Tech: Acer Redux

As I mentioned beforehand, I did get a new laptop earlier from Acer, but it came with something else undesirable: a pixilation issue that caused for discoloration of colors, namely blues. This problem was immediately visible when I pulled the laptop out of the box, and accessed the laptop, so I considered
the laptop to be a DOA. Calling Acer, they immediately agreed to repair the laptop, and after a bit of strong-arming, I convinced them to pay for shipping as well, making me hopeful all my problems were over.

I was wrong, of course.

So, I called up Acer about a month later when the problem started to occur again, and complained, this time I wanted compensation, but they convinced me otherwise, and after a week of waiting I received the laptop back, in the exact same condition it was sent to them as. No replacements, nothing.

Hell had no fury…

So, I call up Acer as soon as I see the colossal failure that they deemed as “repaired” and demanded they fix it immediately, and they apologized. Again. This time I was elevated to Corporate Customer Care, the big CCC: their highest support. I got my account “red flagged” to show that I had been having lots of problems, and they sent my laptop to the deluxe repair shop, with next-day shipping. Another week, another repair. Much to my dismay, I opened the laptop and scrutinized it, the problem was 99% gone, but still present.

 After reformatting my hard drive 3 times, replacing my LCD, updating my drivers countless times, getting a new motherboard, spending countless hours on the phone with representatives, Acer still could not fix a laptop. I needed it though for classes, so I stuck it out until finals were completed, and I thus began my next spar with Acer, which has just finished.

I called Acer a couple days ago, and told them that I wanted a new laptop, and to be given a better one, due to not only my lost time and usage, but overall loss of productivity. I by no means blame the representatives I spoke to, in fact I’ve found that most of them have bent some rules to help me with my horrible pilgrimage to laptop repairdom, but I was tired with the continual repairs. Once again with Acer’s CCC, I got an offer that gave me 2 more gigs of RAM, a 120 gig SSD along with the 750 gig HDD, and a slight change from a 640M to a 650M. It worked, and was nicer, so I’ve accepted.
Now I wait for this new laptop. I have mixed feelings with Acer now, although the bureaucratic running of its help system is horrible beyond belief, I’ve found that its upper levels have people who do care, and will try to help—as much as possible through the convoluted world of company policies. I will give this laptop another chance. There is still hope for Acer, but I will never be able to say that I recommend them. When you look for a laptop, look for a company that gets things right the first time, not after a horrible slew of incidents.

--Santa  

Update: Graduation & Xbox One

I'm not that interesting of a guy, so I won’t bore you with the reason of my break, part II, except busy-busy life. I did however come back at a time perfect for a Soapbox moment, and that is one you shall receive today.

Oh, how you have forsaken me.

For those of you who have read my content before, I used to be a major Xbox user. I really got into PC gaming as my love for TF2 grew, and now I’m almost exclusively on there (minus the fact the laptop I’m using hasn’t been fixed successfully in 3 attempts by Acer, which I will talk about in my
next entry) but I still love my 360. I bought it for Halo 3, but ended up with a love for gaming that is hugely with me, even if I have changed systems. So, when I heard that Xbox’s big reveal was coming up, I got excited.
I shouldn’t have been.
From what we know right now, the new Xbox ONE will need to be connected to the internet, at some point of time, once a day. To use any pre-owned or used game, Microsoft will hit users with a fee, which could be as much as the original copy, ruining the point of borrowing from friends, or GameStop’s sly money-making machine. I could nearly forgive Microsoft for all of this, but somewhere along the way of the El Grande reveal, there wasn’t a true mentioning of games—but there was a big focus on Kinect, the NFL, and a NEW Halo TV show!
This can’t be happening.
Microsoft, if I remember correctly, the Xbox originated as a gaming console. I can understand and can almost empathize with the online and fee requirements you’ve put on this system, which completely isolates your main community of people who love to play video games.
Microsoft, you’ve turned your focus to being an “All-In-One” system. A system meant to be cute, but not to game. I am a gamer, I don’t care about Kinect, or TV when I play video games.
Why would I buy a console that gets away from this?
Microsoft, as a fan for quite near 5 years now, I hate to turn my back on this relationship that I’ve bought into. I just can’t accept this glorified DVR as a gaming system though. I don’t care what specs. You put into it, this device isn’t gaming AND other features, its other features AND gaming. You’ve moved your focus from your hardcore-gaming community, all within the goal of appealing to a more neutral audience, in which I think you may succeed. You have however isolated a huge fan base which has been loyal since the release of Halo on your new console back in 2001, and you give us this.
We aren’t being hard on you. You have betrayed us.
I won’t buy an Xbox One unless I see something that truly changes the way games are played today, but I don’t really see that happening. Your reveal was glorified by Steven Spielberg and Kinect, which was already a failure in the eyes of nearly all old-school gamers. This new culture is a new embrace, a new direction. I get that, but I will have no part in it. Godspeed in your new gaming universe Microsoft, I think you may see an overall change in your constituents, not just me.

