First Thoughts & Computer Woes

Today I come to you all from not a computer, I come from an Xbox. Through a series of unfortunate events, the laptop has stopped working, and my attempts of re-installing the OS at this point of time have proven fruitless. However, I then realized that I have a chatpad and (regretfully) Internet Explorer on the Xbox. I put 2 and 2 together, and begun the post. It won' be quite as pretty as my old, MS Word typed ones, but it will get some content out, with minor spelling errors.

Since we're already on the Xbox, why not talk about their games while I'm at it? Namely, Halo 4. I won' lie, I was originally agaimst a sequel. I wamted it to die with the Covenant, but quickly I saw that they weren't just milking the old cash cow, but had brought some new ideas in as well.

I haven't completed the campaign just yet, but I have played through a good chunk of ot, and gotten a bit into War Games as well. Its apparent to me that what is happening now is not just a revival, but a shift towards a new direction. Normally, I'm heavily against milking a story, but Halo has something more to it. Halo's got a whole, vast, lore and universe surrounding it. Master Chieft is just a man, but he is a soldier. Soldiers just don't fight one fght. Sierra 117 is a lifer, and his end is not in sight.

So far, Halo 4 is dragging in the feeling of Halo, the quintessential needs of it (that big battle feel and boop, boop, beep before a game starts) and puts it in a new situation. The plot is heavy and thick. Its, at this point at least, possibly more Halo than some of its predocessors.

I look forward to cpleting the game, and giving a more full review, and hopefully, on an actual computer.

--Santa

Movies: We're Back

I’ve heard a lot about 007. Good old James Bond. Last Friday I went to see it in theaters, and I have to admit—it was a big event for me. My first 007 in the theatre. I haven’t really seen much of the famous spy, but I figured it was a good place to start (especially since Lincoln wasn’t out yet). I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a rough-and-tumble action sort of guy when it comes to my preferred types of movies. Normally I’m more of a comedy man, but 007 caught my eye (and my friends insisted).

Skyfall starts with Bond on a mission to recover a hard drive with some information about spies in secret agencies encrypted onto it. Failing to recover this data, and in a horrible accident, Bond is shot while riding on a train and falls into a river (hence, a cliché reference to the name, but not the true reason for the title). Bond, a couple of months later, comes back into the scene again after MI6 is attacked by a terrorist organization, and soon finds himself embroiled in international spy warfare once again.

Seeing that I have no background on Bond except for my small memories of some classics and what I know from the parodies that Austin Powers left me with, this is a really broken Bond. I kind of remember seeing Bond as the perfect guy—this one is almost defeated, weaker… not perfect. He’s real. This lends a lot more feelings to the story, especially since the franchise is 50 years old now, and needs something to keep it going. Daniel Craig proves how smooth, and chunk he can be. However, I will say that there is a noticeable lack of gadgets, which although saddening, is much more real. I gave Bond a 8.25/10. Not the best movie I ever saw, but certainly entertaining, and a fairly nice plot for an action-y movie.

--Santa

PS: Coming up soon will be some new posts. Expect some LoL news, a bit of talking on Saxxy’s, and of course, Halo 4.

Flashback: Never Changes

Whenever I have to think back to why I love Bethesda, two series come to mind—The Elder Scrolls and Fallout. I’ve talked about both numerous times on the Workshop, namely Skyrim, Oblivion and New Vegas, but I think that it’s time to champion the one that I feels stands out the most from the 7^th generation of gaming: Fallout 3. This is something I had to put a lot of thinking into. I loved Oblivion, and even spent more time on it then I did on Fallout 3, but as I’m about to get into, there’s a strong reason why I gave Fallout 3 the best of the 4 choices.

