case already, I would have seriously considered this case, cause basically this is how I've been running my last computer for the past year or so - open-air and caseless.
This one's called an Antec Skeleton Open Air Case, and you can google for reviews and images here.
$169.99 Canadian though (as pictured below), ouch.
Upsen.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
CIty of Heroes - City of Villains
I've been spending some time playing CoH lately, or rather, CoV - I started two Masterminds using the new demon-summoning primary. The little creatures you summon are surprisingly durable with a good resistance, and the 2nd tier critter has a property of improving the already good resistance. It makes for a pretty easy time keeping them all alive using some secondary powers. In my case I used Pain Domination and Dark Miasma. They have been a ton of fun to play. Previously the characters were either too management intensive. (Necro/Dark for example) or too automatic (Bots/FF for example) There were probably some better combos of powers than the ones I chose, but I like certain combinations of powersets and I feel that certain other ones are so unrelated that they are a little weird for me to play. (Ninjas/Forcefields? Thugs/Dark netherworld powers in the same character?) By about L8-10 I would be falling asleep on my keyboard, unfortunately.
Both MMs are around L20-25, and that also allows me to unlock one of the villain epic archetypes (VEATs) as well, since they lowered the requirement from 50 down to 20. So I have a "Widow Upsen" running around at L12 right now as well, mostly specced for melee. I hear its supposed to play a little like a Claws/Super Reflexes sort, but there is sadly, pretty low defenses at this stage. I don't see where the additional defense even comes from down the tree, that would make it come anywhere close to a /SR. There is a scaling resistance that is straight out of the SR playbook, and I seem to spend a lot of time using that resistance. (I.e., I am hit a lot and the defenses suck) I wonder what the deal is. I guess I could play her on the ranged spec instead and be an extra tough blaster type?
Anyways, since I still don't really like the Villains maps too much, I ended up creating a new defender as well - an Empathy/Sonic. Simple and fun, I ran around a bit and even bumped into Kin Arad online, who I have not seen for ages, and got a little bit of team play in with one of their alts. (so unfamiliar after so much soloing. 8)
So that's basically the last month or so now. One funny thing is now I'm one of the players that is occasionally disappearing to feed the baby and change their diaper, hence the majority of my time spent soloing.
Upsen.
Both MMs are around L20-25, and that also allows me to unlock one of the villain epic archetypes (VEATs) as well, since they lowered the requirement from 50 down to 20. So I have a "Widow Upsen" running around at L12 right now as well, mostly specced for melee. I hear its supposed to play a little like a Claws/Super Reflexes sort, but there is sadly, pretty low defenses at this stage. I don't see where the additional defense even comes from down the tree, that would make it come anywhere close to a /SR. There is a scaling resistance that is straight out of the SR playbook, and I seem to spend a lot of time using that resistance. (I.e., I am hit a lot and the defenses suck) I wonder what the deal is. I guess I could play her on the ranged spec instead and be an extra tough blaster type?
Anyways, since I still don't really like the Villains maps too much, I ended up creating a new defender as well - an Empathy/Sonic. Simple and fun, I ran around a bit and even bumped into Kin Arad online, who I have not seen for ages, and got a little bit of team play in with one of their alts. (so unfamiliar after so much soloing. 8)
So that's basically the last month or so now. One funny thing is now I'm one of the players that is occasionally disappearing to feed the baby and change their diaper, hence the majority of my time spent soloing.
Upsen.
Monday, May 10, 2010
New System Photos
Well here are some pictures, took a while to find time to take these. I set up the screens in a 3x1 vertical layout, so that the middle of the viewing area is not covered by any black bezel edges. The bezels themselves are a a far cry from a bezel-less setup, but I got adjusted to them pretty quickly. I guess the next thing to do is to find some sort of bezel compensation/adjustment software.
Here's a pic of the insides - You can see the size of the CPU heatsink, it's absolutely humongous. I am very happy with the 3-fans-in-a-row air flow for the CPU cooling - one pushing air into the sink from the front, one pulling it out from the back, and the last one on the chassis pulling the air right out of the case. In total, there are
This is my first time working with a full size tower case and I was really happy with the amount of space inside. I was able to actually put all the cabling behind the motherboard and out of view. The modular power supply helped a lot with this as well, as all the extra unused cables are stored away nicely in a bag on the side.
There are some interesting overclocking and tweaking features available on this motherboard, including some automated overclocking buttons etc, but I haven't really had the time to play with the settings. There is even a fancy tuning port on the back on the system so you can adjust the clock settings on the fly with another computer.
The only problem I've run into is the viewing angle for the LED monitors. In the default horizontal position, they are suitable for viewing from a left, right, or high angle. It has a terrible low viewing angle. This is fine for the horizontal landscape view of course, but for my veritical setup, this means that the right hand monitor is hard to see unless I move far enough to the right to compensate for the angle, which is a bit limiting. You'll notice that I have the right side screen angled more than the left screen, that is because of this problem. The screen only rotates 90 degrees clockwise, and the mount doesn't support any way to rotate the screen 90 degrees counterclockwise. Just using the above-angle instead of the below-angle would have been the best solution. Either I'm going to have to jury rig something to get that, or buy some monitor arms that can swing whichever way I want.
All in all, I am really happy with the system. It's great for putting various system status & monitoring windows on a side screen and still being able to do things in the plentiful amount of free space still available.
