So, last night I decided to buy and download DC Universe Online. Available on Steam for 50 bucks. It's about 13 gigs to download, with an extra 2 gig patch afterwards. My initial impressions are quite favorable. It plays a lot like your typical action game, very similar to Prototype or God of War. You can lock on to targets or you can do it more like a free-flowing brawler style. Although it's an MMO, it feels more like a single player game due to it also being available for PS3. There isn't a whole lot of chatting going on, just running around and smashing stuff.
A lot of reviewers were saying that the game doesn't play well with a mouse and keyboard, but I haven't had any issues. I have the usb dongle to hook up my wireless xbox controller to my PC and play this, but it is working rather nicely on keyboard and mouse for me.
Here is a quick screenshot of my villian, PyritePunisher. I tried to transpose my old Pyrite Punisher character from City of Heroes over to DCUO. Big thanks to Kevin for coming up with the Pyrite Punisher name, it was perfect.
The level cap is 30 and it seems rather quick to get levels. Or, perhaps, I was having so much fun smashing cops that I didn't notice. Either way, it was very entertaining, and that is the point. I may have to try recreating The Angry Goblin character I had in CoH as well as a new villain that I will name Narcoleptica, that puts people to sleep and messes with their minds.
This game is very enjoyable, although it sucks that PS3 players have their own set of servers aside from the PC players. I would very much like to play with a lot of my favorite podcasters but they are all playing on the PS3 version of the game.
So Ghostcrawler wrote a post about the recent nerdrage concerning WoW dungeons and heroics. This recent whinefest is seriously getting disgusting. I understand that the game has changed a bit from what it was in Wrath of the Lich King, but it hasn't changed that much.
In the the beginning of WoW every dungeon was hard. It required teamwork and communication, until we got to the point where the majority of people knew the encounters well enough to not need an explanation. In Wrath, when the LFD tool came out, most people already had T9 or equivalent and just got into the habit of steamrolling heroics to farm badges. That was after the game had matured for what, 2 years? You cannot expect to enter the new expansion, essentially a brand new game, under a new philosophy that Blizzard has adopted, and expect to queue up and destroy everything with little to no social interaction with your fellow players. If you want to play an MMORPG and not interact, use strategy, and overcome difficult tasks with other people then you are free to just do quests, dailies and solo old content. When you do that you must realize that doing so will not get you the best gear. If you want the best gear, you must join a guild, be active within said guild, make friends, and generally be a good person.
The mindset of these people just baffles me. The reason Blizzard put so many perks for guilds in Cataclysm, is because they wanted you to join guilds! Be social! This is a massively multiplayer online game, which means there are massive amounts of people for you to meet, befriend, love, and also hate. You can play an MMO totally antisocially but you must accept the consequences for doing such.
I have just been focusing on acquiring gold, doing all the cool new quests, getting my main and all my alts to 85 and leveling a goblin. I am playing quite antisocially, actually, and I am enjoying the hell out of the content they have provided for us. I have done a few dungeons, but only with my good friends that I have made within the game and real life by being friendly and social.
I don't believe Blizzard should nerf content to placate the lowest common denominator that is not interested in improving themselves and learning. You are not entitled to anything in this game, even if you pay the monthly fee. You are just renting the content and the space on their servers. They aren't required to give you anything at all. They do so because they want to give people an amazing experience. So just shut up, and enjoy it!
If you are a WoW player looking into accumulating more wealth but are low on time to really sit and play, then try using the WoW Remote Auction house to your advantage. It only costs 3 dollars per month and you could use it to make your gold accumulation a lot more streamlined.
There are not nearly as many people in-game during the day, since most people are at work, yet you can use this time to your advantage by browsing the Auction House remotely for deals. So, if you're doing the Obsidium shuffle, you can browse the AH remotely when the prices may be down. Yesterday I bought about 3k gold worth of Obsidium while I was at work, so it was just waiting for me when I got home. I prospected it all, turned the gems into Carnelian Spikes, Nightstone Chokers, Hessonite Bands and sent them to be disenchanted. The ones I couldn't turn into disenchantable items became cut common gems that I divided up, put a few on the AH then vendored the rest.
