I am very much not in an mmo mood at the moment but when EVE sent me an invitation for a free welcome back week plus offered me the free gift of a very special ship it was hard to say no.
Kudos to CCP on their installation process. No marathon patching session was involved. Just download a 2Gb client, install it and you are in the game. The graphics (especially planets) are now prettier than I remembered but I experienced quite a deal of lag. Some of this happened in relatively unpopulated systems so I wonder if my four year old gaming computer is struggling with the new finery. Lag during a space battle can mean death unfortunately so I will experiment with options to try and make it go away.
Ah ... the agony and the ecstasy that is EVE. How quickly it all comes back. This game really is a nerd nirvana. Although I have forgotten what I was up to before I quit I logged in to Marb Pelico find that he has stuff stored all over the place. Hundreds and hundreds of pieces of stuff much of which he can't use so I can only assume he bought it in the hope of making a profit. I have no idea whether prices have risen or fallen but I set about trying to collect it all and sell it. Marb has zero trading skill so every transaction requires that he physically travel to the location of the goods many of which are in rather dodgy parts of low security space. Fun times. I have another character parked in Jita, a trading alt as I recall and then I have my wild child, an un-trained alt in a cheap frigate who is wandering around lawless 0.0 space. I will try and fix the lag issue before resuming her adventure though because lag + gate camp is a quick route to a resurrection couch.
Do I really want to go back to an mmo again, even if it is the magnificence of EVE? Probably not, I am in a single player place at the moment, very content with my own company. Still it is nice to get a free gift although I am in agreement with Tipa on this: mine is staying in a hangar for a year or so until I can sell it for a small fortune.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
How hard is it to install a new graphics card?
There is a little computer shop close to where I live. It can't compete with internet pricing for major pieces of hardware but it is a useful source of consumables. He does a pretty good deal on printer ink and on several occasions the ability to nip round the corner and buy a patch cable has gotten me out of a hole.
I was in there this morning buying ink. A customer in front of me was inquiring about a video card upgrade.
"Can that be done on the spot if I drop the computer in" he asked
Unfortunately the young lady behind the counter was not a technician and "the engineer" as she called him would not be back for a while.
"It has to be booked in It could take a few days" was her reply.
The customer asked
"How hard is it to upgrade a video card? Do you think I could do it myself?"
The assistant was honest enough to admit she didn't know and recommended that he leave the computer with them.
Recognising a potential fellow gamer I ached to interject.
"Its easy" I could have shouted "I have changed dozens of video cards"
I could have given him a five minute crash course in swapping video cards. If he lived nearby I could even do it for him.
But then I thought what if ...
What if he card he has bought in ignorance isn't compatible with his machine? What if it has the wrong interface or is too long for the case? What if his power supply doesn't have the six pin adapter needed? What if there isn't a driver available for his obscure operating system? And will I really be able to prevent myself from blurting out that the Geforce4mx he just paid €150 is not exactly the bee's knees of graphics cards despite the fancy box and that he really should have gotten a BFG9000 for the same money. An what happens the first time he installs a game that doesn't work properly because it is incompatible with Nvidia or ATI cards and the guy assumes its my fault because I installed it wrong.
Regretfully I admitted to myself that I didn't want the hassle. Thats what computer shops charge installation fees for. Plus I didn't really want to do my local shop out of the few euro they would charge him for the install.
I was in there this morning buying ink. A customer in front of me was inquiring about a video card upgrade.
"Can that be done on the spot if I drop the computer in" he asked
Unfortunately the young lady behind the counter was not a technician and "the engineer" as she called him would not be back for a while.
"It has to be booked in It could take a few days" was her reply.
The customer asked
"How hard is it to upgrade a video card? Do you think I could do it myself?"
The assistant was honest enough to admit she didn't know and recommended that he leave the computer with them.
Recognising a potential fellow gamer I ached to interject.