Watching anime or other video stuff is still better on the TV upstairs, cause of the bezels, and a lot of the viewing programs like Media Player Classic and VideoLAN cant seem to handle stretching a media window across multiple screens.
I've played a few games and it is almost overwhelming. Playing City of Heroes, there is so much screen that even those little tight s-bends in the cave maps feels like a huge wide corridor to move in. I lose track of what is going on cause there is so much to see and the status windows are so far away, haha.
Also I picked up the new free Mechwarrior Mercenaries, and it's playing beautifully too, though I can't get it any higher than 2600x1200 (whatever the 3rd highest resolution is) for some reason.
I should try pulling out some of my old game software that can run windowed mode, and see how it goes. It's too bad a lot of old software runs at fixed resolutions like 640x480, 800x600, or 1024x768, not that great for widescreen monitors.
I wonder if there's any utilities to force a giant 3600x1900 fullscreen?
Upsen.
Here's a pic of the insides - You can see the size of the CPU heatsink, it's absolutely humongous. I am very happy with the 3-fans-in-a-row air flow for the CPU cooling - one pushing air into the sink from the front, one pulling it out from the back, and the last one on the chassis pulling the air right out of the case. In total, there are
- 3 - 240mm fans - front and side panel pulling air in, top pulling air out.
- 2 - CPU sink mounted 120mm fans, moving air to back of case
- 1 - 140mm fan - back of case pulling cpu air out
- 1 - 120mm fan on the bottom of the case pulling air in (like a vaccuum, gotta watch out)
- 1 - internal power supply unit fan, that pulls air in from the bottom of the PSU and vents out the back, bypassing the case entirely.
This is my first time working with a full size tower case and I was really happy with the amount of space inside. I was able to actually put all the cabling behind the motherboard and out of view. The modular power supply helped a lot with this as well, as all the extra unused cables are stored away nicely in a bag on the side.
There are some interesting overclocking and tweaking features available on this motherboard, including some automated overclocking buttons etc, but I haven't really had the time to play with the settings. There is even a fancy tuning port on the back on the system so you can adjust the clock settings on the fly with another computer.
The only problem I've run into is the viewing angle for the LED monitors. In the default horizontal position, they are suitable for viewing from a left, right, or high angle. It has a terrible low viewing angle. This is fine for the horizontal landscape view of course, but for my veritical setup, this means that the right hand monitor is hard to see unless I move far enough to the right to compensate for the angle, which is a bit limiting. You'll notice that I have the right side screen angled more than the left screen, that is because of this problem. The screen only rotates 90 degrees clockwise, and the mount doesn't support any way to rotate the screen 90 degrees counterclockwise. Just using the above-angle instead of the below-angle would have been the best solution. Either I'm going to have to jury rig something to get that, or buy some monitor arms that can swing whichever way I want.
All in all, I am really happy with the system. It's great for putting various system status & monitoring windows on a side screen and still being able to do things in the plentiful amount of free space still available.
Watching anime or other video stuff is still better on the TV upstairs, cause of the bezels, and a lot of the viewing programs like Media Player Classic and VideoLAN cant seem to handle stretching a media window across multiple screens.
I've played a few games and it is almost overwhelming. Playing City of Heroes, there is so much screen that even those little tight s-bends in the cave maps feels like a huge wide corridor to move in. I lose track of what is going on cause there is so much to see and the status windows are so far away, haha.
Also I picked up the new free Mechwarrior Mercenaries, and it's playing beautifully too, though I can't get it any higher than 2600x1200 (whatever the 3rd highest resolution is) for some reason.
I should try pulling out some of my old game software that can run windowed mode, and see how it goes. It's too bad a lot of old software runs at fixed resolutions like 640x480, 800x600, or 1024x768, not that great for widescreen monitors.
I wonder if there's any utilities to force a giant 3600x1900 fullscreen?
Upsen.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
New Computer - the details
Here's what I bought - the prices were very good for what I got, most of the items being a midrange item in it's category. The only top tier item is the motherboard, which just came out a few days before I bought it, but it means I have a seriously solid foundation for my new computer.
Coolermaster HAF case:
At first, I was looking at the price of the case - at $120, it was a lot lower than the other full tower cases - most were $300+ But this case in particular is really good with the air flow - bascially, even if you have the covers closed, it is pretty much like having the cover open. Also it has 3 240mm fans built in, as well as a 140mm rear, plus mounting brackets for yet more fans!
The power supply was one of those ho hum well I gotta do what gotta do about this - the modular cables are pretty convenient though.
The motherboard - I was expecting to buy a 790fx chipset board at first, but just last week, the 890fx successor to the 790fx came out. Included are all the fancy features like USB 3.0, dual 16x1 PCIe pipes for video cards (slot 1 and slot 3 eh, not 1 and 2) and even an external tweak/clocking mechanism.
The CPU is a Phenom II x4 - it looks like the price dropped due to the x6 six-core Phenoms coming out.
The memory is a basic high speed memory - caught it on sale for a good enough price that it surprised the salesman. It doesn't have tall cooling fins etc, but it's a good thing, cause otherwise the CPU cooler fan would have conflicted with it.
CPU cooler
I opted for air cooling for practicality this time around - I didn't want the expense of water cooling, even though it looks amazing. After all, the case is really good with air flow, so I should take advantage of it. So I got one of those giant blocks from Scythe. It had a single fan on it already, but I couldn't find a 2nd one of that type. That's why I bought the 2 Arctic Cooling fans and extra bracket - one fan for each side of the heat sink, and so the rpm speeds would match. Plus the white coloured fans are kind of cool looking. Idle CPU 33degress Celsius - 45 degrees under load
Photos to come.