If it wasn't for the remote AH I may have missed out on the cheap Obsidium. Therefore, if you pay for the remote auction house don't squander your 3 dollars by forgetting about it. Browse around for the sure deals that are less likely to be found by the smaller number of players.
So the news of the Verizon iPhone is probably what everyone will be talking about today. It seems that they are confident that their network can hold up to the abuse of thousands of people jumping ship from AT&T to Verizon. We all know that iPhone users are heavy abusers of bandwidth, but Verizon has been touting for months now that their network can handle extremely heavy use. It will be interesting to see what Verizon will be saying after a few months of these data hungry, 3g abusing, tethering-loving have their way with the network.
The free tethering and unlimited data make me want to switch right now, but I'm going to wait and see what AT&T does to compete with Verizon and try to retain some of their customer base. I'm hoping they bring back the Unlimited Data plan or at least lower some plan prices.
I also found this link if people are interesting in switching their phone providers but don't want to pay the early termination fee. Enjoy!
So I was reading this article and it seems the majority of people are confused about what Net Neutrality actually means. The term Net Neutrality seems to have become a slogan for politicians to confuse the hell out of the average person to the point of just not caring. Even the writer of this article seems to be confused at whether he should hate Marsha Blackburn or not. At one point he states that her legislation is "anti-net neutrality" when it is clearly pro net neutrality.
Here is the definition I snipped from Berkeley's website:
Simply put, net neutrality is a network design paradigm that argues for broadband network providers to be completely detached from what information is sent over their networks. In essence, it argues that no bit of information should be prioritized over another. This principle implies that an information network such as the internet is most efficient and useful to the public when it is less focused on a particular audience and instead attentive to multiple users.
Based on that definition, every single American that enjoys anything that the internet has to offer should rally behind Marsha Blackburn for defending our right to enjoy a free and relatively unregulated internet. We don't need to fragment the service into separate payment tiers based on usage. We also don't need the government to take it over either or it will just end up like every other government-run system, that would only end in tears.
I found this link today and thought I'd share. It sounds like a pretty sweet idea, though I don't quite understand all the clamor about 3D. Sure, it's a nifty little novelty, but there are great strides that must be taken to make it THE format. The glasses need the go, and the technology that doesn't use the glasses needs to be tweaked so you don't get headaches or sick to your stomach after an hour or so.
Instead of working so hard to make movies 3D, I think they should work on making 3D the format for games. Everyone wants more realistic, immersive gaming. Imagine running around Orgrimmar and it looks like you are truly running through town. 3D movies still seem forced and gimmicky. We need something better than just another catchphrase you can throw in front of a movie title and charge 15 dollars more.
If you don't know who Mr Scott Fletcher is, you are missing out. Visit his blog and listen to his new podcast, Unthinkability, where he reads his Twitter posts out loud with way more enthusiasm than is necessary! 5 thumbs up!
If anybody has been following the Apple news lately, they finally launched the Mac App Store this morning at 12:01AM. Some of you may be thinking: "Doesn't Apple already have an App Store?". Why, yes, yes they do. This Mac App Store is essentially going to be a Digital Delivery Service for Macintosh software much like Steam is a digital delivery service for PC games.
I think this is a step in the right direction for pretty much all software-based purchases. The faster our broadband gets and the more connected we are, the more feasible this idea becomes. We already have Hulu, Netflix, Steam, Xbox Live, Playstation Network, iTunes and more. The idea of a physical store will most likely not pertain to any kind of software anymore.
Let's just hope we can improve our internet infrastructure exponentially within the next 10 years. The recent fights going on in Congress and Senate about Net Neutrality are not filling me with much confidence. On one side of the argument we have the government yelling about how terrible the telecom corporations are for wanting to divide their service into smaller "pipelines" and charge based on what sites/services you are using. On the other hand we have the corporations yelling that they don't want the government to mess with their business, because we all know that the government is pretty much incapable of doing anything right. They have spread themselves too thin already.