"Its easy" I could have shouted "I have changed dozens of video cards"
I could have given him a five minute crash course in swapping video cards. If he lived nearby I could even do it for him.
But then I thought what if ...
What if he card he has bought in ignorance isn't compatible with his machine? What if it has the wrong interface or is too long for the case? What if his power supply doesn't have the six pin adapter needed? What if there isn't a driver available for his obscure operating system? And will I really be able to prevent myself from blurting out that the Geforce4mx he just paid €150 is not exactly the bee's knees of graphics cards despite the fancy box and that he really should have gotten a BFG9000 for the same money. An what happens the first time he installs a game that doesn't work properly because it is incompatible with Nvidia or ATI cards and the guy assumes its my fault because I installed it wrong.
Regretfully I admitted to myself that I didn't want the hassle. Thats what computer shops charge installation fees for. Plus I didn't really want to do my local shop out of the few euro they would charge him for the install.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
How can I keep a detailed record of my gaming?
I would love to have a detailed record of my gaming habits - so that for example I could look back and see what games I was playing a year ago. I installed Xfire a few months back in order to avail of its gaming history feature but I am very disappointed by the statistics it keeps. It tells you what games you have played in the last week and it also keeps a record of total time spent in any one game but that is it. There is no way that I can find to analyse my past gaming on a monthly or weekly basis.
Now that I have discovered that X-Fire can cause conflicts with some games I am wondering if I really want to keep using it but I don't know of any other tool that comes close to keeping the gaming history I want. Does anyone know of a better way to keep a record of my gaming history?
Now that I have discovered that X-Fire can cause conflicts with some games I am wondering if I really want to keep using it but I don't know of any other tool that comes close to keeping the gaming history I want. Does anyone know of a better way to keep a record of my gaming history?
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Frontlines fuel of war thoughts + 2 important hints
I have played a fair bit of Frontlines Fuel of War over the last week both single player and multi-player. Apparently the game owes a lot to a Battlefield 1942 mod called Desert Combat but as I have never played either BF1942 nor Desert combat I cannot comment on any similarities although this might explain why one of the NPCs keeps complaining about being in a desert even when you are no where near one.
Single player is fun enough but does get repetitive. The tutorial and seven missions deliver about 7 hours total gameplay and even in such a short stretch you come to recognise a few basic structures that keep cropping up over and over again. There are some furious fire fights though and even on normal I found the missions challenging enough to complete.
Multi-player shows a lot more potential. You select one of four classes (assault rife, sniper, RPG or submachinegun) and one of four specialisations that will allow you to unlock things like a portable mortar cannon or an EMP beacon which disable vehicles. Vehicles play a big role in the game and there are many including a wide range of wheeled, tracked and flying vehicles. Throw in the fact that one of the specialisations allows you to control drones mini-tanks or mini-helicopters and you can see that there are many many ways to play.
Personally I think the aircraft are overpowered being both hard to hit and packing a heavy punch but that could be just sour grapes seeing as I cant fly one for nuts. Land vehicles on the other hand are if anything underpowered with tanks even being easy pickings for any aircraft or a footsoldier with an rpg.
On a typical night there are about 50 servers on line with about 500 people playing so it is usually easy enough to get into a game. Sadly the most popular maps are the ones with a heavy emphasis on aircraft which sucks a bit if like me you can't fly. Foot soldiers are still needed however because the real objective of the game is to capture control points and that is hard to do in a jet.
All in all I would heartily recommend the game at its current bargain basement price from Steam but be aware that a number of people have experienced difficulties getting the game to run. While the game runs well for me I did have an issue that prevented me from joining Punkbuster enabled servers.
Two things to note if you do get the game: Firstly this game hates X-Fire. Disabling X-fire gave me a noticeable increase in smoothness and frame-rate.
Secondly once you have finished the main campaign be sure to check out two bonus missions that can be accessed from the options menu via the bonus codes "sp-village" and "sp-street" respectively. In my opinion these are the two toughest but also the most enjoyable missions in the game.