Most people would expect when comparing Skyrim, New Vegas, Oblivion and Fallout 3 for greatness, you’d end up with an order like the one I just listed. After all, TES is debatably one of the biggest franchises in all of gaming right now, and although Fallout is big, TES is considered Bethesda’s crowning achievement. However, I think that in this case, Fallout 3 reigns supreme, even over one of my all-time favorites, Oblivion, giving my overall ranking system as:

1.      Fallout 3

2.      The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

3.      The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

4.      Fallout: New Vegas

Now comes the hard part of justification. Starting out with why the two older games got the top two slots takes a bit of referencing back. Even though there are some nice improvements in New Vegas from 3, it doesn’t feel the same. I don’t know if this may be because Obsidian was the lead in making the game, and Bethesda was on Fallout 3, but it is a let-down.

 Oblivion, on the other hand is beaten in a large amount of ways by Skyrim; better graphics, better voice-acting, heavily superior combat system, new and improved items, and more. But, there are two things missing from Skyrim that Oblivion did have—a good central story, and huge amounts of charm. Now, I will admit that of the charm of Oblivion comes from the quirks: being able to jump for 5 seconds, wearing the gray cowl around town and taking it off just before guards come up to attack you so they angrily say “How are you today, Citizen?”, the fantastic effects of Skooma and of course, the fantastic voice acting by all of the guards. I played more than 1000+ hours of Oblivion before I got bored on 3 different characters. I played for just over 400 hours on 2 characters of Skyrim before I got bored of it.

So, how did I decide between the two games in the end? I looked at how I felt playing the two of them. Fallout 3 has a fantastic storyline, and the two games have completely different combat systems, magic and medieval weaponry vs. limited guns and ingenuity. I enjoyed the 2-toned system of Fallout 3’s Enclave and Brotherhood more than the huge amount of sprawling quests of Cyrodil. Although there may be more to do in the bigger world of Tamriel, the wastelands of D.C. truly are alive and unforgettable, giving them my top spot. Deciding 3^rd and 4^th wasn’t hard after that, I love Skyrim, just not as much as Oblivion. Obsidian, although not quite as magical as Bethesda still did a good job, and 4^th place is not a bad spot—they were up against impeccable competition.

Bethesda is a powerful producer and idea maker, but I think the next direction they may want to consider moving in, is one step back. The games, although more resourceful, are missing on what made them great in the first place. They took a chance on the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” idea, and fixed good systems and made them better, but lost something on the way. Fallout 3 is a prime example of a game that wasn’t perfect, but came damn near close to it. We don’t expect games to be 100% perfect and accurate all of the time. Fallout 3 is a game that gets closer to that bar than any other Bethesda game I’ve played.

--Santa

The Workshop Isn't Dead; Only Sleeping

Remember me?

I don't. Most of the old readers at this point are probably gone, and I don’t blame them. I’ve had to take a very large amount of time off due to some personal stuff which is rather boring to get into. But, I am planning on being back now, as much as I can be. I do believe this calls for a summer update.

So, after I told all of you about my new, super-duper incredible hat, I kind of left and never came back. I was pretty much done with trading; my major goal had been completed. However, I’ve since found a new drive, this one is more to go out and find a new hat that I can love, and I’m feeling that maybe buying some sunbeams across the board may not be a bad idea. I’d have the shiniest heads in all of TF2, on some pretty spectacular hats as well. It would, however, take an astronomically long time to get all of these hats.
It’s a good thing I’m a patient guy.
In the meantime, I’m trading small again. I don’t have much at the moment since a good 90% of my net worth is all stuff I don’t want to sell (like my unusual and vintages) and I’ve only got a few hats and whatnot. And then I got a drop. A #40 drop. Valve decided to give me a little welcoming back present to the market. I’m starting to fell right back at home.

I’m also getting into a few other games again—Civilization V and O-Game.
Yes.
O-Game.
I feel no shame for the second one. Mostly because it gives me something to do as I play Civ, and it’s also cute to just click a few buttons and be good at something. If  you have a few friends, I suggest picking it up, I may talk about it more later, me and this game go about as far back as Toontown and Runescape.