Upsen
- Coolermaster HAF tower case , thought it would be $145 found it for $120.
- Coolermaster 850W modular power supply $145
- Asus Crosshair IV motherboard $250 (Brand new 890FX chipset board - Tiger is selling it for $330 wow)
- CPU Phenom II x4 965 BE - I was expecting $209 but it was $189 by the time I bought it
- Memory 4GB 2000 Adata 9-9-9-24 $140 bought for $110 on sale.
- Scythe Mugen 2 rev B CPU cooler $50
- extra brackets for 2nd cooler fan $6
- 2 Arctic Cooling 120mm PWM fans $7x2
- SATA DVD optical drive $40 - this one had lightscribe, whatever :P
- 3 Dell monitors - 23" rotatable screens - $299x3 on sale for $199x3
- Everything else is salvaged from my old system - mainly my video cards.
Coolermaster HAF case:
At first, I was looking at the price of the case - at $120, it was a lot lower than the other full tower cases - most were $300+ But this case in particular is really good with the air flow - bascially, even if you have the covers closed, it is pretty much like having the cover open. Also it has 3 240mm fans built in, as well as a 140mm rear, plus mounting brackets for yet more fans!
The power supply was one of those ho hum well I gotta do what gotta do about this - the modular cables are pretty convenient though.
The motherboard - I was expecting to buy a 790fx chipset board at first, but just last week, the 890fx successor to the 790fx came out. Included are all the fancy features like USB 3.0, dual 16x1 PCIe pipes for video cards (slot 1 and slot 3 eh, not 1 and 2) and even an external tweak/clocking mechanism.
The CPU is a Phenom II x4 - it looks like the price dropped due to the x6 six-core Phenoms coming out.
The memory is a basic high speed memory - caught it on sale for a good enough price that it surprised the salesman. It doesn't have tall cooling fins etc, but it's a good thing, cause otherwise the CPU cooler fan would have conflicted with it.
CPU cooler
I opted for air cooling for practicality this time around - I didn't want the expense of water cooling, even though it looks amazing. After all, the case is really good with air flow, so I should take advantage of it. So I got one of those giant blocks from Scythe. It had a single fan on it already, but I couldn't find a 2nd one of that type. That's why I bought the 2 Arctic Cooling fans and extra bracket - one fan for each side of the heat sink, and so the rpm speeds would match. Plus the white coloured fans are kind of cool looking. Idle CPU 33degress Celsius - 45 degrees under load
Photos to come.
Upsen
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
New computer.
Well, the replacement Athlon CPU I picked up started getting the habit of shutting down on me, so I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade the whole cpu/motherboard/memory/power supply combo I talked about last time.
So I've bought some parts and put them together, it should be a lot faster than my old PC I put together in like late 2005 or early 2006. Woohoo! :D
I'll talk about it later after I'm sure it doesn't blow up on me.
Upsen.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
7-Patty Burger King Windows 7 Promotional BurgerMonday, April 26, 2010
Thinking about Computer Upgrades
My computer had been acting a bit sluggish recently so I figured it was time to wipe the OS and reinstall it. However, the system kept bluescreening my Vista install. I couldn't get around it with whatever BIOs setting changes I had available, so I decided maybe it was time for this hardware to retire. I mean, I'd run it since about 2005. I figured I could at least save the CPU, a decent dual core AMD Athlon II 64 x2 4800+, which was a Socket 939 like my wife's single core computer. But when I installed the CPU on her system, it started crashing too. Also, putting her CPU in my system revived it.
It looks like my CPU had decided to go loony.
So, it was time to start thinking seriously about upgrades.
My system is at the point where if I buy a new CPU, it would start an avalanche of upgrades:
Each of the 4 new components - mobo, CPU, memory, and power, would mean $100 for a base model or a $200 for a future proof economical model, or even more for a hobbyist model. (Hello $400 motherboards and $700 CPUs) So I would be spending somewhere between $400 to $800 for the parts.
Those prices are fairly reasonable, however the problem is - what should I get? Or more accurately, which motherboard should I get? Everything hinges on the motherboard.
I want to have full bandwidth for my 2 video cards. SLI or not, I want it to have 16x1 PCIe for EACH card. Often, the data path is one 16x1 that they break down into 8x1 for each card. Thus you get reduced performance for each of the cards. I mean, you get more performance than a single card, but probably nothing like if you have 2 cards each with a dedicated full PCIe path. However, there isn't really a lot of data that I've found that tells me just HOW much bandwidth my video cards use, so I'm not sure if I REALLY need this or if I'm just being a hypochondriac when I think that 2 card SLI isn't running much faster than 1 card.
As a side note, I do want to run a 3 or 4 monitor setup someday. Probably not tomorrow though. The price of an ideal minimum bezel 3x1 monitor setup seems to be just under $2000 right now. I could get some regular widescreens and plug them in but I dunno how that will be. Plus, gaming - 3d games performance is geared for 1680x1050 or 1900x1200 screens, not... 3600x1900 or 4800x1900 screens. I would probably have to turn every detail off and it would probably still bring my video cards to their knees. Sigh. eyefinity gaming, which would handle it, would cost another $550.