Single player is fun enough but does get repetitive. The tutorial and seven missions deliver about 7 hours total gameplay and even in such a short stretch you come to recognise a few basic structures that keep cropping up over and over again. There are some furious fire fights though and even on normal I found the missions challenging enough to complete.
Multi-player shows a lot more potential. You select one of four classes (assault rife, sniper, RPG or submachinegun) and one of four specialisations that will allow you to unlock things like a portable mortar cannon or an EMP beacon which disable vehicles. Vehicles play a big role in the game and there are many including a wide range of wheeled, tracked and flying vehicles. Throw in the fact that one of the specialisations allows you to control drones mini-tanks or mini-helicopters and you can see that there are many many ways to play.
Personally I think the aircraft are overpowered being both hard to hit and packing a heavy punch but that could be just sour grapes seeing as I cant fly one for nuts. Land vehicles on the other hand are if anything underpowered with tanks even being easy pickings for any aircraft or a footsoldier with an rpg.
On a typical night there are about 50 servers on line with about 500 people playing so it is usually easy enough to get into a game. Sadly the most popular maps are the ones with a heavy emphasis on aircraft which sucks a bit if like me you can't fly. Foot soldiers are still needed however because the real objective of the game is to capture control points and that is hard to do in a jet.
All in all I would heartily recommend the game at its current bargain basement price from Steam but be aware that a number of people have experienced difficulties getting the game to run. While the game runs well for me I did have an issue that prevented me from joining Punkbuster enabled servers.
Two things to note if you do get the game: Firstly this game hates X-Fire. Disabling X-fire gave me a noticeable increase in smoothness and frame-rate.
Secondly once you have finished the main campaign be sure to check out two bonus missions that can be accessed from the options menu via the bonus codes "sp-village" and "sp-street" respectively. In my opinion these are the two toughest but also the most enjoyable missions in the game.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Cheating and The Psychology of Gaming
Following on from my previous post about cheaters in online games I think it is worth making a link between cheating and the psychology of gaming achievement.
Performers might be tempted to cheat because they crave the ego boost of achievement but are not prepared to put hard work into getting it.
Masters on the other hand are prepared to slog through the game in order to earn their achievements.
This viewpoint might explain why many adults who really should know better still cheat. If you are a cheater don't expect me to feel sorry for you though just because you have a mixed up psychological alignment!
EDIT: Applying this analayis to the resons given by cheaters in the last post:
Pretty conclusive don't you think?
Performers might be tempted to cheat because they crave the ego boost of achievement but are not prepared to put hard work into getting it.
Masters on the other hand are prepared to slog through the game in order to earn their achievements.
This viewpoint might explain why many adults who really should know better still cheat. If you are a cheater don't expect me to feel sorry for you though just because you have a mixed up psychological alignment!
EDIT: Applying this analayis to the resons given by cheaters in the last post:
I think I started cheating because when you die in CSS you have to wait until the next round to play again. I wanted to keep playing. - PERFORMER
Think I started cheating because I work for a living and don't have all day to learn to play a PC game just so some 12 yr old hairless scrotum can sling 'l33t' speak insults at me. PERFORMER (or perhaps just misopedic)
i loved how i can cause rage on people who take the gaming too seriously and start throwing killing threats on you etc. hilarious crap SOCIOPATH ???
I started cheating for the sole purpose of cheating: having advantages over other players. I got bored of playing the game the way it was supposed to be played: PERFORMER
I'm just really lazy and I don't feel like waiting to get the newest gear and stuff. I know it takes away the challenge, but to me, that's not really a big deal. e-peen growth is srs bsns. PERFORMER
Meh, I cheat in TF2 because the game is boring.PERFORMER
Pretty conclusive don't you think?