I know it’s not much for a whole “Welcome Back!” post, but it is more than nothing. I’m not quite sure if you can expect a whole “3 posts per week” schedule like I used to do, but I do want to try and hit that 1 per week at the very least. I think that way you can always have something interesting to read.

--Santa

It Happened

Living the Dream

I know I promised that I was going to update more frequently, but it never really happened, did it? Between the beginning of a new school year, Mann vs. Machine, and some personal events that were completely out of my control, blogging has fallen to the way side, but I’m trying to get back into it, starting with this: the milestone post. You see this hat? It’s mine. Perhaps I should explain what’s happened in the last few weeks:

Starting with the whole Triad Bundle or whatever the TF2 Team decided to go with, I launched and thought it may be a chance to profit, starting with weapons, I only managed to craft a Neon Annihilator, and it was already out of the 100s. So, about to get off, a quick look in my backpack told me that I could do some hat crafting, and so I figured, why not? What was the worst thing that could happen? Putting in 2 Pyromania hats, and next thing I knew? I was sitting on a Last Breath. Not believing my good luck, this time I tried a 3 refined craft, and came up with something unimaginable: the #13 Champ Stamp.

The crafting gods had smiled upon me this day, my friends. For all of you wondering, #13 is not only a low number to get, but also popular with a couple of collectors. So, I kept pushing my luck. I got a liquor locker, a Point & Shoot, and Outback Intellectual, Apparition’s Aspect, and then the Marxman #23 came into my possession as well. Overall, my haul was pretty good. My friends were mad, mostly since I was yelling at the top of lung in our Ventrillo channel. Going immediately to Outpost and Trading Post to show the world my winnings, I saw this as my chance to really hop into some new wealth, and decided to take a break and play some Dustbowl to celebrate.
In the meantime, I got into contact with one the owners of a Sunbeams Ten Gallon on Outpost, this time offering him my two craft number items, with my two unusuals (the Stormy Ten Gallon and Merryweather) altogether. After much conversation he decided against it, and said that if I could liquidate my items, then maybe we could do business. With some new items in my inventory, I began on the path to my Ten Gallon, this time with a new gusto.

Biding my time, I eventually received an offer of a Massed Flies Tosslecap on my #13 Champ Stamp. Price checking with some of my unusually inclined friends lead me to find out the hat was worth anywhere from 2-3 buds, and so I waved goodbye to the first of my truly rare items, and quickly waved goodbye to the Tossle for a nice 2 buds and 4 keys, at about this time though I realized that liquidating the two unusuals would take longer than I would want. So, I asked how many Earbuds he would want with the two unusuals to take my offer. After much negotiation, I talked him into taking 4, and already being halfway there, I got to work liquidating items in my backpack.

Looking at hats and misc. items in my backpack, I quickly found an easy 50 keys (the equivalence at the time to 2 buds) and started selling items. In the matter of 22 bays, I was up to 26 keys, and was feeling like it wasn’t long until my 500 hour goal would be reached. However, I reached a long, dry patch on day 3; until some came into contact with me about my B.M.O.C.s. I was reluctant to sell my babies, since it was harder to find them now that Christmas was coming close, but I relented. I gave up my two babies in return for 24 keys, and asked him if 2 buds and 50 keys would suffice him. He added me 5 minutes later.

The guy had the same views of TF2 as I did. Engineer was his favorite class, this was his baby, but he had reached a point where he needed liquidation, and so he asked me my trading story. I told him about my ventures from beginning to end, and he thought about it, and made me a deal: put a mark on the hat, and it’s yours forever. I couldn’t be happier to oblige.

And with that, my first and longest goal since I began trading had come to an end, completing a loadout that I had been working on for over 500 hours, but still needing only small patching up in the miscellaneous department. In the end, I had around 7.5 Earbuds invested in the items I gave for the Ten Gallon, paying around 10-12 in a mix of promo and unusual, and coming out with my dream. It was expensive, it was time taking, but it was worth it. From here, I’m not sure what my new goal is. I was thinking a vintage item collection, but it may take some time. Then again, it’s always fun to set a high goal. It may not be as expensive as the 10 Gallon, but it’s a time waster. I’ve always loved vintage items, and I think a collection would do them justice.