--Santa

Movies: I'm Hungry

Since Valve and Riot refuse to make any updates for their respective games, I've had to be more creative on what to entertain you kids about, so I thought of something I did a couple months ago, when I saw Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows back when it had just come out, so I thought back, and realized I saw The Hunger Games about a week ago, so I figured, why not put up my thoughts on that?

I know that this movie has been really quite popular, just another case of how Hollywood likes to cash in on poor, defenseless movies, and turn them into juggernauts, and put enough hype onto it that everyone, including people who didn't read the book, will want to come see it. Now, I'm not saying that it isn't a good strategy; Hollywood loves to make exorbitant amounts of money on books that are somewhat popular, look at what Brad Pitt's doing to World War-Z. Horrible. A love story with zombies in it? Come on, I don't know whether or not to be more disappointed that Max Brooks would allow it to happen, or that people will go see it. I will, just for the principle of reviewing, don't judge me.

So I don't spoil the story for the 15% of you out there who haven't seen it yet, here’s a synopsis:

"Based in a post-apocalyptic United States, now known as Panem, the Hunger Games follows Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers her district (district 12 out of the total of 13. District 13 however, was destroyed, after resisting the might of the Capital) after her sister gets chosen to be a tribute, to save her. As a tribute, she must go up against 2 kids from every other district in a bloody battle to the death, nationally televised, in a sadistic way of saying "We still have lost of power over you" by the Capital."

Now, for everyone else who is a man and saw it, hit the page break for our continued, interesting discussion on characters.

And Now for Something Completely Different

For those of you who regularly read this blog, you may have noticed that I pretty much only write about video games, and every now and then I get bored and yell at things involving the internet.

This is about to change.

Yes, for today I'm going to do something that I have never attempted to do before. I'm going to do something so horrendously brash that I may regret it forever.

I'm going to review a product.

At this point of time, I don't have the project, but I will have it in a couple of hours, and that's when Ill use a page break to give you all the lowdown on how this thing works. Its called that Gamescon 377, made by Altec-Lansing back when it was still owned by Plantronics  still owned the company a couple years ago. About a week or so back, I had a cheap little headset that I bought from Walmart last year, it dies while talking to my team during a heated session of League of Legends. May it rest peacefully in Silicone Heaven.

So, I began my search for the newest piece of hardware immediately. It didn't take me to long to find it. The specs, and reviews seemed promising, so I bought it. Checking the UPS transit data, I saw that it was arriving today, giving me a perfect chance to yell at plenty of other perfectly nice people who unfortunately stumble onto my blog. But, if it does turn out that this is a fine headset, which is on-sale for a very reasonable price, then who knows what I can do next?

Here's the page-break, click on the article to read on for the full review.

Xbox: How do You Keep Dragging Me Back?

I have to admit that over the last year, I have moved away from my Xbox. I haven't properly payed my Xbox since the beginning of the year, when I was still on my Honeymoon with Skyrim. But, I just can't seem to forget about my 3rd true gaming love. I was able to let go of the GameCube in a couple of seconds to get the Wii, I swapped the Wii for the Xbox without one tear shed, but now with my transitioning from PC from Xbox, I'm slowing down. I admit, it may have something to do with the fact that running TF2 on my computer makes the things shake with fear, but I think there's two titles that are still holding me back.

For those of you who guessed by looking at the picture, my first game should come as no shock. Halo 3 remains in my all time top 5 games, (which I will probably talk about at a later date) I played Reach, although I feel it had the same problem that Skyrim had. Skyrim was better than Oblivion in every single way Graphics, storyline, attack features. Everything was an improvement. But, the character was gone, and I no longer felt that special spark that I got from the raging at SWAT or getting Red Team on Avalanche. I missed the stupid guards who would want to attack because I wore m Gray Cowl, but if I took it off a second before they were to attack me, they'd ask me how my day was going. I miss that stupid charm.

So why am I excited for Halo 4? well, this is why. Go ahead and click the link to the pretty YouTube video, I assure you it'll get you going too. I will miss the Covenant, that's for sure, but I just can't help and feel amazed by the graphics, the overall feel of movement  that the game generates. I have personally felt that Video Games look pretty enough for the last few years, what we're going to see instead are dynamics. Improvements in movement, textures, differences in the bricks of houses, and maybe different sized trees. Maybe I'm just a bit too hopeful, but I do see a new realm beyond our current generation of games, everything can get better. Hit the page break to continue our heated discussion.