I want it to support 3 Gb/s SATA, or even that new 6 Gb/s SATA and USB 3.0 However, I don't have any devices that go anywhere close to that sort of speed. I've always bought the best bang for the buck kind of drives usually. These still rate way higher than my bottleneck CPU and RAM though, so I'm not too concerned about that part of it. I definitely want it to have eSATA since I have an eSATA/USB2.0 HD dock. Especially since 1.5 Terabyte drives cost like $100 now. Currently I plug it in through USB2.0 and it's pretty slow - workable but.... slow.
I want the SATA jacks to NOT get covered by my video cards. My current mobo has 4 SATA jacks - and half of them are covered when I put in the primary video card. Is that on purpose? I mean I could understand if it was the 2nd card that covers the jacks, meaning you should either run the 2nd card OR 2 extra SATA devices due to bandwidth restrictions, but why is it under the FIRST graphics card?
Anyways, this means I am still looking for a good motherboard. Nothing really fits my criteria right now except maybe a 790FX or a 780n board, but those are like a year old now, shouldn't there be something newer/better?
Here's my two best bets right now (with google links):
In the meantime, I bought a used Athlon 64 x2 3800+ CPU for $35, my mobo claims it peaks up at about 100 degrees Celsius when running. :P I don't know if the CPU is bad or if my mobo sensor is bad, haha. It's still working, I mean, but I dont really have much hopes for it's longevity.
Upsen.
btw, ebay is selling my old dead Athlon x2 4800+ CPU for like $200! That's crazy!
It looks like my CPU had decided to go loony.
So, it was time to start thinking seriously about upgrades.
My system is at the point where if I buy a new CPU, it would start an avalanche of upgrades:
- Another motherboard with a modern socket to fit the CPU, since Socket 939 is obsolete.
- New RAM memory as well since my old DDR 400 is not viable for the new CPU/mobo.
- New power supply to match the sockets on the mobo and video card (why are they 6pin and 8 pin now instead of 4pin and 6pin? sigh)
Each of the 4 new components - mobo, CPU, memory, and power, would mean $100 for a base model or a $200 for a future proof economical model, or even more for a hobbyist model. (Hello $400 motherboards and $700 CPUs) So I would be spending somewhere between $400 to $800 for the parts.
Those prices are fairly reasonable, however the problem is - what should I get? Or more accurately, which motherboard should I get? Everything hinges on the motherboard.
I want to have full bandwidth for my 2 video cards. SLI or not, I want it to have 16x1 PCIe for EACH card. Often, the data path is one 16x1 that they break down into 8x1 for each card. Thus you get reduced performance for each of the cards. I mean, you get more performance than a single card, but probably nothing like if you have 2 cards each with a dedicated full PCIe path. However, there isn't really a lot of data that I've found that tells me just HOW much bandwidth my video cards use, so I'm not sure if I REALLY need this or if I'm just being a hypochondriac when I think that 2 card SLI isn't running much faster than 1 card.
As a side note, I do want to run a 3 or 4 monitor setup someday. Probably not tomorrow though. The price of an ideal minimum bezel 3x1 monitor setup seems to be just under $2000 right now. I could get some regular widescreens and plug them in but I dunno how that will be. Plus, gaming - 3d games performance is geared for 1680x1050 or 1900x1200 screens, not... 3600x1900 or 4800x1900 screens. I would probably have to turn every detail off and it would probably still bring my video cards to their knees. Sigh. eyefinity gaming, which would handle it, would cost another $550.
I want it to support 3 Gb/s SATA, or even that new 6 Gb/s SATA and USB 3.0 However, I don't have any devices that go anywhere close to that sort of speed. I've always bought the best bang for the buck kind of drives usually. These still rate way higher than my bottleneck CPU and RAM though, so I'm not too concerned about that part of it. I definitely want it to have eSATA since I have an eSATA/USB2.0 HD dock. Especially since 1.5 Terabyte drives cost like $100 now. Currently I plug it in through USB2.0 and it's pretty slow - workable but.... slow.
I want the SATA jacks to NOT get covered by my video cards. My current mobo has 4 SATA jacks - and half of them are covered when I put in the primary video card. Is that on purpose? I mean I could understand if it was the 2nd card that covers the jacks, meaning you should either run the 2nd card OR 2 extra SATA devices due to bandwidth restrictions, but why is it under the FIRST graphics card?
Anyways, this means I am still looking for a good motherboard. Nothing really fits my criteria right now except maybe a 790FX or a 780n board, but those are like a year old now, shouldn't there be something newer/better?
Here's my two best bets right now (with google links):
- GA-MA790FXT-UD5P (crossfire)
- ASUS M3N-HT (sli)
In the meantime, I bought a used Athlon 64 x2 3800+ CPU for $35, my mobo claims it peaks up at about 100 degrees Celsius when running. :P I don't know if the CPU is bad or if my mobo sensor is bad, haha. It's still working, I mean, but I dont really have much hopes for it's longevity.
Upsen.
btw, ebay is selling my old dead Athlon x2 4800+ CPU for like $200! That's crazy!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Mafia Wars - Hitlist Riding
Here's my biggest xp hitlist ride so far: 2 +19 xp and -6 xp. :D
I wonder how people get so many attacks in such a short span of time? I literally see myself go from full health to zero in the space of a 2 second refresh of my mafia home page. When I try attacking on the hitlist, it takes that many seconds (or more) to refresh between each attack.
Upsen.