--Santa

Mann vs. Machine

I've been gone for a while, and I'll bring you up to speed on that soon-ish but for now there are very exciting things brewing. I got up this morning and was immediately bombarded with a flurry of messages from my TF2 happy friends, it was happening. Watch this to get up to speed

So, today a new comic has come out, and let’s just say that the Machines may be coming sooner than we expected. I love how TF2’s lore is so entangled, and always comes back together. Read it, and get into the idea of it guys, it may actually be before September 2^nd that we get more news on this 2 year in the making update.

--Santa

Gone for DayZ

So, as all of you know, the Steam Summer sale recently ended, and just about every gamer had their hay day. I was hoping that Civ V’s God and Kings would go on sale, but it never happened, however, something that people kept telling me to get was ArmA II & Operation Arrowhead, but not for the game itself.

For the ever popular DayZ mod.

So, when I say combined Operations hit the sale at 40% off, I jumped. Knowing that my computer was probably not capable of handling this amount of sheer computing power, as it can’t with most games, this was a bad idea. However, my friends quickly told me that the installation process was tedious if I wanted to run the game with the steam overlay, and of course, I didn’t believe them. After a couple of hours of dicking around with the files, and about 2 failed installations, I finally decided to cheat. I installed the six launcher, which then installed all of the game files. From there it only took some simple start up codes, and I finally got to launching it.

From here, it was all computer errors.


My computer isn’t the most advanced, as anyone who’s read my blog can tell you. DayZ is quite system heavy, and therefore, can be quite slow on a bad computer, like mine. The first thing I did wrong was that I had no idea that the left alt button controlled free camera. My left alt controls my push-to-talk button on Ventrillo. I spawned, and instantly couldn’t move anywhere. It was a debilitating experience, especially after being chased by 20 zombies. The second thing I did wrong is that I had spawned in Novy Sobor, which is a place priorly thought to be impossible to spawn at, and unfortunately for me, was filled with a rival team. I tried re-connecting after fiddling around with my settings in Vent so I could talk without going blind, but when I logged back on, someone had mugged me, I was unconscious, and only has 2,000 blood left.

Welcome to the hellhole of the future.

I suggest DayZ for people with computers that can easily run TF2, and not for people like me. However, I got another game from a good friend for the incredible price of just 2 name tags:

Killing Floor.

Killing Floor is like TF2, CS & L4D, with less plot, and less teams. You just kill and endless horde of zombies, and choose a class. You then level up said class over time. You also get a lot of money (dosh) over time, and can buy weapons.  Nonsensical violence sure seems to be a great way to relive stress, you might want to try it out sometime.

--Santa

Updates

Let’s do a quick look at what’s been happening, shall we?

Highlander

Our team just finished a game, and we’re now 2-3, which means there’s pretty much no way that we’re going to playoffs, but I’m okay with this. It’s our first season together, I have a horrible, broken rig (which I’ll explain in a bit) and we’re doing better. Not bad for a bunch of semi-good pub traders. If hats reflected actual skill, we’d be rolling in Platinum, but I think we’re doing good where we’re at now, and only time will tell how the rest of the season will elapse.

Trade

Recently I bought a Stormy Merryweather for 3.5 buds, and I’ve been holding onto it. The reality of getting that Sunbeams Ten Gallon is getting ever closer, especially since there aren’t any Sunbeam Hotrods currently on the market.

Computer

As I’ve mentioned before, I use an old, Dell Laptop for all this work—gaming—whatever you want to call it. However, my AC Adaptor has broken, making recharging near impossible, so I may not be updating or playing games soon.

Xbox

It’s not dead. All it needed was a new PSU. There actually is a god.

That’s all there is. Keep up the good work, gents.

--Santa