Consoles: To Infinity, and Beyond!

As seen to the right, you can guess what this post is all about-- Random things that people think about the next generation of video games.

Yes, yes. I know. We have seen the Wii U, and the PS Vita. But, lets face it. Its been 7 years since both Sony and Microsoft have made something big. Big as in a console, and we all know the PC's never update (other than in components.) Yes, I suppose you could easily say the the 8th generation of consoles could be under way, but the question is, what can we expect?

I grew up Nintendo, became a hardcore Xbox fan-boy and have only recently learned the error of may ways. Broadening my horizons to two systems (PC and Xbox) so I can fulfill life to its fullest. Mostly because of TF2 and its hats. But, what can we expect from expect from the newest Xbox? Undoubtedly more Kinect (still stupid)  and probably Bluray, pushing us DVD users farther into the abyss. I don't want to end up like VHS (which I still use.) I do agree with the fact that it DOES look better, but it is infinitesimally slower than a DVD. Besides, they cost more and I don't want to spend more, the exact reason I don't own Kinect, other than the fact that if I wanted to make a fool out of myself I'd just buy the advanced Wii controller and start playing Wii Sports Resort (which I also don't own.) Kinect is slow, lacks the use of good games, and the entire reason I play games is to NOT do adventurous things lie, you know, fight criminals? If I was going to bowl, maybe I'd go to an actual bowling alley. It means a lot more to get an ACTUAL perfect game than to use a controller and do it. 

So, what does a new console need? Certainly it needs HD abilities, and high graphic needs, and multiplayer updates (think of MAG, I don't think it needs 256 players, but I do think that more than 16 would be nice in a supposed 'war game') Anymore, I think we're seeing graphics getting to as good as they're needed. I think there needs to be a shif it focus. I'd like to see more attention to details. Different rocks, dynamic snowfall, lighinting effects. Make the game FEEL real not LOOK real. Thats the next step in gaming.

--Santa

Skyrim: Game of Every Year-- Since 1911

Not my character, but a pretty cool one, its his.

You thought I was done, didn't you? WRONG! I'm here to continue on about my impressions about the greatest game of all time, beating up Arkham City pretty hard by so far winning both the Inside Gaming GOTY award and now Spike TV's GOTY award.

Seems like my brother's prediction's may be a bit off, eh?

In any case, I want to continue on talking about some of the features in Skyrim that just makes it well, better. Its taken huge strides since Oblivion, and feels like a completely new game. 

But is this necescarily a good thing?

So, on my main account I've logged around 63 hours. I have 19/20 shouts (and 47 out of 60 words), I've destroyed Alduin, stopped a civil war, killed an emporer, become the archmage, and become a werewolf. 

Not to mention the 37 or so dragon's I've vanquished, or the 17 poor defenseless bunnies I've slaughtered, or the 76 nirnroots I've mindlessly plucked from the ground. I've spent a miniscule amount of time in Skyrim compared to Oblivion, but here I am, done with 3 major quest-lines, and close to done with 5. The game moves fast, which is something I like, but I still find it irking that I have only so little time put into it and I've accomplished so much. I'm only level 36, what will I be doing at 47?

Now, it is true that I have been really only focusing on doing questlines, I will admit, I finished the Alduin quest in 4 days because I rushed it. But, that doesn't mean that it couldn't be longer. I have ten and a half million misclaneous quests, but the main dragon story is only 10 hours long? Seems a little obtuse. When am I ever going to actually remember to bring that mammoth tusk to that one guy? Or find gold ore? It just builds. I'll get to them when I have absolutlely NOTHING left to do. I'll probably have all of the crimson nirnroots by then, god forbid. 

The other problem (which is true with every game put out by Bethesda) is bugs. I've been stuck on one part of the Thieves Guild quest for so long that I just gave up and made a new character. It just wasn't worth it. There are other points where I cry with laughter, like using revive on a dragon's skeleton. IT's really quite hilarious. Although these quirks are nice at times, the pro's do not outqeigh the con's.

Overall, Skyrim truly is a remarkable game, that pushes everything to preform a little bit better to keep up with the status quo. It does deserve game of the year because of its changes, but it shouldn't be hailed as perfect since it isn't, but no game ever has, or will ever be. But, until then I have Skyrim. And TF2. And League of Legends. Toontown...

Until next time,

--Santa

TF2: How the Mannconomy Changed our Little Game

So as a frequent reader of this blog may tell you, (which I don't there are any,) that I enjoy hats. I am a connoisseur oh hats. Want to know how to make a game better? Hats. Yes, I can be completely obsessed with hats at times, I know, but I wasn’t truly attached to TF2 until I started trading, and I think it would be a touching story to tell all of you.