I wonder how people get so many attacks in such a short span of time? I literally see myself go from full health to zero in the space of a 2 second refresh of my mafia home page. When I try attacking on the hitlist, it takes that many seconds (or more) to refresh between each attack.
Upsen.
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were knocked out by [guy who killed me] who claimed the $8,000 bounty on you set by Default Don.
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were snuffed in the fight, losing 6 experience points.
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by El Capitan [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 21 damage to your enemy. You gained 1 experience points and $0. Fight back now!
1 minute ago:
You were attacked by [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 4 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $65,000. Fight back now!
1 minute ago:
You were attacked by Brigadir [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 17 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $4.382. Fight back now!
1 minute ago:
You were attacked by Soldier [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 5 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $65,000. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 20 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $293. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by Master Dragon Head [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 12 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $0. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by Oyabun [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 19 damage to your enemy. You gained 1 experience points and $0. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by El Capitan [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 13 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $65,000. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by Oyabun [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 25 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $0. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 9 damage to your enemy. You gained 3 experience points and $59,058. Fight back now!
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were knocked out by [guy who killed me] who claimed the $8,000 bounty on you set by Default Don.
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were snuffed in the fight, losing 6 experience points.
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [guy who killed me]
You lost the fight, taking x damage and losing $0. Get revenge now!
0 minutes ago:
You were attacked by El Capitan [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 21 damage to your enemy. You gained 1 experience points and $0. Fight back now!
1 minute ago:
You were attacked by [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 4 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $65,000. Fight back now!
1 minute ago:
You were attacked by Brigadir [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 17 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $4.382. Fight back now!
1 minute ago:
You were attacked by Soldier [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 5 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $65,000. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 20 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $293. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by Master Dragon Head [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 12 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $0. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by Oyabun [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 19 damage to your enemy. You gained 1 experience points and $0. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by El Capitan [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 13 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $65,000. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by Oyabun [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 25 damage to your enemy. You gained 2 experience points and $0. Fight back now!
2 minutes ago:
You were attacked by [weaker player].
You won the fight, taking x damage and dealing 9 damage to your enemy. You gained 3 experience points and $59,058. Fight back now!
Friday, April 9, 2010
CIty of Heroes - Kinetic Melee powerset
There's a lot of info that was released at the last PAX conference.
There's going to be a Kinetic Melee power set to be added to Tanks, Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers, as part of the upcoming "Going Rogue" expansion. It's a slightly 'longer range' melee set, probably in the neighbourhood of 10-15 foot range, like many higher tier attacks in the existing melee powersets. (Isn't think a little redundant with Energy Melee? I mean, people are arguing that there is no Kinetic Armor set because there is already a Energy Armor
Also there is supposed to be some sort of modification made to defender Vigilance. Vigilance currently reduces endurance consumption when you have more people in your group. There's a lot of speculation, people are saying it's something that is supposed to help defenders solo a bit better. Probably some sort of damage increase based on team size. :P
Another thing of interest is that they are adding some sort of advancement system for L50 characters, that is going to be called the Incarnate System. I hope this isn't going to be like Everquest's AAXP system where hardcore players had thousands of AAXP and casual players were not acceptable for raiding unless they had x amount of AAXP.
Upsen.
There's going to be a Kinetic Melee power set to be added to Tanks, Scrappers, Brutes and Stalkers, as part of the upcoming "Going Rogue" expansion. It's a slightly 'longer range' melee set, probably in the neighbourhood of 10-15 foot range, like many higher tier attacks in the existing melee powersets. (Isn't think a little redundant with Energy Melee? I mean, people are arguing that there is no Kinetic Armor set because there is already a Energy Armor
Also there is supposed to be some sort of modification made to defender Vigilance. Vigilance currently reduces endurance consumption when you have more people in your group. There's a lot of speculation, people are saying it's something that is supposed to help defenders solo a bit better. Probably some sort of damage increase based on team size. :P
Another thing of interest is that they are adding some sort of advancement system for L50 characters, that is going to be called the Incarnate System. I hope this isn't going to be like Everquest's AAXP system where hardcore players had thousands of AAXP and casual players were not acceptable for raiding unless they had x amount of AAXP.
Upsen.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Ace Attorney - Justice for All
I picked up the second Ace Attorney game and I am rather disappointed in it - the first game was much better in both logic and story.
The game starts off with you handling the defense of a policewoman who is accused of pushing her boyfriend off a high spot. The initial autopsy report and 2 photos that you get at the start are enough to absolve her of the crime already, yet you have to go through a lengthy drawn out trial where you are barely winning the case, and choosing the right piece of evidence or profile to advance is more a matter of luck rather than logic.
Wait a minute, Upsen, you said that the initial information presented is enough to absolve her of the crime? Yes, it does absolve her.
1. The autopsy report says that the victim snapped his neck from falling.
2. The 2nd photo shows how the victim wrote the defendant's name on the ground in blood after his fall.
Do you see anything wrong with this? You definitely should! How does a man, who SNAPPED HIS NECK WHEN HE HIT THE GROUND, possibly be able to to write a name in the ground with his blood? He wouldn't have any control of his limbs with a snapped neck! And whoever heard of someone who snapped their neck living past getting their neck snapped?
The defendant is obviously innocent right from the initial evidence.
Instead, we are drawn through a crazy web of details about the name being misspelled and the victim being left handed yet the bloody name is written with his right hand, ugh.