Cheaters
I have been playing a bit of Frontlines Fuel of War (single player ok, multiplayer pretty good) but there is some kind of bug that prevents people who bought the game through STEAM from accessing punkbuster (anti cheat) enabled servers. You can read about the bug here. While we wait for this to get sorted I have been limited to non protected servers. This led me to wonder once again about cheating in online games so I consulted the oracle of Google to find out about more it. I probably wish I hadn't.
Let me state categorically that I do not cheat in multiplayer games. Why do people do it? Its not like a professional sport where cheating can be a shortcut to riches. In games all you are playing for is personal pride and the very fact of cheating surely destroys that pride.
One of my first guesses was that most of the cheating is done by kids who are too young to accept losing. That hypothesis was blown out of the water when my first google search led me to an aimbot for Frontlines which charges a subscription of €20 per month!!! I doubt if many children are paying that much to avoid the ignominy of defeat.
A bit more googling dug out forums dedicated to cheats and cheaters. I have heard about this subculture before but I expected to find something that read like the worst excesses of 4Chan and Something Awful with every poster using expletive laden leet speak. Apparently this is not the case. MPC for example is a well moderated forum with polite users politely discussing how to cheat in games. In fact the whole thing is a lot better behaved than many official game forums. It would seem that cheaters are nice people.
EXCEPT THAT THEY ARE FUCKING CHEATING BASTARDS.
Apologies for that foul language outburst, I don't normally use expletives but I really don't like cheating and I don't like cheaters. Whatever reasons and whatever excuses they use to justify their cheating they are hurting other gamers and they are damaging the whole experience of gaming. The fact that they can be polite and friendly in their own cosy forums somehow makes it worse.
A poster to MPC called Ondscan actually calls out the cheaters and asks "Why Cheat?". There is irony and honesty in equal measure in the responses he got:
Let me state categorically that I do not cheat in multiplayer games. Why do people do it? Its not like a professional sport where cheating can be a shortcut to riches. In games all you are playing for is personal pride and the very fact of cheating surely destroys that pride.
One of my first guesses was that most of the cheating is done by kids who are too young to accept losing. That hypothesis was blown out of the water when my first google search led me to an aimbot for Frontlines which charges a subscription of €20 per month!!! I doubt if many children are paying that much to avoid the ignominy of defeat.
A bit more googling dug out forums dedicated to cheats and cheaters. I have heard about this subculture before but I expected to find something that read like the worst excesses of 4Chan and Something Awful with every poster using expletive laden leet speak. Apparently this is not the case. MPC for example is a well moderated forum with polite users politely discussing how to cheat in games. In fact the whole thing is a lot better behaved than many official game forums. It would seem that cheaters are nice people.
EXCEPT THAT THEY ARE FUCKING CHEATING BASTARDS.
Apologies for that foul language outburst, I don't normally use expletives but I really don't like cheating and I don't like cheaters. Whatever reasons and whatever excuses they use to justify their cheating they are hurting other gamers and they are damaging the whole experience of gaming. The fact that they can be polite and friendly in their own cosy forums somehow makes it worse.
A poster to MPC called Ondscan actually calls out the cheaters and asks "Why Cheat?". There is irony and honesty in equal measure in the responses he got:
I think I started cheating because when you die in CSS you have to wait until the next round to play again. I wanted to keep playing.
Think I started cheating because I work for a living and don't have all day to learn to play a PC game just so some 12 yr old hairless scrotum can sling 'l33t' speak insults at me.
i loved how i can cause rage on people who take the gaming too seriously and start throwing killing threats on you etc. hilarious crap
I started cheating for the sole purpose of cheating: having advantages over other players. I got bored of playing the game the way it was supposed to be played:
I'm just really lazy and I don't feel like waiting to get the newest gear and stuff. I know it takes away the challenge, but to me, that's not really a big deal. e-peen growth is srs bsns.
Meh, I cheat in TF2 because the game is boring.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