We do need more ISPs to provide more competition in some of the less populous states. In Iowa we have either Mediacom Cable, or Qwest DSL for broadband. Unless you are one of the lucky people near a fast DSL node your connection will be terrible and cable is almost always the better, faster, more reliable option. So, essentially, we have a broadband cable monopoly here. If what I learned in high school was right, then a monopoly is unlawful. I have a hard time trusting that a government maintained internet service would be anywhere near as good as many other advanced countries in the world (Japan).
Anyways, enjoy your new Mac App Store and hope for more awesome in the future!
"If you're not into Metal, you are not my friend!"
A quote boldly stated in the song Metal Warrior by Manowar rings incredibly true in at least 99% of all lovers of the Metal. I am unsure if Joey DeMaio of Manowar is the creator of this quote but it truly encapsulates everything that is Metal.
Although the Heavy Metal scene seems pretty dried up in the U.S. these days, inundated with terrible Rap and R&B, slutty Pop, Emo, Screamo, and Nickleback clones, all of which are auto-tuned up the wazoo, Heavy Metal seems to still be going strong in Europe and certain parts Asia.
Metal may not be in the public eye anymore, as it was in the 1980's, but I still seem to have very little trouble finding someone that enjoys it. I feel it's only a matter of time until whatever is appealing about Rap/R&B and Pop starts to wane and people will once again yearn for the guitar riffs and wailing voices that only the Gods of Metal can bestow upon us.
Thrash and Speed still seem to get some play around the US stations but it is mainly limited to older Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Iron Maiden. Don't get me wrong, I love Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Iron Maiden, but the day that I heard the classic rock station in town playing Metallica, I knew that they were getting old. We are in desperate need of some good Metal bands in the US that can "light a fire under our butts" and get us into good music once again. The reign of tyranny of manufactured crap disguised as music needs to come to an end. As of right now the only American metal bands that I can list off the top of my head are:
The list of European Metal and Power Metal bands is ridiculously large and that is a shame. I know my ramblings are mainly just me being hopeful that people will see the light, but I will never stop proselytizing about the wonders of The Metal.
My favorite genres are: Power Metal, Thrash Metal, Speed Metal, Groove Metal, and some Death Metal. I am especially partial to Power Metal. The fantasy themes and powerful guitar riffs really speak to me. Although, if I'm in a bit of an angry mood some Death Metal really helps me get it out. Power Metal doesn't seem to get any of the respect it deserves in America, and I very perplexed as to why that is. We have 12 million World of Warcraft nerds on this planet, many of them in America, and we can't get behind a musical genre that rocks out to epic tales of slaying enemies and dragons on the battlefield? How much sense does that make?
If anybody is looking for some good Power Metal bands to listen to, do some Googlin' for: Astral Doors, Dream Evil, 3 Inches of Blood, Alestorm, Angra, Avantasia, Axenstar, Blind Guardian, Children of Bodom, Dark Moor, Demons and Wizards, Dionysus, Dragonforce, Edguy, Firewind, Hammerfall, Rage, Rhapsody of Fire, Revolution Renaissance, Helloween, Iced Earth, Savatage, Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius, Kamelot, Luca Turilli, Tad Morose, Manowar, Masterplan, Thy Majestie, Thunderstone, and Nightwish.
Hello all you non-readers! I am going to start using this blog to keep my brain moving and work on my writing skills. To start out I will probably just choose random topics that are close to my heart, be it snowboarding, games, music, World of Warcraft, etc etc etc. I think I'll will start out with the music topic first as I have been listening to my Pandora.com Hammerfall/Power Metal radio station while I work. I will probably ramble about the differing styles and bands revolving around the Metal genre, as well as my likes and dislikes of certain categories and bands.