Anyways, the game continues on in this vein with various so-called solutions that would make Rube Goldberg's ideas look like a straight line between A and B. I haven't had the heart to finish it.
I'm terribly disappointed. Also I can't stand Franziska von Karma.
Upsen.
The game starts off with you handling the defense of a policewoman who is accused of pushing her boyfriend off a high spot. The initial autopsy report and 2 photos that you get at the start are enough to absolve her of the crime already, yet you have to go through a lengthy drawn out trial where you are barely winning the case, and choosing the right piece of evidence or profile to advance is more a matter of luck rather than logic.
Wait a minute, Upsen, you said that the initial information presented is enough to absolve her of the crime? Yes, it does absolve her.
1. The autopsy report says that the victim snapped his neck from falling.
2. The 2nd photo shows how the victim wrote the defendant's name on the ground in blood after his fall.
Do you see anything wrong with this? You definitely should! How does a man, who SNAPPED HIS NECK WHEN HE HIT THE GROUND, possibly be able to to write a name in the ground with his blood? He wouldn't have any control of his limbs with a snapped neck! And whoever heard of someone who snapped their neck living past getting their neck snapped?
The defendant is obviously innocent right from the initial evidence.
Instead, we are drawn through a crazy web of details about the name being misspelled and the victim being left handed yet the bloody name is written with his right hand, ugh.
Anyways, the game continues on in this vein with various so-called solutions that would make Rube Goldberg's ideas look like a straight line between A and B. I haven't had the heart to finish it.
I'm terribly disappointed. Also I can't stand Franziska von Karma.
Upsen.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Mafia Wars added in a class change option
So I started playing it again. It took a little while to get the 14 reward points together to do the change, but once I did, I could get the Fearless - Top Wheelman option in other people's Top Mafia, and it made a huge difference to the game. As you can see in the above pic, occassionally jobs don't cost anything. It's hugely unfair to the other classes who couldn't get that sort of option, and one of the reasons I stopped playing it in the first place - I had the gimped Mogul class which occassionally earns more money in the old shop system that is no longer in use.
Anyways, now that I'm one of the chosen classes instead of one of the downtrodden peon classes, the game is a good way to spend my lunch break at work. :P
Upsen.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
City of Heroes - Free Reactivation Weekend
Speak of the Devil...
Double XP and Re-activation Weekend Starting March 4th!
Double XP and Re-activation Weekend Starting March 4th!
- Double XP and Re-activation Weekend Start: Thursday, March 4th at 8:59am Pacific Time (11:59am Eastern Time)
- Double XP and Re-activation Weekend End: Sunday, March 7th at 11:59pm Pacific (2:59am Eastern Time)
City of Heroes - Issue 17: Dark Mirror
It looks like there's going to be a graphics rendering update for City of Heroes in Issue 17, coming in April. The details on the COH website show some nicely upgraded screens, but I guess the character models aren't going to be updated, just the scenery.
Out of a bunch of nice features like mailing your alts influence and taking 7 missions at a time instead of 3, I like the Posi change the best.
Positron is going to be cut into 2 Task Forces. About time, that particular task force was absolutely brutal, low level characters forced to fight against no-resist toxic DOT attacks, as well as enemy holds before you get any hold resistance. the second half looks like it's going to take place in the Faultline Dam. Didn't we hear something about a TF in Faultline, way, way, WAY back in time? 8)
I might go back and try this out when it gets released!
Upsen.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
City of Heroes - Going Rogue
The upcoming Going Rogue upgrade for City of Heroes got a site update today - they've added in a Dual Pistols powerset, which is available right now if you purchase the upgrade, and a Demon Summoning powerset which is available some time in April.
Interesting tactic, selling packages now, so you can use the powersets, and then releasing the actual upgrade in July with all the maps and story/missions after they're done composing them.
Anyways, the video on their site shows off some really cool looking Gun-fu moves, and the pistols even have slides that cycle back and forth as the pistols fire. I'd comment on the shell casings flying around too, but CoH has always had that nice little feature for their shooty heroes and villains. 8) It would be kind of cool to check these out if there's ever a free play week or something like that in the future.
Upsen.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Darker Than Black bullet blooper
What do you call inconsistencies in a show? Bloopers? Anyways, here is one from an anime called Darker than Black that bugged me enough to write a post about it.
In Episode 10 when the mafia girl is loading her revolver, she is loading it with automatic pistol rounds. Wonderful, as they will slide right through the revolver cylinder instead of firing, or jam nicely at an inconvenient moment. The rim on a automatic round doesn't stick out (flare) as it does for revolver rounds.
Btw those are seriously thick rims on those bullets. It's like the artist thinks the notch there is cosmetic.
Here's two similarly sized bullets here for comparison -
- The top one, a 9mm Luger, is an automatic round (no flared rim) These are designed to be stackable. The inset rim is for the mechanism to grip the end of the casing for loading.
- the bottom one is a .38 Special, a revolver round.. Note the flared rim. These flared rims are a stopper to prevent the shell from sliding through the revolver cylinder.
Just as a curiosity, the cop listens for 5 shots and then runs across mafia girl's field of fire, with the revolver going click-click. I thought it was weird that it was 5, so I looked it up - it seems the standard police/security .38 revolver in Japan is a 5-round cylinder, not 6. Pretty risky though, to assume mafia girl is using a police revolver and not an import.