So, I when reading the blog when the Mannconomy update was released, I mean really, I had just randomly decided to go to the TF2 blog when it aired. It was pretty cool. I learned about vintages, and I instantly saw my true love. 

Nothing makes me happier than a blue border.

But, at this time, I hadn't started playing TF2 hard-core. I still had my horrid little computer, and about a gig's worth of updating to do, but something convinced me: the aspect of an Engineer hat.

So, about a week into the mannconomy update, I decided to put on my gaming pants, and started my 4 hour download into the world of mannconomics. What followed was a shallow goal: Acquire an engineer hat, anyway possible. I had 2 refined, a V. Gentleman's Gatsby, and a W. Noble Amassment of Hats. (For all of you non-traders out there, V stands for vintage, and NV. non-vintage. A vintage item was an item received before the mannconomy update, its simple mannconomics.)

So, I ended up selling my V.  Gatsby for a key, (There was a powerjack in the crate) and I forget what I sold my V. Amassment for, but all I remember is trying to get that metal. For whatever godforsaken reason I thought that crafting my hat was the best idea. So, I sold just about everything I had to get it. So, when I finally got that 4th refined and my Engy token, it really was a big moment for me. I was literally happy with any hat for the Engineer, except like the mining light or the Safe'n'Sound. But, I was excited.

3...

2..

1...

New Hat Created!

You found: Horrific Headsplitter!

That's right-- I made a butcher's knife covered in blood, for all classes. This was my crowning achievement. I was ready to explode into a fit of QQ induced rage. Of all the times to craft a hat. I crafted it during the Halloween update, and for whatever reason, my Engineer token, supposedly guaranteeing a 100% chance of Engy-hat goodness had given me this blood covered piece of multi-class bullshit. Well, I was mad as hell, and wasn't going to take it anymore. Trading had made me lose my hats, it was going ot get me them back.

I started trading full-time for about a 4 month period. I started out by getting rid of this abhorrent thing that had dashed my dreams of hat-filled goodness. I started hitting the trade servers and yelled out my demands, looking for anyone who may be interested. And then, one man trades me saying:

"HAY MAN WHAT U WANT FOR THAT THING?"

"Well, I'm really looking for an Engineer hat"

"HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM... ALL I GOT IS THIS"

He adds a V. Hotrod, I can only try typo hold in my girly squeals of delight.

"This works well with me."

"ALL RIGHT'

Trade Accepted.

 SUCCESS! Oh yes, this was the beginning of my 500 hour trading palooza. I didn’t play on my Xbox for a good 2 months at the peak. I had one goal: collect the best hats for all of the classes, not a full set, but my favorite. My other goal: bills and buds. For whatever reason, I was never truly concerned about the unusual market, it was usually out of reach, at my height, I only owned 2 pairs of buds, and I was a stupid child, and sold one pair for a very inexpensive price. But now, I think I could possibly be done with trading. I had 3 different runs on trading, all leading me up to my final backpack, which I’m happy with. I used to own buds, but, well, I sold them for New Vegas. I know it’s a bit on the low side, but the guy wanted them, and I didn’t really look at the value tables. And then the dual misc slot update. There really is no justice.

However, I have to say, I am proud of how far I’ve come with the time I’ve spent. I have a hat for every single class, I have the two rarest vintage miscellaneous items, and I even have a bear. What more could I ask for?  Well, I suppose a free Hat of Undeniable Wealth and Respect would be nice, but I can’t have it all. My dream has come much farther than I ever dreamt, and has taken much longer, too. As a piece of advice for all of you inspiring traders out there I put together a list of things that could very well help you:

·         Don’t trade with your heart. Yes, some hats are cool, but if it’s a good trade, take it, you can get the hat back.

·         Set yourself a goal. If it’s unusual, cool. If it’s something simple like a jackhammer, I think you may be missing the point. But, use it as a tool of motivation, it really helps when you have something like the Whiskered Gentleman dangling around in front of your face for motivation

·         The one thing I have always believed is that vintage WILL go up. And for the most part, it has. Be wary of the newest hats, they’ll fluxgate to a high price, and go down to nothing after a month. Scarcity causes a scare.

·         There are three ranks of values in Trading: Bills, buds, Unusual. I never broke that unusual barrier, but once you break one, you’re in that tire, it’s a big experience.

For all of you gamers, geeks, and random assortment of internet dwellers out there, good night. I have things to do, like watch the IGA’s. If Skyrim doesn’t win, the progress is rigged.

--Santa