Darker than Black isn't really a gun otaku type anime, so I guess they didn't really consider it. In case I need to clarify, I actually do like this show, it's just that occasionally some things in it bug me.
Upsen.
P.s.
I think the worst I've ever seen in anime is in Dogs: Bullets & Carnage - The animator didn't realize that the gun's slide (on the top half) moves back when firing, exposing the barrel. Instead they animated the barrel thrusting forward out of the gun, in gratuitously slow-motion shots. Somehow this passed QC in a show with "Bullets" in it's title. Someone shoot them please.
P.p.s.
I had a stack of empty casings for like 2 years, with both 9mm auto and .38spl samples in it, that I threw away during the new year. It ALWAYS happens - throw something away and find that you need it soon thereafter. A closeup photo showing the difference would have been perfect for this post.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Wet - Wetwork a la Kill Bill
I know what you're thinking — "Did he fire six shots or only five? Here it doesn't really matter since you have infinite bullets and no need to reload.
Yesterday, I tried the old Wet demo that I've had kicking around for a while, and it seemed like a lot of fun. So today, I traded in Borderlands and picked up a copy of Wet plus some credit for future use.
Wet is short for "Wetwork", which refers to jobs that involve killing and spilling blood. I think they should have just kept the name as Wetwork.
It's basically a 70's action flick come to video-game life, or something that Quentin Tarantino would be involved in today. Its entertaining in a Kill Bill sort of way. I'll have to load up the actual game some time, and see how it is.
Also, the main character Rubi reminds me of a friend of mine, which is a chuckle.
Upsen.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Objection! Phoenix Wright - Ace Attorney
Lately I've been playing with my Nintendo DS - I picked up an old copy of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2005) . Its a fun game in which you play a defense attorney, cross-examining witnesses. (Which seems to mean tearing down witness testimonies and calling them into question)
There is a also lot of running around collecting case information, and even a scene where you get tasered, but the most fun part of the game is the cross-examination. It's like a boss fight. :D
There's a bunch more of these games in the series, I will probably check them out after I'm done with this one.
Upsen.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
D&D for Dummies
I'm surprised that Wizards of the Coast would allow such a publication. I wonder how they get around it?
I'm guessing there is probably a World of Warcraft for Dummies out there too.
Upsen.
--------------------------
Sent using BlackBerry
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Borderlands L50
I hit 50 tonight on my Siren tonight. This was on Playthrough 2, and it happened while clearing out Old Haven for the couple of missions that you get there. That's perhaps about 70% through the main storyline's missions, and not even working seriously on finishing all the quests. One interesting thing is that it allows you to fill the L50 xp meter, which I've done about 3/4ths now, with the Siren parked outside the map where you have to activate the Echo Network nodes. (Getting close to the end of the game.)This second playthrough was a lot easier than the first. Some of these weapons are seriously powerful. For instance, I found a Hellfire SMG from a bandit in the Treacher's Landing area. It has a 100% DOT rate, and mows down things like you wouldn't believe.
Anyways, I'm not sure how much more I'll be playing this game - I originally bought it on F's recommendation as a team-play game. However, no one ever seems interested in playing it. =\
Upsen.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Borderlands - Difficulty: Tough is Tough.
I was playing some late night co-op with T on the weekend, and we reached the Dahl Headlands with a L16 and L17 Mordecai character. It was a bit tough getting to Lucky but doable. However, when we got to the mission where we had to take down 8 opposing runner cars, it became sort of a zergfest where we would get blown up, respawn, and try again a number of times over. Eventually we cleared the required 8 runners, and ended for the night, but it was after quite a lot of respawns. T lost a ton of credits he was saving up. I didnt fare as badly cause I was broke from buying ammo upgrades.It was only next morning when I realized why the runners were so tough to beat. They must have been +2 levels or higher to us. Checking the Mad Mel mission that was next in the chain, sure enough it said L20, Difficulty: Tough. (My Mord was L18 at the end of the night.)
This has happened on a number of occassions - a +2 Bonehead and a +2 Badass Fire Skag in my early levels, and later on with +2 Lancers and +2 BadMutha Elemental Spiderlings. (btw you cant even run those over with a runner car, your car blows up and they are okay)
Most RPG/levelled games get tougher when you fight stuff that is a couple levels higher than you, but there is a much less steep slope to climb than in Borderlands. Usually you can get by with a bit of skill and/or luck fighting up to +4 or +5, with colours and con levels like yellow, orange, purple, red etc, to denote how much higher they are. In Borderlands, however, even-level is easy, +1 is a nice challenge, and +2 is suddenly a barrier when you face off against a "tough" version of a foe, like a Badass or a Badmutha variant. Generally that's the point where I give up on fighting in the area with the +2, and I go do an easier level that is Normal or Trivial, until I get a level or two to even me up with the tough foe. Being late at night and running a bit on autopilot, I'd forgotten to check the mission level, and we just zerged it out. Doh!
Its a bit funny and a bit of a headsmacker really. If you are following the main storyline exclusively, soon the difficulty level of the missions outpace your character level. Then you have to go back and do some of the side quests, or get enough fight xp somewhere to keep up with the main quest.
Also, 2 Hunters don't stack very well compared to 2 Soldiers. (probably little else stacks as well, to be honest)
Upsen.
P.s. Borderlands vehicle combat is just asinine in general, terrible physics and driving AIs, also accuracy and firing arc limitations. Couple it with how slowly bullets travel in the game, and it makes enemy cars hard to beat unless they have stupidly run up against a wall or post, and are still driving into it.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Borderlands - Dont get Mad Moxie's until its Fixed.
I was looking through the gearbox forums and there are reports of people losing their gear after playing through a portion of the Mad Moxie DLC on the Xbox360.
not sure if its cause of hacks or mods, but I'm just passing along what I'm seeing.
p.s. Also, a lot of people complain about corrupted characters after playing splitscreen, so keep that in mind too.
not sure if its cause of hacks or mods, but I'm just passing along what I'm seeing.
So I just beat the first three mad Moxxi stages and my shield, grenades and mod disappeared.Upsen.
I had the same thing happen, grenade mod, shield, and char mod all disappeared, I'd only done 2 of the 3 rounds, then I exited and when I loaded that character again they were gone.
p.s. Also, a lot of people complain about corrupted characters after playing splitscreen, so keep that in mind too.
Borderlands Sirens and Playthrough 2
I've been spending most of my free time playing Borderlands as opposed to playing LOTRO or anything else the past while.E had gone forward and left my co-op soldier behind on the main quest, so I switched to using my singleplayer Siren for all the games. The Siren wasn't as good as the soldier at first, since the special ability is not terribly good for offense. Sure it has a phase blast on entering and a 2nd one on exiting, but they aren't really enough damage to do any serious killing at the beginning, plus you have to get to that dangerous close melee range. Plus I kept running out of ammo since SMGs burn ammo so quickly. (Crits are not something you rely on when you use a stuttering jerky weapon like an SMG)
After about L25 or so, she suddenly got very tough. There's a few reasons for this:
- finding a few good elemental SMGs such as a 3.7x zoom super accurate Spy corrosive SMG. I used it even in most situations where I would have switched to a sniper rifle. I understand why SMGs have scopes on them now, it was hard to see this when I just started playing and didn't have a +67% acc proficiency bonus yet.
- a Mercenary Class Mod that allowed some SMG ammo regen - the reason I liked the Solider Support Gunner mod so much. Suddenly the ~1000 SMG ammo capacity was no longer a restrictive limit, since I could regenerate more. I no longer needed to keep a couple of different secondary weapons for when I ran out of SMG ammo, so I could focus on just using SMG and improving the skill on it.
- Mind Games, the Siren power in the Controller Tree. This power, at 3 points, gives a 15% chance per bullet to seriously slow the enemy move rate, and fire rate. With an SMG's high rate of fire, that 15% happens every burst I shoot. A lot of tough foes are reduced to the speed and response time of an old shuffling zombie. BTW, even the enemy bullet speed is affected, and the end results is rockets slowly cruising through the air and bullets flying in slo-mo bullet-time, haha!
- The Phase Blast has actually gotten to a useful state, since it recharges in 15sec, less a second per enemy killed, and has some elemental mods in it. I can actually use it to kill swarms of small stuff.
I'll see how far I can get and how fast, with just the main quest on this playthrough.
Upsen.
p.s. the game's forums mention that large characters like Brick are easier to hit and small characters like the Siren are harder to hit. Realistic but sort of unfair for the bigger characters? I dont know if there are different base amounts of HP etc.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Why is changing an account or forum name so hard?
This is something annoying that I've run into this in a few different games.
First time around it was during my Champions Online experience, where they refused to change my account name so it would be different from my in-game and forum name, when, if I'm remembering correctly, it was their fault that their damned forum software didn't differentiate between login names and displayed nicknames when they first made the discussion forum available.
At least there I could protest by not subscribing to the game.
Now I find I'm having a similar issue with my Lord of the Rings Turbine forum name.
I had created my Turbine account back long ago enough that I wasn't using the forum name "Upsen" at the time. I was still using the name "Nizetti" quite extensively. I decided I wanted to update the forum name to "Upsen" so I could do a bit of posting, reflecting my ingame character's name. Only problem was, there was no option to change it!
So poking around the forum a bit and not finding an answer, I posted asking people how it was done. Basically the replies back said that it isn't done, it's not possible. Apparently it was tried before, and it would break forum access. What the hell?
I eventually found a support FAQ answer for it:
Upsen.
First time around it was during my Champions Online experience, where they refused to change my account name so it would be different from my in-game and forum name, when, if I'm remembering correctly, it was their fault that their damned forum software didn't differentiate between login names and displayed nicknames when they first made the discussion forum available.
At least there I could protest by not subscribing to the game.
Now I find I'm having a similar issue with my Lord of the Rings Turbine forum name.
I had created my Turbine account back long ago enough that I wasn't using the forum name "Upsen" at the time. I was still using the name "Nizetti" quite extensively. I decided I wanted to update the forum name to "Upsen" so I could do a bit of posting, reflecting my ingame character's name. Only problem was, there was no option to change it!
So poking around the forum a bit and not finding an answer, I posted asking people how it was done. Basically the replies back said that it isn't done, it's not possible. Apparently it was tried before, and it would break forum access. What the hell?
I eventually found a support FAQ answer for it:
Can I change my account's Username?Chrissakes, people, this is 2010 now! Why the hell is your software so inflexible?
No. Once your Username has been created it is not possible to alter it.Neither Turbine Account Management nor Turbine Technical Support can change your Username.
I accidentally misspelled my Username during account registration. Can I fix it?
All the details of your account are tied to the Username that you choose. The Username cannot be changed once it is selected.
Upsen.
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